When our lease was about up near the end of 1962, I let Alvin know I'd be moving out. I still loved my brother to pieces, but it was clear that we would never be happy as roommates - at least until Alvin somehow grew a sense of responsibility. Alvin made a few lame attempts at saying he'd reform, and do better at keeping up with his share of the chores. But the still-messy apartment spoke much louder than his words did. I started searching for another place to live, which didn't go so well. Not a lot of landlords were interested in renting to "vermin", fearing that it would scare other tenants away. And the few places that seemed "rodent-friendly" were either pretty run-down, or pretty far away from my gigs.

I eventually found a place - in the same building where I was already living, ironically enough. Roy was an intern at the local hospital, and was looking for a roommate. We met for coffee and hit it off pretty well, so a couple days later, I moved my stuff into his apartment on the third floor. Once I was settled in, Roy and I worked out a system. When he was home from the hospital, he kept his keys hanging from a hook near the front door. If the keys were there, I had to keep things pretty quiet. If they weren't, I could practice the drums or play my records as loud as I wanted.

Alvin couldn't afford the old apartment on his own, and so he moved in with a friend of his down the street. This put some distance between us, which helped get our relationship back on an even keel. It's not like we were suddenly best buds again, but we were a lot more civil when we saw each other. That was a relief to me, especially considering we ended up pulling an all-day recording session a few weeks afterwards.

I don't recall what song we were supposed to sing that Sunday - just that it wasn't a very interesting one. But when we got to the studio, we found Dave and Mr. Wanoker all alone in the control booth looking pretty unhappy.

"What's the problem?" asked Alvin.

Dave indicated the empty studio. "Musicians went on strike. We're not going to be able to record you boys today." He sort of half-laughed. "I can't even record my instrumental for the flip side."

"Maybe you can do it a cappella," suggested Alvin, jokingly.

Dave gave him a look, but I laughed at the thought. "Yeah! And we can back you up! Doo doo doo doo..." I sang a bit of a Nutty Squirrels riff.

Alvin and Simon joined in, harmonizing. "Doo doo doo doo..." We dissolved in laughter at the thought.

But Dave wasn't laughing. He was thinking. He suddenly started scribbling something down on a piece of paper. "Are you boys up to it?"

"Up to what?" Simon asked.

"Singing a cappella," he said, still scribbling away. "A lot."

We looked at each other and shrugged. "Why not?" said Alvin.

"On one condition," said Simon, always the businessman.

Dave paused, his pencil hovering above the paper. "...yes?"

"Our pay will be double for this session, as we are acting as musicians and vocalists."

Dave paused, looked off into the distance, then nodded. "That's fair," he said, going back to his writing. And a few minutes later, we were in the studio, huddled around a low microphone.

What followed was a test of both our vocal skills and our endurance. Dave re-arranged his instrumental b-side for voices, and we began the slow process of making it sound like it was recorded by "a room full of chipmunks". On the first go-round, I mimicked a drum beat and Simon did the bassline, with Alvin taking the lead melody. Then Dave played it back for us in big clunky headphones, and we started recording harmony vocals. Lots and lots of harmony vocals. The song got thicker and thicker with us harmonizing with ourselves, and we ended with a big dramatic "this is Alvin's All Star Chipmunk Baaaand!" By six o'clock, our voices were shot, but the song was down on tape.

Then, of course, we had to hurry over to PJ's to play our Sunday evening sets. Not surprisingly, we went full-instrumental that night - none of us had voices left to sing anything. We must have looked especially strange as we exaggeratedly mouthed the name of the next number to each other all night long.

Liberty dredged up "Old McDonald Cha Cha" as a b-side, and put out "Alvin's All Star Chipmunk Band" as a single in early 1963. And although I thought the idea and execution were solid, I wasn't crazy about the song itself. The melody has a sort of pre-rock, almost barbershop feel to it, which made it seem moldier than it really was. And why was it "Alvin's All-Star Chipmunk Band"? We were the only "stars", chipmunk or otherwise, on the record. And weren't we more of a chorale than a band?

I doubt anybody lost any sleep over these random questions, since the single followed in the footsteps of "Alvin's Twist" - not charting at all, and quickly vanishing into the void.

That said, the chart performances of our records (or lack thereof) weren't really bothering me at this point. There was still a steady stream of cash flowing into my bank account. I was saving a lot of it - or, more accurately, I just wasn't spending that much of it. The main things I was splurging on were science fiction novels and records. And a lot of the records I was buying were for our Thursday band meetings at Simon's dorm room.

We had more or less stopped writing original material by this point. That was mainly due to us living apart - we simply didn't have a lot of time together to write songs. Instead, we'd buy records of songs we might like to add to the set, and bring them to the Thursday meetings. We were still primarily an instrumental group, so any time a rock and roll instrumental became popular, one of us would buy the record to bring to our weekly meeting, and we would give it a try - "Memphis", "Wild Weekend", "Pipeline". I would sit cross-legged on Simon's bed and smack pillows and books with my drumsticks as Simon and Alvin would play their unplugged instruments, trying to work out the song as the record played. "My roommate would avoid the room on Thursday afternoons," Simon points out. "And for good reason. It was sometimes necessary for us to play the same three chords for half an hour in our attempt to master a new song."

At the end of 1962, the British band The Tornados had a huge hit in America with an instrumental called "Telstar". We all loved the song, but the melody was played on an organ. We tried playing it once or twice, but with our guitar-bass-drum line-up, it just didn't sound all that great. We doubted anybody in the crowd would even recognize it as 'Telstar', so we dropped the idea of playing it.

Two Thursdays later, Alvin and I walked into Simon's room, and saw him standing by his new toy organ, grinning. "The 'Telstar' song simply would not leave my brain," admitted Simon. "And the more I listened to it, the more I was convinced we could recreate a passable version of it if I were playing organ instead of bass. At last, I capitulated and purchased a child's organ from a nearby toy store."

Simon being Simon, he wasn't content with simply using the organ as-is. "This toy instrument became my new obsession. And the timing was unfortunate. I should have been preparing for my end-of-semester exams, and I certainly did not need a distraction from my studies. But I simply could not help myself. I pulled the instrument apart, and began tinkering with it, attempting to improve the sound." He did a pretty good job of it, too - it sounded more like a musical instrument than a toy by the time Alvin and I first heard it. That day, we not only added "Telstar" to our setlist, but also "Red River Rock" by Johnny & the Hurricanes - an earlier instrumental hit that also featured prominent organ. I may have liked that one even more than "Telstar", mainly because I got to play some rapid-fire drum parts in it.

But when it came to "rapid-fire drum parts", no song could top one that showed up in 1963: "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris. All three of us bought the record and brought it to the Thursday meeting the same week - the one and only time that ever happened. "Wipe Out" was something like a gift from heaven for a drummer like me. We immediately decided to make that our new closing number, so I could go all out and wear myself out on the drum solos.

It wasn't all that often, but sometimes one of us would suggest trying a vocal number. Simon suggested that we try "Walk Right In", which at the time was a hit from the Rooftop Singers. Alvin and I both thought that was kind of a strange choice, since the song is more folk than rock and roll. But we tried it a few ways, and eventually worked out an arrangement that we all liked. For that song, I'd come out from behind the drum set to play the ukulele, and harmonize with Alvin and Simon. It was different from everything else we did, and it helped break up the sets a little.

I was technically still looking for other drumming gigs at that time, but I never found anything permanent. That wasn't really surprising, since the only nights I was available were Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays.

I did get a panicked call one Sunday afternoon late in 1962 from a jazz-type vocalist named Freddie Walker. His drummer had just fallen deathly ill, he had a friend who had a friend who knew me, he said I was a solid drummer, sorry for the really short notice, but was I free that night?

Part of me wanted to say no. I mean, playing a set with a new jazz band, without even a rehearsal? But the guy sounded desperate, and I'll admit I sort of relished the idea of tackling a challenge like this. So I told him yes, and a couple of hours later, Freddie was helping me unload my drum set from the back of my truck.

The band quickly briefed me on their set list, and what sort of arrangements they did. To help me out, the bass player situated himself further back so he was next to my drum set. From there, he could look over at me and sort of telegraph the changes with his facial expressions. He'd shoot me a look, and I'd '"ta-ta-ta-boom" into the chorus or what have you. It was one of the most nerve-wracking sets I'd ever done, but I apparently did well enough that they had me fill in again the next night while their drummer finished recuperating.

Thinking about it now, it was a bit surprising that I was home to answer that call from Freddie. Since our schedules were so strange (and different), Roy and I were always taking phone messages for each other. I had taught Roy to write either "Theodore" or "TD" at the top of each message, so I'd know if it was a personal or business call.

One day, I got up to find a message for me, and I was confused to see the word "Theodore" above the message "Call Mr Griffin" with a phone number. I was pretty sure I didn't know anybody by that name, but I called the number back expecting it to be a gig call. Then a woman answered and said "RCA Records", which only confused me further. I was positive I didn't know anybody at that label.

A minute later, Mr. Griffin was explaining why he had called. He had had lunch with Sascha Burland recently. And sometime during the meal, Mr. Burland had told him about our Nutty Squirrels project. Mr. Griffin had given a listen to a couple of the Nutty Squirrels songs, and thought RCA might be interested in taking us on. That is, if we weren't currently signed?

My foot began tapping against the floor in excitement. Yeah, sometimes we had issues with our labels. And yeah, I still hated the band name. But recording Nutty Squirrels songs had been where I had felt the most creative. As much as I loved playing behind Joan, or pounding out the solos on "Wipe Out" with my brothers, those first two Nutty Squirrels albums were what I was most proud of. And here was a chance to resurrect that.

But of course, I couldn't just say yes to Mr. Griffin. This was going to have to be Simon's call. So I told Mr. Griffin to expect a phone call within the next day or two, and then I called Simon with the news.

"I believed at that time that The Nutty Squirrels were a completed chapter in our lives," states Simon. "I had given very little thought to that style of music for the past year or two. Had Mr. Griffin called me instead of you, I likely would have refused the offer immediately. But your enthusiasm gave me pause, and so I told you I would ruminate on it that evening.

"I sat on my bed contemplating the songs we had recorded under the Nutty Squirrels moniker, and my eyes happened to fall on the electric organ in the corner of my room. I walked over to it, turned it on, and immediately began singing and playing. 'Doo-dah (organ note) doo-dah (organ note) da-doo-dee-da-doo-dah (organ note)'. A song was instantly flowing out of me. It was a feeling I had not experienced in a long time - the muse of the songwriter."

Simon called Mr. Griffin back and agreed for us to record two sides for RCA. "My spare time was already extremely limited," explains Simon. "I did not want to commit to anything more until I could be sure my studies would not suffer."

I came over to Simon's dorm room the following week to work on new material. We fleshed out the piece he had started to write, and in reference to the Nutty Squirrels return, we gave it the name "Hello Again". Simon suggested we do a version of Toots Thielman's "Bluesette" as the second song, so we quickly worked out an organ-based arrangement for that, as well. A week later, we were in the studio recording the two tracks, and we submitted them both to RCA.

"In retrospect, I feel perhaps that I may have erred somewhere," Simon admits. "Erred in not asking Alvin to participate in the writing and recording sessions. In recording two numbers with a somewhat 'easy-listening' feel for the release. In having both songs prominently featuring the organ rather than guitar. And, in short, in simply hastening the way through the process. RCA had not given us a timeframe for recording, but I more or less encouraged us to complete the two recordings as quickly as possible. No doubt this was so I could resume focusing my attention on my classes. Perhaps had I given the project more time, more thought, more effort, it may have proven to be more successful." Simon shrugs. "Or perhaps it would have failed no matter what we attempted? And it must must be said, I am mainly regretful for your sake, brother. An alternate timeline in which the Nutty Squirrels maintained a regular recording schedule would have no doubt pleased you greatly, but as for myself, I was not unhappy to return to my studies."

RCA put out the single in late 1963, and it sank without a trace. I don't think it was played on the radio anywhere, and I doubt it sold more than a handful of copies nationwide. I never saw a penny from our brief tenure at RCA, but then again, I'm positive we didn't earn one. The record has become so obscure that several online Nutty Squirrels discographies don't even list it. I can accept "Hello Again" not being a big hit, but I do feel that it deserved a better fate than instant and complete oblivion.

At least one nice thing came out of the mini-Nutty Squirrels revival. I gave a copy of the 45 to Joan, and she really liked our rendition of "Bluesette". She played it for the band, and they agreed to add it to the set. They changed the arrangement a bit more, to account for the different instrumentation of their band. But we kept it as a fun duet between Joan and myself. I liked performing pretty much anything with Joan, but "Bluesette" was especially fun to do.

(I should probably mention something here, before I forget. About a year after this, Sascha Burland got yet another label interested in recording the Nutty Squirrels, but MGM wanted an album of cover versions of currently popular hits. Simon and I were pretty sure that Liberty would never allow us do something like that, since it was too similar to what were doing as The Chipmunks at the time. We did give our blessing for Mr. Burland and Mr. Elliott to sign the deal with MGM, and to record the album with other rodents. We even wrote a Nutty Squirrels-like holiday number called "Bingle Jells" for them to sing. I don't know who they got to sing on it, but it's clearly not Simon and me - their voices were far lower than ours. The album tanked, and it's now even more obscure than our RCA single. It was a rather sad coda to The Nutty Squirrels legacy.)

Right after recording a Nutty Squirrels single that vanished without a trace, my brothers and I recorded a Chipmunks single that did the same thing. And this one may have been the weirdest single to ever bear the Chipmunks name.

Snuff Garrett was one of the biggest name producers in pop music during the late sixties and seventies, but back in 1963, he was a staff producer at Liberty. We had never crossed paths with him, since it wasn't like we chipmunks hung out at the offices or went to the company picnics. But apparently, Snuff mentioned to Dave Seville that he'd like to work with him sometime. Dave liked that idea, so he started writing a fun little song he wanted Snuff to work on.

Right around that time, there was a bit of a buzz concerning something called "eefing". It came out of Appalachia, and it was something like a jugband version of scatting or beatboxing. If you picture a guy in coveralls putting his jug down and creating a beat with just his mouth, you'll get a vague idea what it is. It started popping up here and there, including in a novelty song called "Little Eefin' Annie". So Dave decided to write a song about eefing as well. In his song, he meets a guy who can eef, and asks him to teach him how. Dave even went so far as to find a guy in Los Angeles who could actually eef pretty well to go on the record.

But then Dave found out that Snuff didn't really want to work with him. Or, at least, he didn't want to work just with him. Snuff Garrett wanted to work with us - The Chipmunks.

I have no idea how that conversation went, but I'm guessing Dave wasn't thrilled. He didn't hate us or anything, but it seemed his music career was now permanently shackled to ours. Dave rearranged the lyrics of his song a bit, so that it was now Alvin who learns eefing instead of himself. The rest of the song he kept the same, though, so Dave actually does all of the singing. Alvin and I just have some spoken asides, and of course we get to eef at the end of the song.

Note that I said "Alvin and I". That's because this was the first Chipmunks song that Simon didn't appear on. "I was working on my first large-scale research project at the time," he explains. "The idea of taking a day off to do some eefing was not exactly a compelling one." So Alvin and I did the song without him. It's clearly just the two of us on the record - we didn't even try to replicate his lower-pitched voice at all.

Liberty rushed out "Eefin' Alvin" as a single in an attempt to cash in on the eefing craze. They needn't have bothered, though. The "craze" was both minimal and extremely short-lived, and the single sank out of sight. In fact, eefing proved so obscure that I'm sure a few people misread the title on the 45 as "Effin' Alvin". I wonder what they thought the record was about.

With their dreams of an eefin' hit dashed, Liberty sort of threw up their hands and decided The Chipmunks would record another Christmas album. Not because our last holiday album had sold all that well - it hadn't yet - but because it was the only Chipmunks record to sell much at all recently. They rounded up another dozen or so secular holiday songs, and Dave arranged them for three high-pitched squeaky voices.

You'd think we three would have been sick and tired of the routine by this point. But I remember being in a really good mood through these sessions. Maybe it was because Simon was back with us. Listen to my intro to "Wonderful Day", which was a rather crass attempt by Dave at rewriting "Christmas Don't Be Late". That giggle was genuine - I was actually enjoying recording again.

"We three were in particularly good form," Simon agrees. "Even on a song as frivolous as 'Jingle Bell Rock', our vocals sound especially vibrant. I believe the only downside on that particular track was Mr. Seville's forced-cheerful introduction." I would argue that that song cries out for a rockier arrangement than the one we had. But otherwise, Simon is spot on - we just seemed to be singing better.

As a bonus, the album features the first non-scripted "Alvin-ing" since "The Chipmunk Song" half a decade before. I wasn't really looking forward to doing "The Twelve Days of Christmas". I've always considered that song to be something of a slog, where you're forced to sing this laundry list of bizarre gift items over and over. And I guess Alvin felt the same way. When we got to the tenth day, out of sheer boredom, Alvin sang "I'm getting tired" instead of "six geese a-laying"...and somehow Dave didn't notice! We all grinned at each other, and then completely lost it for the eleventh day - we sang about drummers piping, ladies swimming, you name it. Finally, Dave yelled at us and pointed angrily at the sheet music, so we settled down and finished the song correctly. Afterwards, Dave seemed a bit peeved, but I think even he had to admit that we added some personality to what would have been an otherwise dull recording. Play that against any other "Al-vin!" song we did during that period - even "Wonderful Day" - and you can just kind of feel it.

Liberty sent the album out in November, no doubt praying that the album would at least scrape the bottom reaches of the chart again. Instead, we finally got another Christmas miracle. The album flew up the charts, eventually landing at number nine. Not only that, but the first Christmas album sold better than it had the previous year. There didn't seem to be any real rationale for it. I've always chalked it up to a nation desperate for something simple, safe and fun after President Kennedy was killed. But maybe, just maybe, it was because people actually liked the thing.