The Turtles Present The Battle of the Bands

ARTIST: The Turtles

RELEASE: 1968

INTERVIEWEE: Mark Volman

By the beginning of 1968, the concept album was very much in vogue; the form was in its ascendancy. Notably, it would be The Turtles -- an American group then known primarily as a singles act -- who would in 1968 produce one of the most unusual and enduring conceptually-themed albums of the rock era. But in keeping with the band's go-it-their-own-way ethos, the record they made was no ordinary concept album. Suffused with biting humor, The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands took The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper concept a step further.

"We knew we wanted to do something as a whole, and we didn't know what it really was going to fashion itself to be, but once we realized it, we already had it," says vocalist and co-leader Mark Volman.