One of the key musicians behind The Zombies, Rod Argent, claims the boys in the band were simply too young and inexperienced to realize they were being mishandled by record company and music executives. And it's why their careers were cut short. 

Also worth noting: most of the still very young group had no idea what a "Zombie" even was. But they took the name anyway. 

They also resented being sold to the public as "the intellectual rock group."

"...we were very badly managed, [notes Argent.] We’d only just left school and we’d made “She’s Not There” which everybody loved, and they said, you’ve got to have a press profile. So this photographer took some pictures that we hated, even at the time. And the press needed a story to write. They’d ask, ‘What have you done?’ And we’d say that we haven’t done anything, we had just left school...

"So they put this whole thing out about us being so academic and with these [terrible] pictures, which followed us around. A lot of newspapers, being lazy, would always use the same picture when they did articles on us. Later we had fantastic pictures made but they were never used. Sometimes, even today, some very kind newspaper will dredge up these old pictures and we’ll say, “Aaaahha!”

Despite that, many of the surviving members of the group - including Argent - are still touring and still making music. 

The Time Of The Zombies