In late 1968, the manager of The Animals was held at gunpoint by Yakuza promoters in Japan and forced to sign a $25,000 IOU, which he quietly voided by writing that he signed under duress in English his captors could not read. The band fled the country, left their equipment behind, and dissolved. This deep dive traces the full life cycle of the group, from its 1962 formation in industrial Newcastle upon Tyne to that chaotic ending and the decades of reunions and lawsuits that followed.

We break down why the transatlantic number one House of the Rising Sun worked as a Trojan horse for dark adult themes, how Alan Price's electric organ gave it a corrupted church-hymn quality, and why Price quit in 1965 partly because of a paralyzing fear of flying. We follow the fights with producer Mickie Most over Brill Building material, Eric Burdon's relo ...