Justin Hayward

Of the Moody Blues...

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues.
Justin so good to have you on the podcast. Thank you,
my my pleasure. I believe. Okay, you have a new single,
Living for Love. Tell me how that came to be?

(00:30):
While I sit down and play the guitar, you know,
and these things jump out of the guitar. I've got
a beautiful um Gibson J two hundred and I sat
down one night and in January this year, and the
song just popped out. So I had eight percent of

(00:53):
it within a few minutes. And then I woke up
the next morning played it again and I thought, oh,
this is really nice, so I I finished the rest
and then I went down to um the studio that
I use in Genoa, which is not far from here,
and recorded it and I really love it, you know,

(01:16):
I'm still I'm still loving it now. And he released
it to two weeks ago. But I've been doing it
on stage on the UK tour and I'm thinking when
when I do the gig and I think, um, well,
I wonder if I still like it after singing it
every night? And then I came back and put it
on and I thought, oh, it's great. Yeah, I love it.

(01:39):
That's how it happens. You know what you're asking me?
How do these How is it? How? I don't know.
Just I just plick up a plectrum in the guitar
and these things. I'm a songwriter. This happens. Okay, let's
talk about a few things. You talk about your J
two hundred. Are you a gearhead? Do you have a
lot of guitars, recording equipment? I have some nice things. Yeah,
I'm discrim anating, so I don't have a lot of stuff. Yeah,

(02:04):
I have a lovely Martin D twenty eight that I've
had since the sixties. And that's an interesting story how
I got that guitar. But that's another thing. Tell me
the story of how you get the dw Okay, so
do you you know d Martin Dwight? Absolutely, absolutely right.

(02:25):
So it's a nineteen fifty seven Dwight. And when in
the sixties, there used to be when we first went
to America, there used to be maybe five or six
bands on the on the bill, and we were never
top of the bill. But one day we got to
be headlining but in the early years we weren't. So

(02:47):
you get five or six bands and even a light shows,
kind of psychedelic light show on the bill. And there
was at that time these young uh lads, I have
to say then because they were boys. Yes, they were boys.
So boys who used to travel around America and look
for really beautiful guitars because you could do that then

(03:12):
in the sixties they hadn't been found or they were
in it's a hard work for British people to say,
but pawn shops p A w N or people's homes
or little music shops tucked away in places, and these
boys would know these guitars, how beautiful they were, and
they only chose really the best ones. And when we

(03:34):
would come off stage, each there's only one guitar in
the movie Blues, that's me, but some some groups would
have two or three guitar players. And when you walked
off stage at these gigs, you were just about to
be paid, and you'd walk past about six beautiful guitars
that these boys had in the van and they'd line
them up as you came off stage on your way

(03:56):
to the dressing room or whatever they call the a
synch room, you know in those days, and you and
I looked at some I looked at this D twenty
and I thought, oh, that that is really looks so sweet,
you know, And I picked it up and it was
the nicest acoustic guitar I've ever played, and it still
is to this day. So that's how I came by

(04:20):
a few of these guitars in the sixties. That's how
it used to happen. But that's how that one happened. Okay,
when it comes to guitar, certainly D is the acoustic standard,
but certainly with Gibson's, everyone even of the same model,
will sound different. Have you found that with your guitars? Absolutely?

(04:43):
But um I met the guys who made my my
three three five, My red Gibson three three five was
made in three I had. I actually had a three
three five brand new in sixty three, but I couldn't
afford to keep it then in the Moody Is. I've
been in the Moodies for about a year and I

(05:04):
had enough money to put a deposit down on another
three through five. So I found the prep my present
three three five, And when I was able to go
to the US and visit Kalamazoo in Michigan. I just
turned up and they were like, hey, just earned you know,
pictures of your three three five and that the serial number.

(05:25):
And I met the guys who made it, and they said,
we because we've seen your guitar in pictures on on
on video on the TV and kind of stuff like that,
we know your guitar and we will remember it because
there wasn't that we remember those kind of things. It
has a big bag Factsbury factory, Bigsby, and two pieces

(05:48):
of mother of pearl where the stop to help us were.
So they remembered it. And they said that the next
one on the line didn't have what mine had. They
knew that that when they take them off the line,
they know that one's nice and one's like, you know,
one was fabulous, and one's like, oh, doesn't quite come together.

(06:14):
So that's that's the way instruments are, isn't it okay?
In terms of electrics, you have the three thirty five,
that semi hollow body. Do you have any other electrics
that you favor. I've got my telecaster from That's that's
what I bought when I first joined the mood is
sixty five and then I've got a Tom Anderson that

(06:41):
is beautiful. I've got a Parker that is really uh
really good for recording. How you plug it straight in
direct into the desk, got beautiful sound. That's about it. Okay,
you said you're in Genuay. Know you cut the record
in Italy. Are you living full time in Genoa? And

(07:04):
why Genoa? I'm not living in general. No, I'm down
the road. Okay, you're you're living. You go to Genoa
to record, You're living in Italy? What inspired you to
live in Italy? No, I don't live in Italy. I
live just across the border, across the French border. Well,
let me ask you a different way, what inspired you

(07:25):
to live in that area as opposed to the UK.
I had a holiday home in this part of the
world in the eighties and I was coming back here
and then I got to know musicians along the Coat Dessore,
along the Riviera coast from sort of Marseille through to

(07:49):
live Orno in Italy, and there was a lot of
English musicians in the eighties and early nineties who were
playing with Italian rock stars or French rock stars who
all wanted English kind of guitar players and musicians because
English players got rock and roll, and I'm not sure

(08:11):
that the Italians and the French did. But anyway, the
Italian the French artists wanted really English guitar players because
they had a different kind of background cultural background. I
think English with rock and roll music, with the three
chords and um So I met a lot of people
musicians along this coast recording and they became really friends, families,

(08:33):
and and I became part of that group and community,
and that led me to Italy and to record there.
I can't I can't say I can actually afford to
go and record in London because it's like joke, money,
but where do you live? I live in Los Angeles,

(08:54):
And we could talk about today's economic world and what's
going on in the UK, but uh, let's let's stay
with the money. You know you, so, could you could
you afford to go and rent a studio in l A? Now?
I will tell you. I will tell you like a
week l A. Since it's a hot bed of the
music industry and universal music is located here. There are

(09:20):
many home studios, and the home studios are so good
that the only reason someone goes to a big studio
is to cut basics to get a certain drums sound
or something. So many times you can go to a
big studio for a day or two, and except for
a couple of elite studios, the prices have actually gone down.

(09:44):
So as far as the old days, you know, locking
out a studio for six weeks, Um, nobody does that anymore.
So could someone afford the thousand dollars to dollars to
record one or two day is in a big studio
if they are a major label artist, yes, if they're

(10:05):
in putting out their records independently, they will do their
best not to do that, but maybe one day. But
that begs a question of money. You had great success
fifty years ago in a band with multiple members when
the royalties were low, So how is your financial situation today?
Which multiple members? What does that members? No? No? When

(10:30):
you have the songwriting in your group, uh, there were
different people who wrote different songs, some acts the same
person wrote all ten songs. As we know, most of
the money is in the songwriting unless you have an
overall deal where you mix the recording revenue in the
publishing will pay for a minute once. Some people own it.

(10:52):
Some people don't own it. Some people sold it. Record
royalties are lower. They have to split five ways. Uh,
when you go on the road, the money has to
be split. So it's different from being a solo artist
who owns all the songs. Never Mind, fifty years ago
royalty rates were lower. And your question is, well, now

(11:13):
that it's fifty years later, how good is the income
stream from the moodies I'm doing Okay. I've spent my
life on the road as well. Okay, I'm going I'm
doing all right. Thanks, okay, and you I could I

(11:33):
could afford, I could afford to speak to you about. Okay,
And do you still own your own publishing? Um? I
own the I never did own the copyrights of my
early material and who who did own it? I own
a ship up the copyrights? Um the t R oh

(11:57):
okay and but the the So you're still getting the
song writing for writing the songs. Some people sell those
royalty streams. Do you still own yours? I'm doing okay, okay,
So let's go looking good. Thanks, Okay. Let's go back
to the song. You talked about your seeing the guitar

(12:20):
you come up with the sound. Is that normally how
you write on inspiration? Or is it sometimes a more
labored process. UM, well, that that's a good question. I'm
not sure that I I, Um, you know, if we
if song writes us sat around and waited for inspiration,

(12:43):
I think we're working a long time. I find that
I if I put my mind to it, if I
if I decided to sit down, if I decided to
write a song, and I can, I can do it. Now.
There was much more pressure in the early days of
the band because with the first with the albums of

(13:07):
the mood Is, there was always there was always the
thing where, oh, Justin will have something because he always
had stuff ready. You know, I'm the son of two teachers,
and I always had my stuff ready, so I would
never studio time was really precious to me. So if

(13:29):
there was a studio, if there was a session happening
on the Saturday, on the Friday night, I would have
something and be ready to go. And the other and
that was great. The others knew that, oh, Justin will
have something, and so we could kick. I could kick
the ball down the pitch and that was that was great.
But there was a lot of pressure to do that
because the records kept coming, so I had to just

(13:50):
move on quickly from one to the other. Now I
have more time about it because I can. I'm still
um can I put it. I'm still want to be
true to my goal goals of making music and earned
playing music live, so I can. I can take my

(14:12):
time over that. I'm offered a lot of work on
the road, which most of it I say, Yeah, that's great,
and I can be choose what I do and when
I write it and do it as a pleasure not
as a pressure. Okay, you talked about seeing the G
two hundred picking it up when you were not on

(14:35):
the road. Do you play the guitar every day? And
how often do you just pick it up and get inspired? Ah?
You see? You you keep using this word inspired. You know,
if we, like I said, we sat around waiting to
be inspired, we you wouldn't do much. So what maybe

(14:55):
you would, but you know, just looking at looking out
the window waiting for somebody, or we're looking for a
girl to come by, and oh that's nice. But I
find it's you have to put your mind to it.
I can't. I can't remember what you're saying about the guitars.
What do you say about that? Well, I I guess.
I guess it sounded like with the new song that

(15:18):
you were just drumming and something keen to you. Ah,
that's how it usually works. I enjoy playing so that
stuff just comes stuff just comes out. And in this
particular song, you've talked about it being optimistic, harkening back

(15:38):
to an era there was more optimistic. Is that true?
Can you amplify that? Um? I think I was lucky
enough to be in a generation that didn't have the
weight of constant news bombarding them because there wasn't took

(15:59):
place to uh you know, I hardly listened to the radio,
but me and my brother used to listen to Radio
Luxembourg and we had about three or four records, and
my brother's friend had three or four and my friend
and then you could have a whole nights entertainment with
about world records. But I come from a time when

(16:21):
the music was particularly wonderful. Now music is great today.
I would there are kids out there falling in love
right now to the music that's just being made at
this moment, and they'll remember that all their lives. And
it was a time for me when I knew that

(16:43):
I could get a job. I was in a loving
family with my brother and my sister, and it was
a time of optimism under under and a commitment that
you that another war like my parents had gone through
would never happen again. So it was a safe, secure,

(17:05):
optimistic world. And in that world there was wonderful music.
That was our lives and we were living for love.
I was living for love and girls and boys around us,
and I had I had a wonderful school, and I
lived not in luxury, but I lived in the English countryside,

(17:31):
which is the most beautiful. And you know, you've only
realized these things later, don't you, Bob, buttely I realized that.
So it was. It was. It was really good, you know,
it was kind of funny. I was laughing all the time,
and I was living for love and that's it. And
if if we were able to do that now, I

(17:54):
think the world would be a better place. I'm full
bringing love back. That's what I'm for, not against anything.
I'm just for stuff. Okay, what did your parents do
for a living in the country side that they were Well,
we lived in Swindon, which is set in the west

(18:15):
country of England. It's in the veil of the White Horse.
My parents both taught in different schools. My father talked
in quite a rough school. He taught when when I
was a small boy, he taught Latin. It was just
but he taught Latin, English and what was quaintly called
divinity in those days. And my mother taught domestic science,

(18:40):
and she taught in a girls school. My father taught
in a boys school. My mother's taught in a girls school.
I was lucky enough to pass the eleven pross along
with my brother the same, and we went to what
was known as a grammar school. If you passed this
exam when you were eleven, you went to a better
last of school. It was a state exam. It wasn't

(19:03):
you didn't have to pay anything for it. But that's
the way it was then. And my brother and I
went to a beautiful school. Yeah, but my parent, like
I said, my parents English, English, literature, grammar, um, Latin
disappeared after you know in the but then my mother

(19:24):
domestic science. And you reference your brother and your sister.
Where are you in the family, oldest, middle, youngest, Well,
my brother died young, but he was in the Royal
Navy and um, so we lost him. He was only
forty one when he passed. But I'm the second son,

(19:46):
and my sister is quite a few years younger than me,
eight or nine years younger than me. And what kind
of kid were you growing up? Were you the type
who played sports and had a lot of friends? Were
you more introvert? Did? Maybe every child is introverted? Um? Um?

(20:08):
What was like? I don't know. I always had a
lot of friends, always had a lot of fun laughs.
Um fALS a lot with my brother of course, you know.
And that's the way brothers are, um, jumping on each
other and trying to get the better of each other.
My brothers only was only about eighteen months older than me,

(20:31):
so we were kind of the same. So we were
punching each other all the time. Um. But I don't
know what child, or what kind of childer was really,
But I know that I loved music. I come from
a family with a very strong faith, and so I
loved the music of the English hymnal or hymn's ancient

(20:55):
and modern? Was was was a hymn book in the
anger look in church, and I love those. We used
to sing them in in assembly every morning. Every morning
in school you'd have an assembly and you'd sing those
and sing them at church, and I got to know them,
and I love those melodies and the things in Him's

(21:17):
ancient modern so that it's only about four or five,
and I can one of my earliest memories as loving
this music and these and under hymns. So that's that's
what I grew up with. At what point did you

(21:40):
start playing a musical instrument? Oh? I My parents knew
that I love music, so they sent me for like
one or two piano lessons. I knew that wasn't gonna work.
I couldn't get the mathematics. I was never good at mathematics,
but so I couldn't get the mathematics of music is

(22:02):
beyond me or just to differ us too lazy. But
I could kind of play. My grandfather had a piano.
Most houses after the war had a piano. They were
subsidized form with the purpose of making us do home entertainment,

(22:23):
you know. I think that was the post war government idea,
and it was a good idea. So most families would
have a piano that costs very very little, and my
grandfather would very kindly just say I go in the
front room and bash on the piano. You know, I
don't care, so I was able to do that. But
I knew that I wanted a guitar, so I pested

(22:44):
and pested my parents when I was about eight, and
they didn't buy me a guitar. They bought me a
ukulele that didn't cost very much, so I could plain
the uk I knew. I'd played the ukulele straight off.
It's kind of easy, ding ding ding ding. I don't
know whether you're a player, but that's so extitute, and

(23:06):
the spacing is the same as the top four strings
of a guitar. So it's like, yeah, okay, complay that.
So I'm going to pester you some more for a guitar.
So I got a guitar when I was ten, and
then I was forming groups. Okay, what error was that?
In popular music? What was on the radio when you
were forming groups? Buddy Holly? Well, in fact, but Buddy

(23:30):
died what fifty nine February fifty nine. But in England
and in Great Britain, it's hard to explain how it's hard.
It's hard to convey how big Buddy what what a
huge artist Buddy Holly was and a huge influence to people.
So Buddy Holly Everly Brothers, thank goodness. And in Great

(23:51):
Britain we had Cliff in the Shadows, who I love
then and I love them now today. And then of
course everything changed. But I was in nineteen sixty three
and I was in London in six four. I was
a professional musician then, because um, I got a job
when I was about seventeen playing guitar for a rock

(24:12):
and roll singer. But yeah, so Buddy Holly, the evil is.
I was never an Elvis guy, you know. I my
girlfriends always loved Elvis, but it was Buddy for me
all the way. And a lot of English rock and
roll heroes as well. So needles say in the US,
when the Beatles broke really in January sixty four, it

(24:36):
changed everything. I could delineate the ways, but I won't.
They broke earlier sixty two in the UK. To what
degree did the Beatles change the game? And what were
you inspired? Were you a fan? You use that word again?

(24:56):
Don't be inspired, don't you, Bob? You want the secret
to of how to be inspired? No, there are no secrets. Actually,
I think you can only open your mind, take a shower,
go out and exercise the inspiration might happen, but if
you try and a trick inspirit, inspiration can't do it.
Um yeah, okay, So the Beatles. I remember in my

(25:20):
hometown of Swindon hearing Love Me Do on the radio
and I walked out of my house in Swindon and
I remember this as clear as anything. I walked down
the street after hearing Loved Me Do and know and
I knew my life was going to be different. You anybody,

(25:44):
any kid of that era, particularly a little herbit like
me playing guitar, would know that something has happened, something
has changed in the in the way the Beatles made
that record, and it was monumental, you know, that's yeah,

(26:07):
And I wasn't disappointed that there's a strange thing. Also,
I remember that just after Love Me Do, there was
a guy on the radio. It's quite a nice old gentleman,
but he was like in charge of what people thought
about music, was on the BBC and he was on
lots of programs. It all was wheeling in when they

(26:28):
wanted to know something about music or discussed music or
anything like that. And so after we'd as young people,
we discovered the Beatles and they discovered us I saw
this man on the on the on the television my
girlfriend's house, and he and he was saying, my this,

(26:51):
you know, like the Beatles that will never last, you know,
I give them like a few weeks, didn't at this
time next year, they'll be gone. And I remember thinking,
you are so you are, so you're just your your
that's it. There's no point in listening to you anymore
because we all knew different and so what I We

(27:14):
didn't need to tell us what we were listening to
because it was so obvious. It was just brilliant. Your
parents were educators. How did you they feel about your
becoming a professional musician as opposed to going to university. Well,
my parents were very enlightened people, almost maybe you'd say

(27:34):
New age kind of people, and very very enlightened, and
they were there. The idea was that we should do
what we wanted to do. And they, of course, because
they were teachers, they wanted all of us to get
our school qualifications, so which they were called O levels

(27:59):
jen Certificates of education under Grammar School. So as long
as I got my five O levels, they were they
were good with what I wanted to do. I got
my phile velos and so you can do what you want.
I worked in an office for about three months, but
I was answering ads in the Melody Maker all the time.

(28:20):
That's how I got my first Jake gig And who
was there with and how did you work your way
to Marty Wilde. Well, I was always playing in groups
in Swindon ever since I was, like I said, about
ten or eleven years old, because there were lots of
groups at school. Swindon is a very lively music scene

(28:41):
still is to this day, very vibrant and lots of
good places to play. And so yeah, so I answered
an ad. I was answering ads in the melody Maker
for jobs. I used to have a job sex and
situations vacant and so I am fired off a lot

(29:06):
of replies to had very rarely got any replies. Some
of them were from the military, because that you didn't
know that they were going to be from the military. Well,
welcome to the fourth Battalion, the fierce alerts. I would
like to come up and but sometimes, but this one
time I got a reply. I think I think the

(29:27):
thing it said named artists seeks guitar player. And I
answered it and I got I gotta reply and I
went up to a house. I went up on the
train to a house in East London, nice part of
East London called black Heath, and Maulti Wilde opened the

(29:47):
door and it was like, whoa, that's Mattie. Why I
knew who it was and I did a little audition
and I got the job. That was it. How long
did you work from Marty? And were you content or
were you saying, well, I'm doing this now, but there's
something bigger for me personally, every teenager he thinks, even

(30:11):
the moody blues, I think you're every young person thinks
I'm doing this now, but maybe there's something else. I
still do it now. I think I'm doing this now
with Bob. Maybe there's something else though, you know, maybe
this is going to lead to something that's facetious. I
don't mean that, but there's always something. But in truth,

(30:33):
I learned so much from Marty. He was my hero
and he still is my hero to this day, and
he taught me some valuable things. Really, he was writing
his own material and he really said that surviving this business,
you have to create an identity, and that means writing

(30:54):
your own material. Just cover versions is never going to
do it for you, And so I started writing right then.
But I knew also that Marty and Joyce because we
were like a little trio and Mary, Marty's wife. Joyce
has a gorgeous voice. She was one of a group
of girl called the Vernon Girls Vernon's Girls in Liverpool

(31:16):
that some English people would know about and remember fondly.
And but they didn't need me. They didn't need me.
And so I started writing and kind of saw myself
as a bit of a songwriter, and I thought, oh,
that's what I'm going to be. That's I've got a

(31:38):
lot of songs, you know, here make make demos and stuff.
And that's also how I got to the Moody Blues
with my own songs, my own demos. Can you tell
us about how you switch from Marty to the Moody Blues, Well,
I did. I did nothing for you for quite for
a few months, you know, and that I wasn't sure

(32:01):
what kind of thing that I was wanted to do, really,
so I did a few folk clubs and things. I
had a nice twelve string acoustic guitar and um I
sent off to another advertisement, and the many maker situations vacant,
and it was for because I knew somebody in Eric

(32:24):
Burdon's office and he was looking for another guitar player,
and I thought, maybe, you know, it's like Eric's life
is changing. I'll send him some of my songs. So
I sent him up my demos. I never heard anything
from Eric except about three years later when he said, hey, Justin,
and I said, your stuff to like. But he gave

(32:46):
my stuff to like Pinder of the Moody Blues and
that it uh yeah, and it might liked it. And Mike,
Mike called me one day and and I came up
to London, met Mike and with we thought great, Mike
wants to write it, wants to move the Moodies into

(33:10):
a different kind of space, away from cover versions, and
it seemed like a good fit. And none of us
had anything. In fact, I had more than anybody else
because I had an amplifier out of Fox, a C
thirty amplifier, so I was well ahead. You know. Okay,
the Moodies had had a hit with Denny Lane, who

(33:32):
had left the group, and you're saying when he left,
they still to what situation were they in and were
you worried about joining a sinking ship. Oh, that's the
that's a that's rather horrid. Say that again, I was
was I worried about joining a sinking ship? Well, you know,

(33:54):
this is when you have a career as a musician,
unlike being a businessperson. You get one shot. Okay, so
people are always evaluating opportunities. So I wasn't there. You're
the only person who was there. In the back of
your mind, you might have said, well, these guys had

(34:15):
a hit under this name, maybe there's not as big
a future as something else. Or did he just feel
right and said, okay, I'm gonna play this out. Oh
I wish there was a plan to everything. I wish
I could give give you. I wish I could tell
you there was a plan to the whole thing. There wasn't.

(34:36):
Nobody had anything. Denny had left. Yes, the group was
put together by a group of money men who put
people from different groups together around Denny Cordell, who had
this the song Go Now, which was a wonderful song
by Bertie Banks sung by Bessie Banks, actually the original record,

(34:57):
and everybody knew it was great, and the Denny it
had gone up and down, and then Denny left and
Clint Warwick left the original bass player as well left
the group, and they were both I think they were
both actually good at rhythm and blues. Those rhythm and

(35:17):
blues kind of covered Redelli had the perfect voice for that.
Like I said before, Mike wanted to just change things
and move forward, and I think Graham did as well
in the band. And um, that's why you know, to
come back to your your idea of of why it

(35:38):
would Nobody had anything, Like I said, I had a box,
a c thamp, So what what's the point of It's like,
having a philosophy of life doesn't really matter when you're
just in a van looking to earn the price of
gas at a a doing a gig. You can have
all the philosophy and about life and what you want

(36:00):
to be and as much as you like, but you're
just sitting in a van and you're allowed to have
as many opinions as you want. It only matters later
when you've kind of got stuff. So, um, you know what,
there was a whole lot of nothing for us, for
all of us, So I don't think there was any
ship to kind of sync in that way. What we

(36:21):
did have was was an agent but but there's some
some truth in what you say or you remind me
now really, because there was a promoter that was going
to give us like half a dozen gigs or something.
So so that was good. Okay, you're with the band,
they record one of your songs, you have a mild hit,

(36:44):
and then you start doing Days of Future Past. Uh,
there's a lot of history written. What is the truth
about how that album came together? Well? It maybe it
depends who you are and what you know. Everybody has
a different perspective. I'm sure the people behind your curtains there,
if you open the curtains and there was something happened outside,

(37:07):
a few other people from looking from different houses would
have a different idea of what happened. But I can
tell you what I what happened to me and what
what happened around me was that um there was We
actually had a debt to Decca, and Decca were a

(37:28):
wonderful recording company run by elderly gentlemen and with the
second largest classical catalog in the world. Uh, Josha Gramophone
had the biggest, but Decca, as you probably know, still
to this day, has a magnificent classical catalog and they
also made radar systems, and they had a consumer division,

(37:51):
and we'd made a couple of records for them, and
um Gus Studgeon actually was engineer on Flymy High, which
I think was the song you referenced before, but but
um that was the one that only but we recorded
quite a few songs before Days of Future Past, but

(38:12):
nobody kind of noticed. But and then Tony Clark was
assigned to us as a man called Tony Clark record producer,
as a in house producer for Decca, and they kind
of had a call on us because we owed them
some money that we had a debt to them, and
they approached us a lovely man called Hu Mendel, one

(38:36):
of the eedulderly gentleman, elegant, olderly gentleman at Decca, and
proposed that we would make a demonstration record to demonstrate
that stereo could be as interesting for rock and roll
as classical music. Because, like I said, they had the
biggest classical catalog, second biggest classical catalog, and they had

(38:58):
a consumer division, which meant that they had record, um
you know, the radiograms and stuff, and they were trying
to sell stereo units and they wanted that they had
quite a lot of rock and roll up well they
have the Stones actually, you know, and some other really nice,
nice um pop and rock acts and they had us,

(39:23):
so they they Humental proposed this idea of making a
demonstration record to demonstrate stereo could be as interesting for
rock and roll as it was for classical music, and
then they assigned so we said yes, yeah, sure, and
we'd already started righting. Nights was already actually already recorded,

(39:44):
and we recorded Nights in White Satin for the BBC
about six months before it was ever recorded for Days
in Future part. But we were doing a stage show
that included some of these songs. There was a song
called Another Morning that we were doing one of rays songs,
and a song called Dawn is a Feeling that Mike

(40:05):
asked me to sing and I loved It's such a
lovely song. And we were doing this stuff on stage,
and then he met that they assigned another independent product
man called Michael, Michael Dacobarti, who is a lovely man,
very posh, public school and m he really had this

(40:30):
idea of trying to make it some kind of concept
on the concept that they proposed was that we should
make a kind of rock version of Divor Jack two
juxtaposition against the real Divor Jack. And they already had
Peter Knight, one of the greatest romantic string arrangers in
the world, under contract to them. They thought Peter Knight

(40:54):
could could do it if we could do some rock
versions of stuff from the New World Symphony, and then
Peter Knight would play the New World Symphony and we'd
see that almost rock and roll. It's quite nice in
stereo going to Classgow and Peter Knight came to see

(41:16):
us at the one hundred Club in Oxford Street before
this project was started, and I remember him saying, I
don't think you boys are ever gonna get the rock
version of Divor Jack together, but your stuff is great.
What about if we did it the other way around?

(41:37):
And Hu Mentel and Michael Jacob Barclay kind of went
along with this idea. And it was a sort of
secret from the chairman and the board at Decca because
they were expecting a rock version of Divor Jack. But
there was Hu Mendel and Michael Dacob Barclay saying that
we could have a couple of days studio time to

(42:00):
put our stuff down and Peter Knight would sketch out
orchestral arrangements based on our themes, and that's what we did.
We recorded our songs, about ten songs, you know, in
a in a day or so a couple of days.
And then at the in the weekend in the studio,

(42:21):
Peter Knight came in with the orchestra that didn't have
a name. I think somebody in our band thought up
the name the Festival Orchestra because it sounded good. There
isn't a festival orchestra. It just sounds nice, but you
know how that goes, that kind of stuff, and that's
they recorded the themes of Days of Future Past. He

(42:43):
did all his bits. I was the only one that
came to the studio. I wasn't allowed in the control
room because these were the days when you weren't invited
into the control room. The engineer had a white lab coat,
the tape operator had a brown lapcoat. A decker in
sixty seven, and they played it back. They mixed it

(43:05):
all together, segue between our bits and the orchestra bits,
and they played it back to us. They invited us
around to the studio and then not into the control
room but down on the studio floor. They played it
back on a couple of big Tannoi speakers and we thought, oh,
that's great. Nice, it's good stereo demonstration record. Nobody will

(43:26):
ever hear it, but it's cutting a nice And that
was that. And then Nights in White Satin came out
to a lot of resistance because a lot of people
didn't want to. We didn't know, We didn't. I can't
say that we were fully it was anything to do
with us. We didn't have any power or any influence.

(43:47):
It's just these things happened, and Nights came out, and
there was another interesting thing that happened. Can I ramble
on a bit more? Absolutely? Okay, So so night that,
so Days of Future Pass came out, I think it
was November eventually came out, and Nights had come out.

(44:12):
Some people just in the in the promo department story.
You'll never there was a lot of resistance to it.
It wasn't our idea, but Nights out. It was just
I think it was Hu Mental who one of the
lovely gentle gentlemen from Decca who really believed in it.
But of course the pluggers all said, oh, it's four

(44:33):
minutes long. It's like slow, no, you never get it
on the radio, and they were right, we didn't, but
we came. There was a song festival down in the
south of France and Can called mead him. And it
was in the days when song first was used to
actually play something. It used to have artists on and
it was about songs, and then now it's about doing business,

(44:56):
you know, with stuff around the world. And we went
down to Medham in January and we we were part
of the live show and the Supremes were due to
fly in and play live. Now there was union rules
that you could only go on TV if you played live,

(45:17):
not miming. Now everybody else except us and long John
Baudrey were miming. We were actually playing live. The Supremes
didn't turn up, their flight was late. They didn't turn
up in time to do the live Eurovision thing on
for medium across Europe. We went on, played a couple
of songs and played nights. The next day in France,

(45:42):
it was like whoa, what what's happened? Set Extra and
Moody Blues. That does take you know, and suddenly that
this whole the journey was born with Knights in White
Satin was remarkable. Star did here in France. In America,

(46:09):
the first go round. Tuesday Afternoon was bigger. Tuesday Afternoon
was a hit. How did you write both Tuesday Afternoon
in Knights and White, Sam, How did I write them? Yes? Well,
tues Tuesday Afternoon was put out as a single by
London Records in UM in the US because clearly, like

(46:33):
the rest of the promo people, they didn't think nights
at any legs at all. So but Tuesday Afternoon kind
of too and a half minutes bang, you know it's over.
And so Tuesday Afternoon UM once Humanel and Michael Jacob
Barclay Graham our drama and all of us in the

(46:55):
group had had decided on this conspiracy of of doing
our own stuff and Peter Night and and I thought,
you know, we knew it was going to be like
the story of a day in the life of one guy.
And so I, I said, a couple of days before
this session, I'm I bags the afternoon. Ray had the morning,

(47:20):
John had lunch time, Mike had dawn you know, a sunset,
and I had nights. It just all seemed to kind
of fit together, you know, Hang on a minute, you've
got I we've been doing Dawn and we've been doing
ray Song another morning owned I've got nights. It's it's
like a perfect kind of thing. So I said, I

(47:41):
want the afternoon. Just a couple of days before we
read So I just went down to my parents place
in Wiltshire. I got my roles string guitar, but my
guitar out and quite difficult to play that or rolls
string and stating a stat in a field smoked to
join and them Tuesday afternoon. Apologies to the the the police.

(48:08):
It's a bit like busting me sixty years. Absolutely. Yeah.
So Days the Future Past is an interesting album. It
became more successful. It's time went on the records became
hits on the chart once again. What was the thought
now that the album was done, was if you'd as

(48:30):
this success in the band and what was the inspiration?
How did you decide to move forward in search of
the lost court. Well that's assuming that we could. But
we were had enough influence to move these things forward,
but we were uh, like I said before, we didn't
have anything. So it wasn't We'd like to have done

(48:53):
a lot of things, but there was no plan. But
I think that Decca had seen that Days of Future passed.
There was something there. Humantal was loved it forever. You know,
I loved him as a as a as a man,

(49:13):
as an elderly man, and he'll be in my memory
as the sweetest person that I ever knew from that period.
And he stuck with it. He stuck with it against
the board of Decca, and it started to be picked
up by FM radio in America Days of Future past,
and particularly of course Tuesday afternoon and nights and another

(49:36):
morning and all of these kind of things, and they
started to get on the radio. FM radio was needed
things that were recorded well in stereo. That sadly Abbey Road,
the studio just down the road from Broaderst Gardens where
the Decca studio was, we're recording things and I've got

(49:57):
no idea why George Martin let this go. But you
had drums on the left, vocals on the right. It
was not that kind of stereo, whereas everything at Decca
was done in a kind of cinematic stereo spread which
just sounded beautiful. When FM radio came along, and drums

(50:19):
on the left, vocals on the right didn't sound that great.
It's good in mona hoo, but not in stereo. So
it just started to break. And then London Records were
telling the elderly gentleman in England, you know, there's something
happening here. And then they asked us to go back
in the studio and you know, well do whatever you want,

(50:41):
just give us some more songs. Kind of thing. That
was Decca's attitude. And the chairman of Decca came to
visit us, I think on about our third or fourth
album and he came down and you never came to
the studio. He just was in this lovely office on
the albert Embankment in London. But he came to the
student you know, and all the staff were like, whoa,

(51:02):
it's Sir Edward Lewis and he and he came into
us stoned Herberts studying lying around in the studio and
he said, I don't know what you boys are doing,
but people seem to love it, so just carry on.
And we we had we had studio time, which was
like a gold treasure. And so to what degree was

(51:26):
the melotron a leap forward for the band, because certainly
the melotron was used on Strawberry fields forever, but the
Moody Blues were seen as the biggest users of the melotron.
Well that's uh, thank well, thank you for that. Because
it's an interest, it's it enables me to point out

(51:46):
that Mike Pinder actually worked for the company Melotronics, that
had invented this instrument called the melotron. The melotron was
really a sound effects instrument, really made for radio, so
it had it was made up of sound. You pressed
the key and there was the sound of a sort
of a cockerel in the morning, and a train rushing

(52:07):
through a tunnel, and springs going wing and dogs barking,
and that was of what the melotron and was about.
But there was um a little bits of it that
were kind of orchestral strings and a kind of organy
and if you Mike decided that he was we we

(52:27):
went up to this place club in the Midlands, he
and I and somebody else in the band, I don't
know who it was, and we bought this old melotron
that they had stuck in a corner for about twenty pounds.
When we brought it back to London, Mike fiddled with
it and he duplicated all the parts that sounded orchestral,
so there was a double manual and then he could

(52:51):
roll his fingers over the melotron and it gave this
orchestral sound. And to get back to your point, and
sorry for rambling, but the it made my songs work
the that orchestral sound instead of vox continental organ or

(53:12):
piano or something like that. This, the meltron sound made
the songs work. That and the voices and the Decca
echoes that they had at the time echo chambers were
made it work okay. On the album In Search of

(53:33):
the Loss Chord, you had had the two most successful
tracks on these of Future Past, but you didn't have
the majority of tracks by a long shot on In
Search of the Lost Card? Was that just democracy? Were
you happy about that? What went on there? I don't

(53:53):
think I was just democracy. You know, we had a
couple of songs each everybody had their go and that
was That's what it was like in a group. You know,
it's um. Everybody has the same kind of say. Everybody's
voice is just as valid as as somebody else's. I
wish Mike could had been given more because he was

(54:14):
just a superb writer and a great guitar player as
well as a good keyboard player. But that that was
just that's only in hindsight. Now, Okay, the world was
shifting and the moody Blues were part of it. We're
on a couple of these next albums. There was not
some big hit like Tuesday Afternoon, but the albums were

(54:37):
embraced strongly. What was the view like from within the band? Well,
I don't think we were ever looking to have a
hit single. I think I might have been after Nights
and we recorded a couple of things, but they weren't
released until maybe ten years later. But um, I think

(55:01):
we were just happy with this. Hey FM radio, we're good.
We've been asked to America by Bill Graham to come
over for He offered us a couple of gigs that
we stayed and we were supporting lots of other people.
We were kind of, uh, content with what we were.

(55:22):
We weren't part of any kind of trend or fashion,
and Decca weren't pressing us to get a hit single.
They liked the albums in the LP format, They liked
their stereo spread and their cinematic kind of idea of
how recording should be. So that I don't think we

(55:42):
were worried about that. No. In Search of the Lost
Chord has a huge called following. How does on the
Threshold of a Dream get made? Oh? I think Threshold
of a Dream was the happiest and the nicest and
the most beauty, a full thing because I think there
was a tension there that we didn't know it was

(56:04):
going to work days of future past. It's like, whoa,
Actually people have heard it. We never thought anybody would
ever hear it, but people heard it and liked it.
Then we had to go back and make In Search
of the Lost Chord. That's when the record companies, you know,
are like, um, yeah, I've got to come up with something.
So I loved In Search of the Last Chord and

(56:28):
Threshold of a Dream was the first time that we
ever felt comfortable actually people really kind of like what
we're doing. And it was the loveliest of album. And
we'd found Phil Travers the cover of a sleeve artist
and he was a big influence as well. You know,
he'd start to paint halfway through the album. He'd come

(56:49):
into the control room and listen to it and sketch
out ideas and it was all one. It was all
one kind of family of creating stuff off that was
that was very very nice, and I think it all
came together on the Threshold of a Dream. It's a
love it's a lovely album and it's my favorite. And
on the Threshold of a Dream there was not only

(57:11):
was it a gatefold cover, there was a huge multi
page insert of the lyrics. Now, did you have to
fight with the label or did in that you wanted
this extensive package or did they charge it to you?
What went on there? Um? Well, you clearly you clearly
don't know about that. You wouldn't have phrased it the

(57:33):
way you did pay people. But um, yes, it was
an expensive thing that we were doing and to to
to request that Decca put that gatefold and a book
of lyrics in it as well, with all designed by
Phil Travis. So um, I can't say there was conflict

(57:54):
with the with the with the label, but we realized
that there was always there was going to be this
difficulty about sleeves, uh, and we should work towards kind
of trying to resolve that. Really, Yeah, which Threshold of
a Dream brought it all into focus, that idea. Well,

(58:19):
the next album to our Children's Children's Children comes out
on your own imprint. Threshold. How did Threshold come to be? Um?
The Threshold was part of It was part of Decca,
and Threshold gave us one thing. It gave us control
over those sleeves and what was to be released, and

(58:44):
that was our idea of yes, just getting control over
that stuff, and Decca were quite happy that we had that.
It was it changed the royalty status. Are royalty was
getting a little better at every time, so um that
they could afford to do that and have a negotiation
with us about that and then we would be responsible

(59:07):
for the sleeves. And actually I don't think, um, what
which which album was it after Threshold? It was Children's Children?
Was it correct? So I don't think it was a
gatefold that I don't think there was a lyrics or
maybe there was inside it was an insert that went
into the double gatefold. Because we love sleeves and I

(59:30):
love sleep. It's just absolutely great that whole thing about
making sleeves and enjoyed every moment of that. So I
think it was to do with trying to get give
us control Threshold, which which it did do. It gave
us control over the sleeves and what we could do
within a royalty. It was an agreement that we would
take care of that. But also acts were signed to threshold.

(59:55):
The one that got the most traction in America was
trapeeze Ah was in charge of that. And how interested
in that were you? You mean the business of it, yes,
the business of saying, let's build our own little empire here,
will sign acts will make them a hit? Which acts

(01:00:16):
to sign? Was that something you were interested in or
somebody else did that? So you that's that's an assumption
that we're going to build our own little empire here.
I don't think anybody thought that. Um. I think it
was just a question of listen, Deca are going to
give us some studio time. What they had was studio time,

(01:00:38):
fantastic studios, and they were going to give a studio time.
So let's We knew lots of musicians around London and
around England that we thought really should be making it,
and so it was our chance to record those albums.
Those those people are. There was a young boy that

(01:01:00):
I knew that I had seen at a party, because
that there's the days when you just go went to
other people's apartments with your records and stuff. And I'd
seen Time and sitting in a corner this boy called
Time and T T I M O N. And he's
such a lovely player and such such a lovely voice,
and you think, it's studio time. Let's let's just record it,

(01:01:22):
you know. And so I think that was a lot
of the stuff with Threshold. It was we were just
enjoying the fact that we had studio time, we could
call upon an engineer to record this these things. And
that's as far as it went on. I'm not sure
there was any empire building ideas there, but it was

(01:01:42):
a it was a nice idea. It's a nice idea
to income that you bring other musicians in. And what
was the genesis of to our Children's Children's children first
came up? Who came up with the name? Um? I
think that a couple of these things are curiously enough,

(01:02:04):
I think from the Bible. As a matter of fact,
I think Children's Children might even be there's a verse
in the in the Bible. I don't know whether it's
to our children's children's children, but it might be. The
keys of the Kingdom certainly is with them, Peter, I think,
But who our Lord gave the keys of the Kingdom too.

(01:02:26):
But so at the the the the idea of to
our Children's Children was really from Tony Clark, our producer.
It was an album that he really wanted to make,
and um yes, and that that was that was his thing,

(01:02:47):
and it's out of space, moon rockets, that kind of stuff.
Tony Tony Clark was such a wonderful combination with us
staff producer from Decca, and then became our friend and
one of the kind of inner circle. But this was

(01:03:09):
always I would sometimes be asked up into the control
room and he and he described what he wanted out
of a track, say that me or one of the
boys had written, and he would describe it like so,
justin what I wanted you, you can see the sun
coming up in the morning, and as the sun rises

(01:03:29):
behind you, there's there's a cool wind is blowing across
the grass. But in front of you you can see
some trees and the clouds are parting as the sun rises,
and there's the most gentle kind of touch on your face.
And that's how it and he'd described it in these

(01:03:52):
wonderful cinematic terms, and then I'd go down the steps
from the control room, and the other guys will say,
what what did he say? And I said to E
A and C sharp minor, Oh yeah, right great, I'm good, okay.

(01:04:14):
One of the songs on that albums. I never thought
I'd live to be a hundred and when you're in
your when you're in twenties, hundreds is far off. Now
people live to a hundred. Do you still sing that song?
And what do you think about it? With a different
viewpoint from this so close to the number, I haven't.
I haven't even heard that song mentioned for fifty years.

(01:04:38):
It's a cute little song. I think I did it.
I think it appears twice on the album I know that.
Tony I was like, I don't think there's anything on
it except biddy guitar and some echo chamber. I don't
have any feelings about it. It's just an interesting idea
about somebody something shooting through space. I never thought I'd

(01:04:59):
live to be a million. So you have three albums
in a row that become more and more successful commercially,
but there's not a hit single on any of them.
Was everything going along swimmingly in the band or was
there a thought that we need to be bigger? Or
want to be bigger. No. I I wish I could

(01:05:24):
tell you that there was some kind of plan and
some kind of proposal, but I don't. I don't think so.
I think those kind of plans and proposals always came
from outside of the group. But fortunately with the album
that we're probably that you're clearly leading to is called
question of Balance than I had. I had a song

(01:05:46):
called Question that was recorded quite some time before the album,
and Decker put it out within like a two weeks
of us recording it, and it was a hit. Was
it fantastic song called Question? And to what degree did
the fact that it hit change your life or the

(01:06:10):
BMS trajectory? Well, I think it probably. I think it
probably did change our lives insomuch as that it put
us on television and um the the I think the
most memorable time for that from me was we played
at the Isle of Wight Festival in and it was

(01:06:33):
a festival that the security broke down, the fences came down,
became a free fenced festival. It was kind of overrun
and it got quite alarming and a lot of groups.
Somebody jumped on stage when Joreny Mitchell was doing her
thing and bang the mic into her mouth and her

(01:06:54):
poor journey her like her lip was bleeding, and that
I remember. But Richie Havens and I backstage and knew
Richie and then we were talking about, you know, how
how is this kind of thing going to calm down?
The security people had just kind of left and everything

(01:07:16):
that it was becoming a massive free festival, and we
were the whole We were supposed to go on like
at lunchtime, and of course, like these festivals go, everything
was late. We went on at sunset and we played Question,
which had just become a hit, and the whole place
went romped and everything came down to a calm, serene

(01:07:41):
It's like, oh I love this song and it's great,
and every the whole sort of vibe changed and it
was an interesting time with that question, and I think
it made a big impression here in the in Europe
and in the UK. That's on. We were only kept off,

(01:08:02):
We only kept off number one, but by the BBC,
who had a song out with their football team. I
think it was called back Home and there was a
BBC record and they that they had the chart, of course,
the BBC, and they kept us off number one. We
were always we were number two for a while and
you have this great success. Does it change your everyday life? Um? Well,

(01:08:25):
I don't know change our everyday life that this. Remember
when I said before that you can have a philosophy
of life, and when you're going up and down the
motorway in a van with with nothing and you're just
living with your girlfriend, you know that your philosophy of
life doesn't mean anything. But as soon as you start

(01:08:46):
to have stuff around you, then you have to kind
of live out your philosophy. And sometimes that is very different.
It's okay when you're in a van for somebody to
be this kind of over there on one side of
the the spectrum philosophically and you on the other doesn't matter.
But when you've got stuff family and the house and possessions,

(01:09:09):
it kind of matters. So you start to have to
live that. And I think that was after that. The
early seventies was the time when you could see the
the difference in lifestyles and priorities and what people in
the band really wanted out of their own lives and
what did you want? Oh um, what did I want?

(01:09:37):
I wanted to continue staying in bed in the morning
playing the guitar. I don't know. I just want to
make your way in the world and help play music
and help people hear it and appreciate it. I think
that's what I wanted, Okay. In this era, especially in England,

(01:10:01):
there are a lot of managers who call the shots,
and we hear stories relevant of the money, We hear
stories of the main interesting I've booked this tour, you
have to get back out there. Were you in control
or were you feeling the whip of either the record
company or a manager or an agent. No, we never
did have a manager or an agent, and we never

(01:10:26):
did have We had a lovely agent actually no, I'd
tell her like called Colin Berlin, who was my agent
just before I joined the Moodies, and we didn't have
an agent when I joined, and I suggested working with Colin,
and Colin was absolutely great. Got are some great gigs.
And then Colin's life changed and he sort of stepped aside,

(01:10:50):
and we had a good agent in the US and
then but we were playing a lot of big places
in the you know, big arenas in the US, and
I think there was occasions when I thought I wonder
who was getting paid for this. You know, you've got
like twelve thousand people in here, and I know how

(01:11:13):
much we're getting, So I wonder who's getting paid. And
about that time, I suppose about seventy one, so it
will be every good boy. I suppose that kind of era. Um.
We met Jerry Weintrobe and Michael Jerry Weintrobe who some
people might have heard about. And Jerry came to see us,

(01:11:36):
and we wanted to. He had an artist called John
Denver and he could see us playing these venues and
he wanted to have John Denver open for us because
we were always having acoustic artists opening for us. Once
we've become a headliner, we didn't want another group setting
up in front of our stuff, so acoustic artists would

(01:11:57):
be great. And so Jerry's jested John Denver and we did.
We he did a tour of the UK with us.
But then Jerry really came to us and he pointed
out that we weren't exactly being paid for this stuff.
You know, we were just going through the motions with

(01:12:20):
an agent and who also wasn't getting but he was
still on the agent, only getting his temper cent or
whatever it was, and he had a different idea of
way of touring and a way of looking at the business.
And I think that changed things touring wise for us.
And then we became part. I always feel that we
became part of Jerry Wintrobe's movie of his life somehow,

(01:12:45):
because it's larger than life character. Wonderful to be part
of the movie of his life. As far as I'm concerned,
it is absolutely brilliant, and he took us on a
wonderful ride and changed things for us. Okay, the Every
Good Boy deserves favor. There's another hit, Story in the
Eyes written by you once again. So that album. What's

(01:13:08):
the story of the making of that one? Every Good Boy?
How did that happen? Um? I can remember recording story
in your Eyes, because okay, I just remember the guitar
riff and how I done it at home and and
then put the basic acoustic track down with with John

(01:13:31):
and Graham and Mike on tambourine and then put my
three three five on top of it. But honest honestly,
don't remember much about the rest of the album. Um,
you you you must know that I don't. I know.
I you know I say this. I know I was
there in the sixties seventies, But my mind was elsewhere chemically, mystically,

(01:13:56):
and emotionally, So I can't say that I have completely
I have complete recall of some flashbacks of some rather
strange things, but I can't remember certain details. But I'm
giving you. I'm doing my best to give you an overview. Well,
I think you're doing quite a fine job. Then we
have the Seventh Sojourn, which actually has two hits. One

(01:14:19):
Isn't Life Strange? You were one of the singers on that,
but John Lodge wrote that, And I'm just a singer
in a rock and roll band. You've been on quite
a ride at this point, was the band starting to
run a bit on fumes and get tired, or where
things as strong as they'd always been. Um, well, it

(01:14:40):
goes back to this kind of philosophy of life. I
think I'm sorry to bang on about that, but that's
a fact. And then there were people were moving so
up the far apart in the way they live their lives,
and they wanted to have that. I could see that
it was kind of turn running into a mist somehow.

(01:15:02):
There was this sort of fog that had descended, and
sometimes I could see someone through that fog, and sometimes
I couldn't in the in the band metaphorically, I don't
mean literally, but I could see that it was not fragmenting.
But I knew that it wasn't a happy time. It

(01:15:26):
wasn't a happy time. I think we made some I
think Mike did a song I think it was called
Lost in a Lost World that was I thought was
so beautiful. And I had a song called New Horizons
that I know that we would as a group we
would sit and listen to and think, oh, that's nice

(01:15:46):
kind of thing. You know, there was a beauty about it,
and that there was some really nice things, and and
and and it's in life strange, and it was the
way that these things were recorded, and there was this
fog that had descended between us and were that it

(01:16:09):
was you could only reach out to someone occasionally and
and and and pull them in and into focus, and
then I could see it slipping away. Mike didn't want
to do it anymore. I think that was the sort
of point of it. And Tony Clark and I started
to actually record another album after Seventh Sojourn, and there

(01:16:34):
was a phone call from down in the canteen and
Tony and I were in the control room. I was
allowed in the control room by this time, and it's
one of the roadies said here, you know, the other
boys want to see you and Tony downstairs. So I
came downstairs and the other guys were sitting there and
they said, we don't want to continue with this. And

(01:16:57):
I mean, I don't mean the band, it's just didn't
want to continue with being together kind of thing or
doing this, and so we just drifted apart. So it
wasn't that what some asson wasn't a happy time for me.
It was a very kind of sad, melancholy kind of time.

(01:17:17):
So how did you feel in the canteen when they
told you that, Hey, I'm the guy who always had
songs ready to go in the studio, remember, so I
had got stuff kind of ready to do. I was
good and I was surprised. I can't say that I
wasn't surprised, but totally, but for this to be pulled

(01:17:42):
up that that short, I was surprised at that moment.
And yeah, it was kind of shocking. Really. Yeah, And
how do you end up working with John Large on
Blue Jays? Well, I think what what happened was that
we we had a big tour that we were to

(01:18:04):
do and with Jerry Ranchob as well, a world tour,
so we continued to do that. I knew that Mike
was unhappy. It was quite clear. And UM, so we
Mike and I talked about doing something together, and we
talked about it for a few years. Wouldn't it be
nice and like a side project, we do it together?

(01:18:26):
And um. At the end of the Japanese tour, at
the end of Yes, we went to Japan, I flew back.
We might have played in Hawaii, and I came back
to l A with nothing happening. There was nothing in
the diary at all. And I was going around to
say Mike had had remarried and was living How do

(01:18:48):
he remarried? I don't know, but he was maybe not,
but he was married to an American girl and in California.
I think he was over in Studio City, somewhere the
other side of the hill, you know how You know
you got up to Monghowa that far from that right now. No,
it's very nice. You go down into Studio City. There's

(01:19:10):
some really nice stuff done. Mike was living down there
with his wife, and UM, we were talking, just talking
about kind of things, how it would be, you know,
how it would be. And then Mike, I think Mike
at that same time he got another property out out
of l a somewhere a bit more kind of hippie ish,

(01:19:32):
and I was just hanging out with him, and we
were starting to make plans for an album because there
was nothing else happening. The next thing is so the
next thing, I know, John and Tony Clark turned up
and suggested the idea that the four of us should

(01:19:54):
do something. I didn't really want to do that, and
I know Mike called me into the kitchen and he said, listener,
I'm out now. I don't want to do that, and
I thought, okay then and then so I think we
went through like a coffee with me and and John
and Tony Clark, and we thought, well, let's do that instead,

(01:20:17):
you know, let's go let's go home, and and we
did that. No plan, Bob, no plan. These things just happened.
I hear that, and then how does the group get
back together? So we did Blue Jay's That was nice.
Blue guitar was very nice. I'd already recorded that with
tense C the guy. That was a nice. That was

(01:20:37):
a nice time. Then m Wine Show pulled the back
band back together to do a compilation we've never done,
a kind of greatest hits, and Jerry was talking with
the label about the greatest hits. And while he was
discussing this the greatest hits, which we've never done, we'd

(01:20:59):
always go resisted and then um the idea came back.
But I think I think me and John and Ray
we're sitting around just you know, because everybody that the
people in England were still friends, and that where everybody
was still friends. There's no that nothing was said that

(01:21:21):
couldn't be unsaid, Nothing was said that couldn't be unto unsaid.
You know, sometimes things can't be unsaid. But um, so
I think we thought, well, maybe why don't we do it?
Jerry was like, yeah, are you guys? Why don't him again? Now? Now? Yeah,
why did you get back to it? Why don't you
do this album? So we did, We went, we talked

(01:21:46):
about it. Mike didn't want to leave America, so we thought, okay,
well los Angeles just quite nice. So we all pulled
over to Los Angeles and started recording the Octave album
at the record plant in um On, Wilshire. I think
it was. We recorded quite a bit of that. Wasn't

(01:22:06):
a happy sort of time really. Um, some of the
guys rented houses there. I didn't. I was kind of commuting,
which was quite difficult between here in Los Angeles or
this is more the interesting flights used to take much
quick as Los Angeles to London in the seventies. You
know that they used to go faster. He played, you

(01:22:28):
could do it in eight hours. It was fantastic. Takes
you about thirteen now. But so, uh, I'm sorry, Bob.
So yeah, So we were making the album and in
at Mike's studio actually up in Coral Canyon, and then

(01:22:49):
we were there when there were that terrible mud slide.
Do you remember that when the rains came down seventy stuff?
And I think it was that that went on all
the rains. And I'm sorry, but they those big, most
those big cars, and maybe yet l A drivers don't
quite know how to drive in the mud, and they're
not like English people who drive in the mud all
the time. But so there was a lot of cars

(01:23:11):
whizzing around on the Pacific Coast Highway, which was I
was going up there every day, and um, I could
see that this album wasn't really working either. Tony Clark
wasn't There was things happening in his personal life, and
it's such a lovely man, but things were happening changes
in his personal life. Mike clearly didn't want to do it,

(01:23:34):
and so I think there was a moment when it
came apart then during the Octave album. But at least
we had the album The Day We Meet Again and
stuff from that album, and but we that then we
carried on. I think we carried on because the rest
of us wanted to and Mike didn't. Mike stayed there,

(01:23:56):
so the rest of us came home and moved on.
So you talk about eight hours were you taking the
sst the Concorde. I did take the Concorde a couple
of times, but the Concorde wasn't Concorde. It wasn't called
duck Concorde. It was called Concorde. But the Concorde was
was going. Um, I don't believe it ever once in
Los Angeles, I would cut. I took it a few

(01:24:18):
times from Washington or New York and Toronto, and I
once I took it to Dallas. But you could you'd
have fly sub Sonic over America. But no, I was
just doing like a seven oh seven oh seven from
Los Angeles to London. They could do it real quick.

(01:24:39):
They really put the pedal to the metal. What was
it like creating and releasing the moody blues sound when
the world was changing the late seventies we had punk
and disco, Then into the early eighties we have the

(01:25:03):
new wave sound, we have MTV. Did you say this
is what we're doing or did you feel a little
like a fish out of water or do you want
to change the sound? Um? Well, I don't. We were
kind of came through that sort of unscared, I think
because nobody kind of pointed the finger at us and said, hey,

(01:25:25):
it's over you guys, because we'd always gone our own way.
We were never, like I said before, we were never
kind of chasing a hit. We were never really fashionable,
so we couldn't really be out of fashion. We were
just doing troubling our own road and doing our own thing.
And luckily enough, when they when I think it was Deutcha,

(01:25:50):
I think it was not Deutchra Grantville what were they
called before they bought the Deca catalog in or one
Redwood was still there and they were still alive. But um,
there was the record company was refreshed in America and

(01:26:12):
that's when we had a chance to They supported us
going back in the studio in the UK and making
a long distance Voyager. Yeah. And I think that that
album really set us up for the eighties and what
was to come. So do you have a relationship with
Mike Pinder today? Yes, So there was his family. There

(01:26:36):
was no discord over his leaving the band. Not with me, No,
I've always been loving good vibes all around bub you know.
I just I'll make it. I'll make a point of
trying to get my own way by pink pink gentle, persuadediveout. Yeah, sure, Yeah.

(01:27:01):
I saw Mike at the the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame when we were inducted. It's a lovely time.
And what was it like having Ray Thomas and Graham
Age pass Well? Ray had left the group quite a
long time before he died, and so that was his

(01:27:23):
life was kind of separate outside the Moodies anyway, and
he he didn't want want to go on. I knew
he was uncomfortable on the road and in the studio. Um,
so that was that Ray had left it anyway, and
I loved him. Were always had such laughs, you know,

(01:27:44):
there was. That's the thing about the mood is that
I should mention that I started laughing in in August
and I never stopped it. Funny all the way, but
inappropriate and irreverence sometimes but always me so. But but Graham,
Graham's passing really kind of hit me earlier this year. Yeah,

(01:28:08):
because Graham loved the group so much. He was the
center that he was the thing that held the group together. Well,
when Ray had left and there was the core three people,
you continued to tour as the Moody Blues. Uh, there's
no chance you will continue to tour with John Lodge
under that name. I don't I don't know, is the

(01:28:30):
honest answer. Just have to say, I don't know, is it?
Sometimes I don't know is a good answer. Well, sometimes
people are against it, that's the but I have your
answer there. So at this time in your seventies, some
people might say you you talked about wanting to sleep

(01:28:50):
in the morning in your own bed. Um. Some people
might say I don't like my own bed, which bet
it is. OK. That's a musicians just want to stay
in bed anywhere. So what's the what's the motivation to
still go on the road to share the music? You know,

(01:29:13):
I'm a musician man musicians, So I just want to
play music. I want to do a do a gig.
I love that little bit of magic that can happen
in a room as simple as that. You know, the
arc of a musical career is that now today, in

(01:29:34):
today's internet world, specific records don't have the impact either
commercially or in mind share, and audiences are smaller. Therefore,
some people don't even record new music and they're depressed
about it. What do you think about the modern environment
visa via your career, visably my career. I'm not depressed

(01:29:56):
about it. I can. I can still. I could still
pop down to Jenuay and do and do something I don't.
I don't have to employ a great number of musicians
to do it, because I can pretty much do it myself.
But when me and Alberta can do it between us,
I play the stuff and Alberto plays, and you know,

(01:30:20):
we we've got all the tools that we need. I've
got my old I've got my old dear Ex seven,
my Jupiter eight, which is fantastic. I've got my guitars,
I've got a time code, and that's about it, really,
And that's why, you know, we come back to Living
for Love and there's almost nothing on that record, but

(01:30:42):
it's for me. It's just so beautiful. It's so it's
so simple and so beautiful, and so I'm just fine
with how it is. And I really feel for the
young kids with the pressure that they're under now in
this business to try and become a commodity or a
personality and to try and promote yourself in that way.

(01:31:07):
And I think for me, I'm so lucky where it's
just I don't I don't want to be a celebrity.
I never I never was wanted that or anything like that.
I just want to play some some music. And that's
what that's I said at the beginning. My goal is too,

(01:31:27):
I want to be true to my goal of playing
music and recording music and playing live. That's what I want.
How close were you to John Lodge these days? I
think everybody we're all connected that so that the three
of us Might and John and myself are connected by

(01:31:47):
just such a wonderful catalog and legacy of things. So
which is always nice. So I said before that that
not nothing with with Mike or with any with John
or Graham, or nothing was said that couldn't be unset,
which is always very nice. It's not. It's not a

(01:32:09):
brotherhood because I had a brother and I know what
that's like. But it's a being in a group is
a very different dynamic. You were married at a relatively
young age and your marriage sustained, which is not the
case with many music marriages. Who is the key to
having your marriage sustained? I'm away a lot ha, but

(01:32:36):
a being we leave it at that or anymore in sight,
I don't think, so okay. And what about your kids?
What are your kids up to? Um? Well, they have
a lovely life. My daughter lives in West Cornwall, which
is the most beautiful part of England for me. And

(01:32:58):
she's a sacred cranial osteopathists, which is gentle and kind
of manipulation of the spine. It's very beautiful. It it's
um did great things for her or when she had
some problems and so. And I've got a grandson who
is beautiful and fourteen and gets taller every every other week.

(01:33:23):
You know, he's different. And I've gotten. You know, my sister,
I'm very close, and yeah, it's just gotta love. I'm
so it's so wonderful to have so many nice friends
and gentle and not to have a pressure to do
anything outside of that. And yeah, I'm very lucky to

(01:33:45):
have a wonderful crew in a tour with the guitar text.
Steve Chant, my production manager, and I've been together a
long time. And Mike Dawes, the guitar player that I
work with now genius genius young man common Gold on flutes.
And Julie Reagan's who's the most gorgeous as the voice

(01:34:08):
of an angel and is the most brilliant musician I've
ever had the pleasure to be in the company of.
So these are the people that we love. And the
Moody sound was unique, but certainly Jerry Weintraub managed other acts.
Do you have relationships with your contemporaries in the music

(01:34:30):
business who were the Moody sort of a self contained
unit aside from the other acts. Well, if you might
remember that we talked earlier about you were quite interested
about how you get how I got my D twenty
eight because because there was I have a lot of acquaintances.
In the music business. We have acquaintances, don't we. People say, well,

(01:34:52):
do you know somebody. It's like, well, I'm an acquaintance
of this, but I'm not sure that I would say
that I know somebody. So I've got a lot of
acquaintance is in the music, of course, and the music
business is one of those things. If you're a musician,
people you go to events or something like that, and
I'm often asked to, often asked to play turn up

(01:35:12):
and play nights, which people love and you know it's
in their in their hearts, that kind of thing. And
and people but hey, justin that that other artists that
I don't know and I'm not acquainted with. But you
can come up and say hey, justin I say, hey, no,
are you doing love it? And that's the kind of

(01:35:34):
the thing is. That's the wonderful thing about musicians and
the music business. So, yes, I'm familiar with quite a
lot of people. I have a lot of acquaintances. And
are you one of those people who thinks about legacy
and being remembered or you more of the type of
person says I'm doing this now, I'm gonna diet sometime.

(01:35:55):
There's no way afterlife. I live my life. That's it
is that a choice of I've got to be one
of those, got to be either one or the Well. No,
it doesn't have to be a choice. It can be both.
It can be like, Hey, I want to live my
life having a good time, but I want my songs
to live on. I want them to pay dividends from
my family. I want them to bring joy two people,

(01:36:16):
that further generations. What I know is that I'll never
get tired of playing Um the Everly Brothers. I'll never
get tired of playing Buddy Holly. I'll never get tired
of playing Buffalo Springfield or Cliff in the Shadows or
the Beatles, Um or Elvis or a Steely Dan or

(01:36:44):
anything so or Shostakovich or you know, Rene Fleming. I'll
never get tired of it. So that it doesn't the
personal thing about them, I'm not really bound up in.
I'm not really bound up about with them as people.
And I understand that's what music is, that there's there's

(01:37:07):
music there and that will be your It will be
or or not to be. There's nothing I can do
to make that or get worried about that, whether that's
a legacy or not. I'll always love certain pieces of
music and they'll live forever with other people as well

(01:37:27):
because that that that's the way I feel. So I'm
not bound up in thinking about legacy or trying to
make anything happen. There is there a way to make
things happen there now less than ever. But you just
got off of a tour at the end of the summer.
I know you're doing this cruise coming up at the

(01:37:49):
beginning of the year. What are your plans for live
work in the future. Well, I'm offered stuff, that's for sure.
I had had the best tour have ever had in
the UK. So I did three things this year already.
I did the American tour, interrupted by circumstances, but then, um,

(01:38:10):
we had a great tour, very successful and all the
places are asking us back, so that's nice. Um. I
did the War of the World's tour, which was fantastic, holograms,
giant screens, explosions, martians, It's just and forever autumn, which
has been the most wonderful gift to me around the world. Um. So, uh,

(01:38:34):
that I'm offered stuff, and I think I'm going to
say yes. Well, justin I want to thank you so
much for taking the time. I gotta tell you it
was anxious about talking to you because you know, you
hear songs on the radio. Yeah, I know that song
that's iconic. But the Moodies are a thing unto itself,
you know, and it's uh, it's got a special aura,

(01:38:56):
certainly for me and I know for others. So want
to thank you for talking to me from you know,
the Cote de Sur and however you pronounce it. My
French is not good, So thanks again. Justin You're welcome
until next time. This is Bob left sets h