1960s British Band Outsold The Beatles, Had a Future Led Zeppelin Star, Then Just Vanished
This band had 18 Top 40 hits in just four years and there's a pretty good chance that you've never even heard of them.
Herman's Hermits arrived in 1964 already running. Their debut single, "I'm Into Something Good," written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, went straight to No. 1, knocking The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" off the top spot. From there the hits didn't stop. Eighteen Top 40 singles in just four years, at a pace that almost no band today would survive.
At the peak of their popularity, Herman's Hermits weren't just popular, they were treated like one of the biggest bands in the world. Fans couldn't get enough. In 1965 and 1966 they were grouped with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as music's "Big Three." In America, where the Manchester band found their biggest audience and greatest success, they even briefly outsold The Beatles.
@hermanshermitsofficial Where it all started. The song that introduced Herman's Hermits. #hermanshermits#somethinggood#happysong#60smusic
♬ I'm Into Something Good - Mono - Herman's Hermits
Read that again. They briefly outsold The Beatles. The Beatles!
And in the middle of all those sessions, one name kept getting called. Frontman Peter Noone later told the story himself. "Jimmy Page is next door doing the Honeycombs or something, let's get him and play a lick on this," Noone recalled being told in the studio. "How much does he want? Nine pounds." The song was "Wonderful World," and the guitarist who played its opening lick for nine pounds would go on to form Led Zeppelin.
Asked years later if it was true that future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones played on Herman's Hermits records, Noone didn't hesitate to answer. "On many of them, yeah," he said. Two future members of one of rock's biggest bands, on a Herman's Hermits record, for the price of a few drinks.
The Beatles Lost To Them. Then History Forgot Them.
So what happened?
The pace that made Herman's Hermits so big was also the pace that broke them down. Bands in the mid 1960s were expected to put out music nonstop, bigger and faster every time, with little thought for what that actually took out of the people making it. By 1969 things had fallen apart. Their record label had lost interest and even advertised the wrong single. That was the last straw, and the split that followed was a mess.
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Unlike The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits never got the chance to fully become the legends they were meant to be. They made the hits and then they got almost completely forgotten.
That hasn't slowed them down. Herman's Hermits, still fronted by Peter Noone, are right in the middle of a 60th anniversary tour running through 2026, sharing stages with The Beach Boys and The Lovin' Spoonful.
The British Invasion gets remembered as a handful of big names. But it worked the way anything that big works, through a ton of smaller contributions nobody ever talks about. Herman's Hermits sold over 60 million records, helped shape the sound of the era, and once paid two future Led Zeppelin legends nine pounds for an afternoon's work.
Sixty years later, they're still on stage performing.
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This story was originally published June 13, 2026 at 5:50 AM.