From 1966 to 1971, Davy Jones was a member of the Monkees, a pop-rock group formed expressly for a television show of the same name. With Screen Gems producing the series, Jones was shortlisted for auditions, as he was the only Monkee who was signed to a deal with the studio. Jones sang lead vocals on many of the Monkees' recordings, including "I Wanna Be Free" and "Daydream Believer"

According to Mickey Dolenz, his band's live stage act included rock songs, cover songs, and even some R&B, one of his favorite songs to sing being Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode". "Johnny B. Goode" was the song Dolenz sang at his Monkees audition, resulting in his being hired. According to Mike Nesmith, Dolenz's voice made The Monkees' sound distinctive, and during tension-filled times, Nesmith and Peter Tork voluntarily turned over lead vocal duties to Dolenz on their own compositions.

From 1965 to early 1970, Michael Nesmith was a member of the television pop-rock band The Monkees, created for the television situation comedy of the same name. Nesmith won his role largely by appearing nonchalant when he auditioned. He rode his motorcycle to the audition, and wore a wool hat to keep his hair out of his eyes. Once he was cast, Screen Gems bought his songs so they could be used in the show. Many of the songs Nesmith wrote for The Monkees, such as "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", "Mary, Mary", and "Listen to the Band", became minor hits. One song he wrote, "You Just May Be the One", is in mixed meter, interspersing 5/4 bars into an otherwise 4/4 structure.

Tork was a proficient musician before he joined The Monkees, and though other members of the group were not allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums, he had played what he described as "third chair guitar" on Michael Nesmith's song "Papa Gene's Blues" on their first album. He subsequently played keyboards, bass guitar, banjo, harpsichord, and other instruments on their recordings. He co-wrote, along with Joey Richards, the closing theme song of the second season of The Monkees, "For Pete's Sake". On the show, he was relegated to acting as the "lovable dummy", a persona Tork had developed as a folk singer in New York's Greenwich Village.