Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Justin Hayward

Transcript

Justin Hayward · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Justin so good to have you on the podcast. Thank you,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: my my pleasure. I believe. Okay, you have a new single,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Living for Love. Tell me how that came to be?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: While I sit down and play the guitar, you know,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and these things jump out of the guitar. I've got
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a beautiful um Gibson J two hundred and I sat
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: down one night and in January this year, and the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: song just popped out. So I had eight percent of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: it within a few minutes. And then I woke up
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the next morning played it again and I thought, oh,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: this is really nice, so I I finished the rest
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and then I went down to um the studio that
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I use in Genoa, which is not far from here,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and recorded it and I really love it, you know,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I'm still I'm still loving it now. And he released
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: it to two weeks ago. But I've been doing it
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: on stage on the UK tour and I'm thinking when
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: when I do the gig and I think, um, well,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I wonder if I still like it after singing it
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: every night? And then I came back and put it
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: on and I thought, oh, it's great. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: That's how it happens. You know what you're asking me?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: How do these How is it? How? I don't know.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Just I just plick up a plectrum in the guitar
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and these things. I'm a songwriter. This happens. Okay, let's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: talk about a few things. You talk about your J
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: two hundred. Are you a gearhead? Do you have a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: lot of guitars, recording equipment? I have some nice things. Yeah,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I'm discrim anating, so I don't have a lot of stuff. Yeah,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I have a lovely Martin D twenty eight that I've
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: had since the sixties. And that's an interesting story how
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I got that guitar. But that's another thing. Tell me
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the story of how you get the dw Okay, so
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: do you you know d Martin Dwight? Absolutely, absolutely right.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: So it's a nineteen fifty seven Dwight. And when in
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the sixties, there used to be when we first went
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: to America, there used to be maybe five or six
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: bands on the on the bill, and we were never
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: top of the bill. But one day we got to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: be headlining but in the early years we weren't. So
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you get five or six bands and even a light shows,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: kind of psychedelic light show on the bill. And there
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: was at that time these young uh lads, I have
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: to say then because they were boys. Yes, they were boys.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: So boys who used to travel around America and look
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: for really beautiful guitars because you could do that then
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: in the sixties they hadn't been found or they were
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: in it's a hard work for British people to say,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: but pawn shops p A w N or people's homes
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: or little music shops tucked away in places, and these
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: boys would know these guitars, how beautiful they were, and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: they only chose really the best ones. And when we
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: would come off stage, each there's only one guitar in
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the movie Blues, that's me, but some some groups would
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: have two or three guitar players. And when you walked
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: off stage at these gigs, you were just about to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: be paid, and you'd walk past about six beautiful guitars
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that these boys had in the van and they'd line
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: them up as you came off stage on your way
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to the dressing room or whatever they call the a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: synch room, you know in those days, and you and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I looked at some I looked at this D twenty
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, that that is really looks so sweet,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: you know, And I picked it up and it was
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the nicest acoustic guitar I've ever played, and it still
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is to this day. So that's how I came by
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: a few of these guitars in the sixties. That's how
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: it used to happen. But that's how that one happened. Okay,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: when it comes to guitar, certainly D is the acoustic standard,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: but certainly with Gibson's, everyone even of the same model,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: will sound different. Have you found that with your guitars? Absolutely?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: But um I met the guys who made my my
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: three three five, My red Gibson three three five was
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: made in three I had. I actually had a three
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: three five brand new in sixty three, but I couldn't
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: afford to keep it then in the Moody Is. I've
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: been in the Moodies for about a year and I
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: had enough money to put a deposit down on another
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: three through five. So I found the prep my present
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: three three five, And when I was able to go
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: to the US and visit Kalamazoo in Michigan. I just
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: turned up and they were like, hey, just earned you know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: pictures of your three three five and that the serial number.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And I met the guys who made it, and they said,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we because we've seen your guitar in pictures on on
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: on video on the TV and kind of stuff like that,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: we know your guitar and we will remember it because
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: there wasn't that we remember those kind of things. It
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: has a big bag Factsbury factory, Bigsby, and two pieces
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of mother of pearl where the stop to help us were.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: So they remembered it. And they said that the next
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: one on the line didn't have what mine had. They
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: knew that that when they take them off the line,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: they know that one's nice and one's like, you know,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: one was fabulous, and one's like, oh, doesn't quite come together.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So that's that's the way instruments are, isn't it okay?
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: In terms of electrics, you have the three thirty five,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that semi hollow body. Do you have any other electrics
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that you favor. I've got my telecaster from That's that's
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: what I bought when I first joined the mood is
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: sixty five and then I've got a Tom Anderson that
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: is beautiful. I've got a Parker that is really uh
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: really good for recording. How you plug it straight in
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: direct into the desk, got beautiful sound. That's about it. Okay,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you said you're in Genuay. Know you cut the record
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in Italy. Are you living full time in Genoa? And
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: why Genoa? I'm not living in general. No, I'm down
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the road. Okay, you're you're living. You go to Genoa
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to record, You're living in Italy? What inspired you to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: live in Italy? No, I don't live in Italy. I
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: live just across the border, across the French border. Well,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: let me ask you a different way, what inspired you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: to live in that area as opposed to the UK.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I had a holiday home in this part of the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: world in the eighties and I was coming back here
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and then I got to know musicians along the Coat Dessore,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: along the Riviera coast from sort of Marseille through to
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: live Orno in Italy, and there was a lot of
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: English musicians in the eighties and early nineties who were
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: playing with Italian rock stars or French rock stars who
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: all wanted English kind of guitar players and musicians because
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: English players got rock and roll, and I'm not sure
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that the Italians and the French did. But anyway, the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Italian the French artists wanted really English guitar players because
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: they had a different kind of background cultural background. I
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: think English with rock and roll music, with the three
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: chords and um So I met a lot of people
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: musicians along this coast recording and they became really friends, families,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and and I became part of that group and community,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: and that led me to Italy and to record there.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I can't I can't say I can actually afford to
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: go and record in London because it's like joke, money,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: but where do you live? I live in Los Angeles,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And we could talk about today's economic world and what's
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: going on in the UK, but uh, let's let's stay
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: with the money. You know you, so, could you could
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: you afford to go and rent a studio in l A? Now?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I will tell you. I will tell you like a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: week l A. Since it's a hot bed of the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: music industry and universal music is located here. There are
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: many home studios, and the home studios are so good
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: that the only reason someone goes to a big studio
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: is to cut basics to get a certain drums sound
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: or something. So many times you can go to a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: big studio for a day or two, and except for
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: a couple of elite studios, the prices have actually gone down.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: So as far as the old days, you know, locking
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: out a studio for six weeks, Um, nobody does that anymore.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So could someone afford the thousand dollars to dollars to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: record one or two day is in a big studio
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: if they are a major label artist, yes, if they're
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: in putting out their records independently, they will do their
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: best not to do that, but maybe one day. But
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that begs a question of money. You had great success
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: fifty years ago in a band with multiple members when
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the royalties were low, So how is your financial situation today?
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Which multiple members? What does that members? No? No? When
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: you have the songwriting in your group, uh, there were
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: different people who wrote different songs, some acts the same
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: person wrote all ten songs. As we know, most of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the money is in the songwriting unless you have an
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: overall deal where you mix the recording revenue in the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: publishing will pay for a minute once. Some people own it.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Some people don't own it. Some people sold it. Record
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: royalties are lower. They have to split five ways. Uh,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: when you go on the road, the money has to
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: be split. So it's different from being a solo artist
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: who owns all the songs. Never Mind, fifty years ago
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: royalty rates were lower. And your question is, well, now
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: that it's fifty years later, how good is the income
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: stream from the moodies I'm doing Okay. I've spent my
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: life on the road as well. Okay, I'm going I'm
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: doing all right. Thanks, okay, and you I could I
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: could afford, I could afford to speak to you about. Okay,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And do you still own your own publishing? Um? I
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: own the I never did own the copyrights of my
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: early material and who who did own it? I own
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a ship up the copyrights? Um the t R oh
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: okay and but the the So you're still getting the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: song writing for writing the songs. Some people sell those
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: royalty streams. Do you still own yours? I'm doing okay, okay,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: So let's go looking good. Thanks, Okay. Let's go back
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to the song. You talked about your seeing the guitar
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you come up with the sound. Is that normally how
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: you write on inspiration? Or is it sometimes a more
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: labored process. UM, well, that that's a good question. I'm
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: not sure that I I, Um, you know, if we
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: if song writes us sat around and waited for inspiration,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I think we're working a long time. I find that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I if I put my mind to it, if I
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: if I decided to sit down, if I decided to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: write a song, and I can, I can do it. Now.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: There was much more pressure in the early days of
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the band because with the first with the albums of
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the mood Is, there was always there was always the
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: thing where, oh, Justin will have something because he always
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: had stuff ready. You know, I'm the son of two teachers,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and I always had my stuff ready, so I would
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: never studio time was really precious to me. So if
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: there was a studio, if there was a session happening
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: on the Saturday, on the Friday night, I would have
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: something and be ready to go. And the other and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that was great. The others knew that, oh, Justin will
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: have something, and so we could kick. I could kick
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the ball down the pitch and that was that was great.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: But there was a lot of pressure to do that
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: because the records kept coming, so I had to just
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: move on quickly from one to the other. Now I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: have more time about it because I can. I'm still
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: um can I put it. I'm still want to be
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: true to my goal goals of making music and earned
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: playing music live, so I can. I can take my
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: time over that. I'm offered a lot of work on
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the road, which most of it I say, Yeah, that's great,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: and I can be choose what I do and when
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I write it and do it as a pleasure not
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: as a pressure. Okay, you talked about seeing the G
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: two hundred picking it up when you were not on
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the road. Do you play the guitar every day? And
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: how often do you just pick it up and get inspired? Ah?
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: You see? You you keep using this word inspired. You know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: if we, like I said, we sat around waiting to
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: be inspired, we you wouldn't do much. So what maybe
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: you would, but you know, just looking at looking out
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the window waiting for somebody, or we're looking for a
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: girl to come by, and oh that's nice. But I
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: find it's you have to put your mind to it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I can't. I can't remember what you're saying about the guitars.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: What do you say about that? Well, I I guess.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I guess it sounded like with the new song that
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you were just drumming and something keen to you. Ah,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that's how it usually works. I enjoy playing so that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: stuff just comes stuff just comes out. And in this
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: particular song, you've talked about it being optimistic, harkening back
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to an era there was more optimistic. Is that true?
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Can you amplify that? Um? I think I was lucky
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: enough to be in a generation that didn't have the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: weight of constant news bombarding them because there wasn't took
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: place to uh you know, I hardly listened to the radio,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: but me and my brother used to listen to Radio
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Luxembourg and we had about three or four records, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: my brother's friend had three or four and my friend
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and then you could have a whole nights entertainment with
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: about world records. But I come from a time when
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the music was particularly wonderful. Now music is great today.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I would there are kids out there falling in love
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: right now to the music that's just being made at
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: this moment, and they'll remember that all their lives. And
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it was a time for me when I knew that
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I could get a job. I was in a loving
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: family with my brother and my sister, and it was
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: a time of optimism under under and a commitment that
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you that another war like my parents had gone through
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: would never happen again. So it was a safe, secure,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: optimistic world. And in that world there was wonderful music.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: That was our lives and we were living for love.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I was living for love and girls and boys around us,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and I had I had a wonderful school, and I
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: lived not in luxury, but I lived in the English countryside,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: which is the most beautiful. And you know, you've only
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: realized these things later, don't you, Bob, buttely I realized that.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: So it was. It was. It was really good, you know,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: it was kind of funny. I was laughing all the time,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and I was living for love and that's it. And
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: if if we were able to do that now, I
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: think the world would be a better place. I'm full
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: bringing love back. That's what I'm for, not against anything.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I'm just for stuff. Okay, what did your parents do
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: for a living in the country side that they were Well,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: we lived in Swindon, which is set in the west
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: country of England. It's in the veil of the White Horse.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: My parents both taught in different schools. My father talked
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in quite a rough school. He taught when when I
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: was a small boy, he taught Latin. It was just
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: but he taught Latin, English and what was quaintly called
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: divinity in those days. And my mother taught domestic science,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: and she taught in a girls school. My father taught
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: in a boys school. My mother's taught in a girls school.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to pass the eleven pross along
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: with my brother the same, and we went to what
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: was known as a grammar school. If you passed this
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: exam when you were eleven, you went to a better
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: last of school. It was a state exam. It wasn't
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you didn't have to pay anything for it. But that's
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the way it was then. And my brother and I
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: went to a beautiful school. Yeah, but my parent, like
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I said, my parents English, English, literature, grammar, um, Latin
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: disappeared after you know in the but then my mother
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: domestic science. And you reference your brother and your sister.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Where are you in the family, oldest, middle, youngest, Well,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: my brother died young, but he was in the Royal
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Navy and um, so we lost him. He was only
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: forty one when he passed. But I'm the second son,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and my sister is quite a few years younger than me,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: eight or nine years younger than me. And what kind
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: of kid were you growing up? Were you the type
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: who played sports and had a lot of friends? Were
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: you more introvert? Did? Maybe every child is introverted? Um? Um?
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: What was like? I don't know. I always had a
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: lot of friends, always had a lot of fun laughs.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Um fALS a lot with my brother of course, you know.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: And that's the way brothers are, um, jumping on each
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: other and trying to get the better of each other.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: My brothers only was only about eighteen months older than me,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: so we were kind of the same. So we were
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: punching each other all the time. Um. But I don't
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: know what child, or what kind of childer was really,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But I know that I loved music. I come from
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a family with a very strong faith, and so I
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: loved the music of the English hymnal or hymn's ancient
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and modern? Was was was a hymn book in the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: anger look in church, and I love those. We used
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to sing them in in assembly every morning. Every morning
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: in school you'd have an assembly and you'd sing those
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and sing them at church, and I got to know them,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and I love those melodies and the things in Him's
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: ancient modern so that it's only about four or five,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and I can one of my earliest memories as loving
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: this music and these and under hymns. So that's that's
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: what I grew up with. At what point did you
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: start playing a musical instrument? Oh? I My parents knew
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: that I love music, so they sent me for like
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: one or two piano lessons. I knew that wasn't gonna work.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get the mathematics. I was never good at mathematics,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: but so I couldn't get the mathematics of music is
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: beyond me or just to differ us too lazy. But
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I could kind of play. My grandfather had a piano.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Most houses after the war had a piano. They were
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: subsidized form with the purpose of making us do home entertainment,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you know. I think that was the post war government idea,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and it was a good idea. So most families would
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have a piano that costs very very little, and my
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: grandfather would very kindly just say I go in the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: front room and bash on the piano. You know, I
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: don't care, so I was able to do that. But
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I knew that I wanted a guitar, so I pested
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and pested my parents when I was about eight, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: they didn't buy me a guitar. They bought me a
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: ukulele that didn't cost very much, so I could plain
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the uk I knew. I'd played the ukulele straight off.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: It's kind of easy, ding ding ding ding. I don't
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: know whether you're a player, but that's so extitute, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the spacing is the same as the top four strings
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of a guitar. So it's like, yeah, okay, complay that.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to pester you some more for a guitar.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So I got a guitar when I was ten, and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: then I was forming groups. Okay, what error was that?
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: In popular music? What was on the radio when you
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: were forming groups? Buddy Holly? Well, in fact, but Buddy
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: died what fifty nine February fifty nine. But in England
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and in Great Britain, it's hard to explain how it's hard.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: It's hard to convey how big Buddy what what a
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: huge artist Buddy Holly was and a huge influence to people.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So Buddy Holly Everly Brothers, thank goodness. And in Great
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Britain we had Cliff in the Shadows, who I love
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: then and I love them now today. And then of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: course everything changed. But I was in nineteen sixty three
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and I was in London in six four. I was
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: a professional musician then, because um, I got a job
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: when I was about seventeen playing guitar for a rock
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and roll singer. But yeah, so Buddy Holly, the evil is.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I was never an Elvis guy, you know. I my
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: girlfriends always loved Elvis, but it was Buddy for me
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: all the way. And a lot of English rock and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: roll heroes as well. So needles say in the US,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: when the Beatles broke really in January sixty four, it
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: changed everything. I could delineate the ways, but I won't.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: They broke earlier sixty two in the UK. To what
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: degree did the Beatles change the game? And what were
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you inspired? Were you a fan? You use that word again?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Don't be inspired, don't you, Bob? You want the secret
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to of how to be inspired? No, there are no secrets. Actually,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I think you can only open your mind, take a shower,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: go out and exercise the inspiration might happen, but if
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you try and a trick inspirit, inspiration can't do it.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, okay, So the Beatles. I remember in my
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: hometown of Swindon hearing Love Me Do on the radio
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and I walked out of my house in Swindon and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I remember this as clear as anything. I walked down
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the street after hearing Loved Me Do and know and
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I knew my life was going to be different. You anybody,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: any kid of that era, particularly a little herbit like
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: me playing guitar, would know that something has happened, something
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: has changed in the in the way the Beatles made
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that record, and it was monumental, you know, that's yeah,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: And I wasn't disappointed that there's a strange thing. Also,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I remember that just after Love Me Do, there was
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a guy on the radio. It's quite a nice old gentleman,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: but he was like in charge of what people thought
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: about music, was on the BBC and he was on
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: lots of programs. It all was wheeling in when they
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: wanted to know something about music or discussed music or
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: anything like that. And so after we'd as young people,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: we discovered the Beatles and they discovered us I saw
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: this man on the on the on the television my
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: girlfriend's house, and he and he was saying, my this,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: you know, like the Beatles that will never last, you know,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I give them like a few weeks, didn't at this
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: time next year, they'll be gone. And I remember thinking,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you are so you are, so you're just your your
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that's it. There's no point in listening to you anymore
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: because we all knew different and so what I We
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: didn't need to tell us what we were listening to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: because it was so obvious. It was just brilliant. Your
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: parents were educators. How did you they feel about your
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: becoming a professional musician as opposed to going to university. Well,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: my parents were very enlightened people, almost maybe you'd say
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: New age kind of people, and very very enlightened, and
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: they were there. The idea was that we should do
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: what we wanted to do. And they, of course, because
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: they were teachers, they wanted all of us to get
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: our school qualifications, so which they were called O levels
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: jen Certificates of education under Grammar School. So as long
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: as I got my five O levels, they were they
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: were good with what I wanted to do. I got
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: my phile velos and so you can do what you want.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I worked in an office for about three months, but
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I was answering ads in the Melody Maker all the time.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: That's how I got my first Jake gig And who
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: was there with and how did you work your way
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: to Marty Wilde. Well, I was always playing in groups
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: in Swindon ever since I was, like I said, about
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: ten or eleven years old, because there were lots of
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: groups at school. Swindon is a very lively music scene
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: still is to this day, very vibrant and lots of
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: good places to play. And so yeah, so I answered
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: an ad. I was answering ads in the melody Maker
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: for jobs. I used to have a job sex and
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: situations vacant and so I am fired off a lot
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: of replies to had very rarely got any replies. Some
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: of them were from the military, because that you didn't
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: know that they were going to be from the military. Well,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: welcome to the fourth Battalion, the fierce alerts. I would
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: like to come up and but sometimes, but this one
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: time I got a reply. I think I think the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: thing it said named artists seeks guitar player. And I
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: answered it and I got I gotta reply and I
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: went up to a house. I went up on the
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: train to a house in East London, nice part of
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: East London called black Heath, and Maulti Wilde opened the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: door and it was like, whoa, that's Mattie. Why I
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: knew who it was and I did a little audition
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and I got the job. That was it. How long
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: did you work from Marty? And were you content or
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: were you saying, well, I'm doing this now, but there's
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: something bigger for me personally, every teenager he thinks, even
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the moody blues, I think you're every young person thinks
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I'm doing this now, but maybe there's something else. I
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: still do it now. I think I'm doing this now
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: with Bob. Maybe there's something else though, you know, maybe
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: this is going to lead to something that's facetious. I
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: don't mean that, but there's always something. But in truth,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I learned so much from Marty. He was my hero
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: and he still is my hero to this day, and
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: he taught me some valuable things. Really, he was writing
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: his own material and he really said that surviving this business,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: you have to create an identity, and that means writing
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: your own material. Just cover versions is never going to
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: do it for you, And so I started writing right then.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: But I knew also that Marty and Joyce because we
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: were like a little trio and Mary, Marty's wife. Joyce
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: has a gorgeous voice. She was one of a group
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: of girl called the Vernon Girls Vernon's Girls in Liverpool
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that some English people would know about and remember fondly.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: And but they didn't need me. They didn't need me.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And so I started writing and kind of saw myself
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: as a bit of a songwriter, and I thought, oh,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm going to be. That's I've got a
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: lot of songs, you know, here make make demos and stuff.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And that's also how I got to the Moody Blues
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: with my own songs, my own demos. Can you tell
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: us about how you switch from Marty to the Moody Blues, Well,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I did. I did nothing for you for quite for
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: a few months, you know, and that I wasn't sure
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: what kind of thing that I was wanted to do, really,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: so I did a few folk clubs and things. I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: had a nice twelve string acoustic guitar and um I
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: sent off to another advertisement, and the many maker situations vacant,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and it was for because I knew somebody in Eric
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Burdon's office and he was looking for another guitar player,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and I thought, maybe, you know, it's like Eric's life
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: is changing. I'll send him some of my songs. So
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I sent him up my demos. I never heard anything
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: from Eric except about three years later when he said, hey, Justin,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: and I said, your stuff to like. But he gave
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: my stuff to like Pinder of the Moody Blues and
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: that it uh yeah, and it might liked it. And Mike,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Mike called me one day and and I came up
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: to London, met Mike and with we thought great, Mike
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: wants to write it, wants to move the Moodies into
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: a different kind of space, away from cover versions, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: it seemed like a good fit. And none of us
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: had anything. In fact, I had more than anybody else
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: because I had an amplifier out of Fox, a C
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: thirty amplifier, so I was well ahead. You know. Okay,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the Moodies had had a hit with Denny Lane, who
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: had left the group, and you're saying when he left,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: they still to what situation were they in and were
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you worried about joining a sinking ship. Oh, that's the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that's a that's rather horrid. Say that again, I was
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: was I worried about joining a sinking ship? Well, you know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: this is when you have a career as a musician,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: unlike being a businessperson. You get one shot. Okay, so
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: people are always evaluating opportunities. So I wasn't there. You're
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: the only person who was there. In the back of
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: your mind, you might have said, well, these guys had
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a hit under this name, maybe there's not as big
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: a future as something else. Or did he just feel
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: right and said, okay, I'm gonna play this out. Oh
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I wish there was a plan to everything. I wish
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I could give give you. I wish I could tell
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: you there was a plan to the whole thing. There wasn't.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Nobody had anything. Denny had left. Yes, the group was
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: put together by a group of money men who put
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: people from different groups together around Denny Cordell, who had
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: this the song Go Now, which was a wonderful song
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: by Bertie Banks sung by Bessie Banks, actually the original record,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: and everybody knew it was great, and the Denny it
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: had gone up and down, and then Denny left and
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Clint Warwick left the original bass player as well left
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: the group, and they were both I think they were
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: both actually good at rhythm and blues. Those rhythm and
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: blues kind of covered Redelli had the perfect voice for that.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Like I said before, Mike wanted to just change things
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and move forward, and I think Graham did as well
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: in the band. And um, that's why you know, to
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: come back to your your idea of of why it
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: would Nobody had anything, Like I said, I had a box,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: a c thamp, So what what's the point of It's like,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: having a philosophy of life doesn't really matter when you're
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: just in a van looking to earn the price of
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: gas at a a doing a gig. You can have
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: all the philosophy and about life and what you want
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to be and as much as you like, but you're
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: just sitting in a van and you're allowed to have
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: as many opinions as you want. It only matters later
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: when you've kind of got stuff. So, um, you know what,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: there was a whole lot of nothing for us, for
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: all of us, So I don't think there was any
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: ship to kind of sync in that way. What we
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: did have was was an agent but but there's some
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: some truth in what you say or you remind me
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: now really, because there was a promoter that was going
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to give us like half a dozen gigs or something.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: So so that was good. Okay, you're with the band,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: they record one of your songs, you have a mild hit,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: and then you start doing Days of Future Past. Uh,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of history written. What is the truth
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: about how that album came together? Well? It maybe it
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: depends who you are and what you know. Everybody has
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a different perspective. I'm sure the people behind your curtains there,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: if you open the curtains and there was something happened outside,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a few other people from looking from different houses would
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: have a different idea of what happened. But I can
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: tell you what I what happened to me and what
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: what happened around me was that um there was We
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: actually had a debt to Decca, and Decca were a
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: wonderful recording company run by elderly gentlemen and with the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: second largest classical catalog in the world. Uh, Josha Gramophone
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: had the biggest, but Decca, as you probably know, still
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: to this day, has a magnificent classical catalog and they
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: also made radar systems, and they had a consumer division,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and we'd made a couple of records for them, and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: um Gus Studgeon actually was engineer on Flymy High, which
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I think was the song you referenced before, but but
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: um that was the one that only but we recorded
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: quite a few songs before Days of Future Past, but
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: nobody kind of noticed. But and then Tony Clark was
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: assigned to us as a man called Tony Clark record producer,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: as a in house producer for Decca, and they kind
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: of had a call on us because we owed them
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: some money that we had a debt to them, and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: they approached us a lovely man called Hu Mendel, one
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: of the eedulderly gentleman, elegant, olderly gentleman at Decca, and
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: proposed that we would make a demonstration record to demonstrate
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: that stereo could be as interesting for rock and roll
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: as classical music. Because, like I said, they had the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: biggest classical catalog, second biggest classical catalog, and they had
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: a consumer division, which meant that they had record, um
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the radiograms and stuff, and they were trying
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to sell stereo units and they wanted that they had
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: quite a lot of rock and roll up well they
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: have the Stones actually, you know, and some other really nice,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: nice um pop and rock acts and they had us,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: so they they Humental proposed this idea of making a
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: demonstration record to demonstrate stereo could be as interesting for
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: rock and roll as it was for classical music, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: then they assigned so we said yes, yeah, sure, and
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: we'd already started righting. Nights was already actually already recorded,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: and we recorded Nights in White Satin for the BBC
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: about six months before it was ever recorded for Days
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: in Future part. But we were doing a stage show
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: that included some of these songs. There was a song
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: called Another Morning that we were doing one of rays songs,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: and a song called Dawn is a Feeling that Mike
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: asked me to sing and I loved It's such a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: lovely song. And we were doing this stuff on stage,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and then he met that they assigned another independent product
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: man called Michael, Michael Dacobarti, who is a lovely man,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: very posh, public school and m he really had this
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: idea of trying to make it some kind of concept
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: on the concept that they proposed was that we should
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: make a kind of rock version of Divor Jack two
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: juxtaposition against the real Divor Jack. And they already had
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Peter Knight, one of the greatest romantic string arrangers in
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the world, under contract to them. They thought Peter Knight
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: could could do it if we could do some rock
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: versions of stuff from the New World Symphony, and then
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Peter Knight would play the New World Symphony and we'd
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: see that almost rock and roll. It's quite nice in
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: stereo going to Classgow and Peter Knight came to see
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: us at the one hundred Club in Oxford Street before
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: this project was started, and I remember him saying, I
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: don't think you boys are ever gonna get the rock
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: version of Divor Jack together, but your stuff is great.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: What about if we did it the other way around?
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: And Hu Mentel and Michael Jacob Barclay kind of went
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: along with this idea. And it was a sort of
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: secret from the chairman and the board at Decca because
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: they were expecting a rock version of Divor Jack. But
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: there was Hu Mendel and Michael Dacob Barclay saying that
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: we could have a couple of days studio time to
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: put our stuff down and Peter Knight would sketch out
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: orchestral arrangements based on our themes, and that's what we did.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: We recorded our songs, about ten songs, you know, in
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: a in a day or so a couple of days.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: And then at the in the weekend in the studio,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Peter Knight came in with the orchestra that didn't have
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: a name. I think somebody in our band thought up
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: the name the Festival Orchestra because it sounded good. There
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: isn't a festival orchestra. It just sounds nice, but you
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: know how that goes, that kind of stuff, and that's
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: they recorded the themes of Days of Future Past. He
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: did all his bits. I was the only one that
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: came to the studio. I wasn't allowed in the control
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: room because these were the days when you weren't invited
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: into the control room. The engineer had a white lab coat,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the tape operator had a brown lapcoat. A decker in
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: sixty seven, and they played it back. They mixed it
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: all together, segue between our bits and the orchestra bits,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: and they played it back to us. They invited us
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: around to the studio and then not into the control
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: room but down on the studio floor. They played it
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: back on a couple of big Tannoi speakers and we thought, oh,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: that's great. Nice, it's good stereo demonstration record. Nobody will
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: ever hear it, but it's cutting a nice And that
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: was that. And then Nights in White Satin came out
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: to a lot of resistance because a lot of people
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: didn't want to. We didn't know, We didn't. I can't
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: say that we were fully it was anything to do
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: with us. We didn't have any power or any influence.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: It's just these things happened, and Nights came out, and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: there was another interesting thing that happened. Can I ramble
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: on a bit more? Absolutely? Okay, So so night that,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: so Days of Future Pass came out, I think it
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: was November eventually came out, and Nights had come out.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Some people just in the in the promo department story.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: You'll never there was a lot of resistance to it.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: It wasn't our idea, but Nights out. It was just
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I think it was Hu Mental who one of the
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: lovely gentle gentlemen from Decca who really believed in it.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: But of course the pluggers all said, oh, it's four
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: minutes long. It's like slow, no, you never get it
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: on the radio, and they were right, we didn't, but
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: we came. There was a song festival down in the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: south of France and Can called mead him. And it
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: was in the days when song first was used to
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: actually play something. It used to have artists on and
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: it was about songs, and then now it's about doing business,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: you know, with stuff around the world. And we went
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: down to Medham in January and we we were part
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: of the live show and the Supremes were due to
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: fly in and play live. Now there was union rules
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: that you could only go on TV if you played live,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: not miming. Now everybody else except us and long John
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Baudrey were miming. We were actually playing live. The Supremes
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: didn't turn up, their flight was late. They didn't turn
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: up in time to do the live Eurovision thing on
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: for medium across Europe. We went on, played a couple
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of songs and played nights. The next day in France,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: it was like whoa, what what's happened? Set Extra and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Moody Blues. That does take you know, and suddenly that
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: this whole the journey was born with Knights in White
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Satin was remarkable. Star did here in France. In America,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: the first go round. Tuesday Afternoon was bigger. Tuesday Afternoon
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: was a hit. How did you write both Tuesday Afternoon
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: in Knights and White, Sam, How did I write them? Yes? Well,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: tues Tuesday Afternoon was put out as a single by
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: London Records in UM in the US because clearly, like
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the rest of the promo people, they didn't think nights
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: at any legs at all. So but Tuesday Afternoon kind
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: of too and a half minutes bang, you know it's over.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: And so Tuesday Afternoon UM once Humanel and Michael Jacob
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Barclay Graham our drama and all of us in the
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: group had had decided on this conspiracy of of doing
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: our own stuff and Peter Night and and I thought,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: you know, we knew it was going to be like
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: the story of a day in the life of one guy.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: And so I, I said, a couple of days before
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: this session, I'm I bags the afternoon. Ray had the morning,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: John had lunch time, Mike had dawn you know, a sunset,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and I had nights. It just all seemed to kind
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: of fit together, you know, Hang on a minute, you've
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: got I we've been doing Dawn and we've been doing
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: ray Song another morning owned I've got nights. It's it's
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: like a perfect kind of thing. So I said, I
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: want the afternoon. Just a couple of days before we
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: read So I just went down to my parents place
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: in Wiltshire. I got my roles string guitar, but my
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: guitar out and quite difficult to play that or rolls
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: string and stating a stat in a field smoked to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: join and them Tuesday afternoon. Apologies to the the the police.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: It's a bit like busting me sixty years. Absolutely. Yeah.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: So Days the Future Past is an interesting album. It
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: became more successful. It's time went on the records became
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: hits on the chart once again. What was the thought
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: now that the album was done, was if you'd as
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: this success in the band and what was the inspiration?
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: How did you decide to move forward in search of
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: the lost court. Well that's assuming that we could. But
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: we were had enough influence to move these things forward,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: but we were uh, like I said before, we didn't
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: have anything. So it wasn't We'd like to have done
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of things, but there was no plan. But
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I think that Decca had seen that Days of Future passed.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: There was something there. Humantal was loved it forever. You know,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I loved him as a as a as a man,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: as an elderly man, and he'll be in my memory
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: as the sweetest person that I ever knew from that period.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: And he stuck with it. He stuck with it against
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the board of Decca, and it started to be picked
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: up by FM radio in America Days of Future past,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: and particularly of course Tuesday afternoon and nights and another
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: morning and all of these kind of things, and they
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: started to get on the radio. FM radio was needed
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: things that were recorded well in stereo. That sadly Abbey Road,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: the studio just down the road from Broaderst Gardens where
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: the Decca studio was, we're recording things and I've got
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: no idea why George Martin let this go. But you
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: had drums on the left, vocals on the right. It
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: was not that kind of stereo, whereas everything at Decca
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: was done in a kind of cinematic stereo spread which
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: just sounded beautiful. When FM radio came along, and drums
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: on the left, vocals on the right didn't sound that great.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: It's good in mona hoo, but not in stereo. So
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: it just started to break. And then London Records were
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: telling the elderly gentleman in England, you know, there's something
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: happening here. And then they asked us to go back
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: in the studio and you know, well do whatever you want,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: just give us some more songs. Kind of thing. That
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: was Decca's attitude. And the chairman of Decca came to
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: visit us, I think on about our third or fourth
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: album and he came down and you never came to
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: the studio. He just was in this lovely office on
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: the albert Embankment in London. But he came to the
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: student you know, and all the staff were like, whoa,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: it's Sir Edward Lewis and he and he came into
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: us stoned Herberts studying lying around in the studio and
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: he said, I don't know what you boys are doing,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: but people seem to love it, so just carry on.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: And we we had we had studio time, which was
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: like a gold treasure. And so to what degree was
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: the melotron a leap forward for the band, because certainly
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: the melotron was used on Strawberry fields forever, but the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Moody Blues were seen as the biggest users of the melotron.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Well that's uh, thank well, thank you for that. Because
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: it's an interest, it's it enables me to point out
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: that Mike Pinder actually worked for the company Melotronics, that
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: had invented this instrument called the melotron. The melotron was
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: really a sound effects instrument, really made for radio, so
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: it had it was made up of sound. You pressed
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the key and there was the sound of a sort
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: of a cockerel in the morning, and a train rushing
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: through a tunnel, and springs going wing and dogs barking,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: and that was of what the melotron and was about.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: But there was um a little bits of it that
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: were kind of orchestral strings and a kind of organy
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: and if you Mike decided that he was we we
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: went up to this place club in the Midlands, he
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: and I and somebody else in the band, I don't
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: know who it was, and we bought this old melotron
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: that they had stuck in a corner for about twenty pounds.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: When we brought it back to London, Mike fiddled with
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it and he duplicated all the parts that sounded orchestral,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: so there was a double manual and then he could
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: roll his fingers over the melotron and it gave this
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: orchestral sound. And to get back to your point, and
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: sorry for rambling, but the it made my songs work
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the that orchestral sound instead of vox continental organ or
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: piano or something like that. This, the meltron sound made
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: the songs work. That and the voices and the Decca
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: echoes that they had at the time echo chambers were
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: made it work okay. On the album In Search of
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: the Loss Chord, you had had the two most successful
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: tracks on these of Future Past, but you didn't have
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: the majority of tracks by a long shot on In
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Search of the Lost Card? Was that just democracy? Were
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: you happy about that? What went on there? I don't
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: think I was just democracy. You know, we had a
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: couple of songs each everybody had their go and that
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: was That's what it was like in a group. You know,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: it's um. Everybody has the same kind of say. Everybody's
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: voice is just as valid as as somebody else's. I
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: wish Mike could had been given more because he was
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: just a superb writer and a great guitar player as
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: well as a good keyboard player. But that that was
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: just that's only in hindsight. Now, Okay, the world was
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: shifting and the moody Blues were part of it. We're
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: on a couple of these next albums. There was not
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: some big hit like Tuesday Afternoon, but the albums were
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: embraced strongly. What was the view like from within the band? Well,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think we were ever looking to have a
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: hit single. I think I might have been after Nights
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: and we recorded a couple of things, but they weren't
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: released until maybe ten years later. But um, I think
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: we were just happy with this. Hey FM radio, we're good.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: We've been asked to America by Bill Graham to come
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: over for He offered us a couple of gigs that
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: we stayed and we were supporting lots of other people.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: We were kind of, uh, content with what we were.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: We weren't part of any kind of trend or fashion,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: and Decca weren't pressing us to get a hit single.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: They liked the albums in the LP format, They liked
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: their stereo spread and their cinematic kind of idea of
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: how recording should be. So that I don't think we
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: were worried about that. No. In Search of the Lost
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Chord has a huge called following. How does on the
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Threshold of a Dream get made? Oh? I think Threshold
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: of a Dream was the happiest and the nicest and
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: the most beauty, a full thing because I think there
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: was a tension there that we didn't know it was
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: going to work days of future past. It's like, whoa,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Actually people have heard it. We never thought anybody would
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: ever hear it, but people heard it and liked it.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Then we had to go back and make In Search
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: of the Lost Chord. That's when the record companies, you know,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: are like, um, yeah, I've got to come up with something.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: So I loved In Search of the Last Chord and
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Threshold of a Dream was the first time that we
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: ever felt comfortable actually people really kind of like what
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: we're doing. And it was the loveliest of album. And
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: we'd found Phil Travers the cover of a sleeve artist
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and he was a big influence as well. You know,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: he'd start to paint halfway through the album. He'd come
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: into the control room and listen to it and sketch
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: out ideas and it was all one. It was all
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: one kind of family of creating stuff off that was
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: that was very very nice, and I think it all
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: came together on the Threshold of a Dream. It's a
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: love it's a lovely album and it's my favorite. And
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: on the Threshold of a Dream there was not only
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: was it a gatefold cover, there was a huge multi
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: page insert of the lyrics. Now, did you have to
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: fight with the label or did in that you wanted
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: this extensive package or did they charge it to you?
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: What went on there? Um? Well, you clearly you clearly
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: don't know about that. You wouldn't have phrased it the
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: way you did pay people. But um, yes, it was
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: an expensive thing that we were doing and to to
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: to request that Decca put that gatefold and a book
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: of lyrics in it as well, with all designed by
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Phil Travis. So um, I can't say there was conflict
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: with the with the with the label, but we realized
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: that there was always there was going to be this
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: difficulty about sleeves, uh, and we should work towards kind
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: of trying to resolve that. Really, Yeah, which Threshold of
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: a Dream brought it all into focus, that idea. Well,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: the next album to our Children's Children's Children comes out
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: on your own imprint. Threshold. How did Threshold come to be? Um?
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: The Threshold was part of It was part of Decca,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: and Threshold gave us one thing. It gave us control
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: over those sleeves and what was to be released, and
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: that was our idea of yes, just getting control over
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: that stuff, and Decca were quite happy that we had that.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: It was it changed the royalty status. Are royalty was
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: getting a little better at every time, so um that
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: they could afford to do that and have a negotiation
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: with us about that and then we would be responsible
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: for the sleeves. And actually I don't think, um, what
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: which which album was it after Threshold? It was Children's Children?
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Was it correct? So I don't think it was a
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: gatefold that I don't think there was a lyrics or
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: maybe there was inside it was an insert that went
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: into the double gatefold. Because we love sleeves and I
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: love sleep. It's just absolutely great that whole thing about
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: making sleeves and enjoyed every moment of that. So I
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: think it was to do with trying to get give
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: us control Threshold, which which it did do. It gave
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: us control over the sleeves and what we could do
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: within a royalty. It was an agreement that we would
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: take care of that. But also acts were signed to threshold.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: The one that got the most traction in America was
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: trapeeze Ah was in charge of that. And how interested
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: in that were you? You mean the business of it, yes,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: the business of saying, let's build our own little empire here,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: will sign acts will make them a hit? Which acts
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: to sign? Was that something you were interested in or
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: somebody else did that? So you that's that's an assumption
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: that we're going to build our own little empire here.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think anybody thought that. Um. I think it
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: was just a question of listen, Deca are going to
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: give us some studio time. What they had was studio time,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: fantastic studios, and they were going to give a studio time.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: So let's We knew lots of musicians around London and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: around England that we thought really should be making it,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: and so it was our chance to record those albums.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Those those people are. There was a young boy that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I knew that I had seen at a party, because
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that there's the days when you just go went to
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: other people's apartments with your records and stuff. And I'd
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: seen Time and sitting in a corner this boy called
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Time and T T I M O N. And he's
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: such a lovely player and such such a lovely voice,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: and you think, it's studio time. Let's let's just record it,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: you know. And so I think that was a lot
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: of the stuff with Threshold. It was we were just
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: enjoying the fact that we had studio time, we could
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: call upon an engineer to record this these things. And
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: that's as far as it went on. I'm not sure
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: there was any empire building ideas there, but it was
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: a it was a nice idea. It's a nice idea
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: to income that you bring other musicians in. And what
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: was the genesis of to our Children's Children's children first
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: came up? Who came up with the name? Um? I
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: think that a couple of these things are curiously enough,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: I think from the Bible. As a matter of fact,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: I think Children's Children might even be there's a verse
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: in the in the Bible. I don't know whether it's
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: to our children's children's children, but it might be. The
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: keys of the Kingdom certainly is with them, Peter, I think,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: But who our Lord gave the keys of the Kingdom too.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: But so at the the the the idea of to
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: our Children's Children was really from Tony Clark, our producer.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: It was an album that he really wanted to make,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and um yes, and that that was that was his thing,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: and it's out of space, moon rockets, that kind of stuff.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Tony Tony Clark was such a wonderful combination with us
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: staff producer from Decca, and then became our friend and
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: one of the kind of inner circle. But this was
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: always I would sometimes be asked up into the control
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: room and he and he described what he wanted out
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: of a track, say that me or one of the
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: boys had written, and he would describe it like so,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: justin what I wanted you, you can see the sun
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: coming up in the morning, and as the sun rises
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: behind you, there's there's a cool wind is blowing across
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: the grass. But in front of you you can see
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: some trees and the clouds are parting as the sun rises,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: and there's the most gentle kind of touch on your face.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: And that's how it and he'd described it in these
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: wonderful cinematic terms, and then I'd go down the steps
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: from the control room, and the other guys will say,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: what what did he say? And I said to E
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: A and C sharp minor, Oh yeah, right great, I'm good, okay.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: One of the songs on that albums. I never thought
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: I'd live to be a hundred and when you're in
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: your when you're in twenties, hundreds is far off. Now
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: people live to a hundred. Do you still sing that song?
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: And what do you think about it? With a different
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: viewpoint from this so close to the number, I haven't.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: I haven't even heard that song mentioned for fifty years.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: It's a cute little song. I think I did it.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: I think it appears twice on the album I know that.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Tony I was like, I don't think there's anything on
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: it except biddy guitar and some echo chamber. I don't
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: have any feelings about it. It's just an interesting idea
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: about somebody something shooting through space. I never thought I'd
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: live to be a million. So you have three albums
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: in a row that become more and more successful commercially,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: but there's not a hit single on any of them.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Was everything going along swimmingly in the band or was
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: there a thought that we need to be bigger? Or
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: want to be bigger. No. I I wish I could
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: tell you that there was some kind of plan and
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: some kind of proposal, but I don't. I don't think so.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: I think those kind of plans and proposals always came
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: from outside of the group. But fortunately with the album
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: that we're probably that you're clearly leading to is called
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: question of Balance than I had. I had a song
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: called Question that was recorded quite some time before the album,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: and Decker put it out within like a two weeks
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: of us recording it, and it was a hit. Was
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: it fantastic song called Question? And to what degree did
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: the fact that it hit change your life or the
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: BMS trajectory? Well, I think it probably. I think it
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: probably did change our lives insomuch as that it put
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: us on television and um the the I think the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: most memorable time for that from me was we played
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: at the Isle of Wight Festival in and it was
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: a festival that the security broke down, the fences came down,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: became a free fenced festival. It was kind of overrun
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: and it got quite alarming and a lot of groups.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Somebody jumped on stage when Joreny Mitchell was doing her
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: thing and bang the mic into her mouth and her
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: poor journey her like her lip was bleeding, and that
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: I remember. But Richie Havens and I backstage and knew
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Richie and then we were talking about, you know, how
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: how is this kind of thing going to calm down?
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: The security people had just kind of left and everything
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: that it was becoming a massive free festival, and we
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: were the whole We were supposed to go on like
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: at lunchtime, and of course, like these festivals go, everything
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: was late. We went on at sunset and we played Question,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: which had just become a hit, and the whole place
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: went romped and everything came down to a calm, serene
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh I love this song and it's great,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: and every the whole sort of vibe changed and it
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: was an interesting time with that question, and I think
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: it made a big impression here in the in Europe
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: and in the UK. That's on. We were only kept off,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: We only kept off number one, but by the BBC,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: who had a song out with their football team. I
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: think it was called back Home and there was a
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: BBC record and they that they had the chart, of course,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: the BBC, and they kept us off number one. We
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: were always we were number two for a while and
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: you have this great success. Does it change your everyday life? Um? Well,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know change our everyday life that this. Remember
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: when I said before that you can have a philosophy
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: of life, and when you're going up and down the
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: motorway in a van with with nothing and you're just
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: living with your girlfriend, you know that your philosophy of
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: life doesn't mean anything. But as soon as you start
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: to have stuff around you, then you have to kind
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: of live out your philosophy. And sometimes that is very different.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: It's okay when you're in a van for somebody to
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: be this kind of over there on one side of
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the the spectrum philosophically and you on the other doesn't matter.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: But when you've got stuff family and the house and possessions,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: it kind of matters. So you start to have to
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: live that. And I think that was after that. The
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: early seventies was the time when you could see the
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: the difference in lifestyles and priorities and what people in
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: the band really wanted out of their own lives and
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: what did you want? Oh um, what did I want?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: I wanted to continue staying in bed in the morning
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: playing the guitar. I don't know. I just want to
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: make your way in the world and help play music
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: and help people hear it and appreciate it. I think
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: that's what I wanted, Okay. In this era, especially in England,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of managers who call the shots,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: and we hear stories relevant of the money, We hear
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: stories of the main interesting I've booked this tour, you
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: have to get back out there. Were you in control
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: or were you feeling the whip of either the record
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: company or a manager or an agent. No, we never
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: did have a manager or an agent, and we never
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: did have We had a lovely agent actually no, I'd
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: tell her like called Colin Berlin, who was my agent
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: just before I joined the Moodies, and we didn't have
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: an agent when I joined, and I suggested working with Colin,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: and Colin was absolutely great. Got are some great gigs.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: And then Colin's life changed and he sort of stepped aside,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: and we had a good agent in the US and
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: then but we were playing a lot of big places
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: in the you know, big arenas in the US, and
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: I think there was occasions when I thought I wonder
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: who was getting paid for this. You know, you've got
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: like twelve thousand people in here, and I know how
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: much we're getting, So I wonder who's getting paid. And
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: about that time, I suppose about seventy one, so it
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: will be every good boy. I suppose that kind of era. Um.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: We met Jerry Weintrobe and Michael Jerry Weintrobe who some
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: people might have heard about. And Jerry came to see us,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: and we wanted to. He had an artist called John
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: Denver and he could see us playing these venues and
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: he wanted to have John Denver open for us because
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: we were always having acoustic artists opening for us. Once
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: we've become a headliner, we didn't want another group setting
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: up in front of our stuff, so acoustic artists would
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: be great. And so Jerry's jested John Denver and we did.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: We he did a tour of the UK with us.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: But then Jerry really came to us and he pointed
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: out that we weren't exactly being paid for this stuff.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: You know, we were just going through the motions with
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: an agent and who also wasn't getting but he was
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: still on the agent, only getting his temper cent or
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: whatever it was, and he had a different idea of
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: way of touring and a way of looking at the business.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: And I think that changed things touring wise for us.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: And then we became part. I always feel that we
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: became part of Jerry Wintrobe's movie of his life somehow,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: because it's larger than life character. Wonderful to be part
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: of the movie of his life. As far as I'm concerned,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: it is absolutely brilliant, and he took us on a
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: wonderful ride and changed things for us. Okay, the Every
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: Good Boy deserves favor. There's another hit, Story in the
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Eyes written by you once again. So that album. What's
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: the story of the making of that one? Every Good Boy?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: How did that happen? Um? I can remember recording story
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: in your Eyes, because okay, I just remember the guitar
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: riff and how I done it at home and and
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: then put the basic acoustic track down with with John
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: and Graham and Mike on tambourine and then put my
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: three three five on top of it. But honest honestly,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: don't remember much about the rest of the album. Um,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: you you you must know that I don't. I know.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I you know I say this. I know I was
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: there in the sixties seventies, But my mind was elsewhere chemically, mystically,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: and emotionally, So I can't say that I have completely
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: I have complete recall of some flashbacks of some rather
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: strange things, but I can't remember certain details. But I'm
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: giving you. I'm doing my best to give you an overview. Well,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: I think you're doing quite a fine job. Then we
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: have the Seventh Sojourn, which actually has two hits. One
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Isn't Life Strange? You were one of the singers on that,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: but John Lodge wrote that, And I'm just a singer
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: in a rock and roll band. You've been on quite
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: a ride at this point, was the band starting to
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: run a bit on fumes and get tired, or where
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: things as strong as they'd always been. Um, well, it
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: goes back to this kind of philosophy of life. I
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: think I'm sorry to bang on about that, but that's
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: a fact. And then there were people were moving so
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: up the far apart in the way they live their lives,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: and they wanted to have that. I could see that
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: it was kind of turn running into a mist somehow.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: There was this sort of fog that had descended, and
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: sometimes I could see someone through that fog, and sometimes
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: I couldn't in the in the band metaphorically, I don't
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: mean literally, but I could see that it was not fragmenting.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: But I knew that it wasn't a happy time. It
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't a happy time. I think we made some I
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: think Mike did a song I think it was called
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Lost in a Lost World that was I thought was
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: so beautiful. And I had a song called New Horizons
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: that I know that we would as a group we
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: would sit and listen to and think, oh, that's nice
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. You know, there was a beauty about it,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: and that there was some really nice things, and and
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: and and it's in life strange, and it was the
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: way that these things were recorded, and there was this
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: fog that had descended between us and were that it
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: was you could only reach out to someone occasionally and
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: and and and pull them in and into focus, and
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: then I could see it slipping away. Mike didn't want
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: to do it anymore. I think that was the sort
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: of point of it. And Tony Clark and I started
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: to actually record another album after Seventh Sojourn, and there
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: was a phone call from down in the canteen and
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: Tony and I were in the control room. I was
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: allowed in the control room by this time, and it's
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: one of the roadies said here, you know, the other
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: boys want to see you and Tony downstairs. So I
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: came downstairs and the other guys were sitting there and
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: they said, we don't want to continue with this. And
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't mean the band, it's just didn't
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: want to continue with being together kind of thing or
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: doing this, and so we just drifted apart. So it
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't that what some asson wasn't a happy time for me.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: It was a very kind of sad, melancholy kind of time.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: So how did you feel in the canteen when they
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: told you that, Hey, I'm the guy who always had
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: songs ready to go in the studio, remember, so I
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: had got stuff kind of ready to do. I was
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: good and I was surprised. I can't say that I
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't surprised, but totally, but for this to be pulled
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: up that that short, I was surprised at that moment.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it was kind of shocking. Really. Yeah, And
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: how do you end up working with John Large on
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: Blue Jays? Well, I think what what happened was that
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: we we had a big tour that we were to
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: do and with Jerry Ranchob as well, a world tour,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: so we continued to do that. I knew that Mike
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: was unhappy. It was quite clear. And UM, so we
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: Mike and I talked about doing something together, and we
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: talked about it for a few years. Wouldn't it be
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: nice and like a side project, we do it together?
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: And um. At the end of the Japanese tour, at
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: the end of Yes, we went to Japan, I flew back.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: We might have played in Hawaii, and I came back
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: to l A with nothing happening. There was nothing in
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: the diary at all. And I was going around to
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: say Mike had had remarried and was living How do
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: he remarried? I don't know, but he was maybe not,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: but he was married to an American girl and in California.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: I think he was over in Studio City, somewhere the
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: other side of the hill, you know how You know
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: you got up to Monghowa that far from that right now. No,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: it's very nice. You go down into Studio City. There's
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: some really nice stuff done. Mike was living down there
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: with his wife, and UM, we were talking, just talking
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: about kind of things, how it would be, you know,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: how it would be. And then Mike, I think Mike
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: at that same time he got another property out out
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: of l a somewhere a bit more kind of hippie ish,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: and I was just hanging out with him, and we
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: were starting to make plans for an album because there
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: was nothing else happening. The next thing is so the
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: next thing, I know, John and Tony Clark turned up
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: and suggested the idea that the four of us should
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: do something. I didn't really want to do that, and
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: I know Mike called me into the kitchen and he said, listener,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: I'm out now. I don't want to do that, and
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: I thought, okay then and then so I think we
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: went through like a coffee with me and and John
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: and Tony Clark, and we thought, well, let's do that instead,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: you know, let's go let's go home, and and we
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: did that. No plan, Bob, no plan. These things just happened.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: I hear that, and then how does the group get
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: back together? So we did Blue Jay's That was nice.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: Blue guitar was very nice. I'd already recorded that with
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: tense C the guy. That was a nice. That was
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: a nice time. Then m Wine Show pulled the back
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: band back together to do a compilation we've never done,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: a kind of greatest hits, and Jerry was talking with
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: the label about the greatest hits. And while he was
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: discussing this the greatest hits, which we've never done, we'd
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: always go resisted and then um the idea came back.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: But I think I think me and John and Ray
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: we're sitting around just you know, because everybody that the
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: people in England were still friends, and that where everybody
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: was still friends. There's no that nothing was said that
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't be unsaid, Nothing was said that couldn't be unto unsaid.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes things can't be unsaid. But um, so
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: I think we thought, well, maybe why don't we do it?
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: Jerry was like, yeah, are you guys? Why don't him again? Now? Now? Yeah,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: why did you get back to it? Why don't you
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: do this album? So we did, We went, we talked
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: about it. Mike didn't want to leave America, so we thought, okay,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: well los Angeles just quite nice. So we all pulled
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: over to Los Angeles and started recording the Octave album
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: at the record plant in um On, Wilshire. I think
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: it was. We recorded quite a bit of that. Wasn't
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: a happy sort of time really. Um, some of the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: guys rented houses there. I didn't. I was kind of commuting,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: which was quite difficult between here in Los Angeles or
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: this is more the interesting flights used to take much
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: quick as Los Angeles to London in the seventies. You
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: know that they used to go faster. He played, you
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: could do it in eight hours. It was fantastic. Takes
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: you about thirteen now. But so, uh, I'm sorry, Bob.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: So yeah, So we were making the album and in
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: at Mike's studio actually up in Coral Canyon, and then
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: we were there when there were that terrible mud slide.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that when the rains came down seventy stuff?
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: And I think it was that that went on all
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: the rains. And I'm sorry, but they those big, most
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: those big cars, and maybe yet l A drivers don't
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: quite know how to drive in the mud, and they're
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: not like English people who drive in the mud all
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: the time. But so there was a lot of cars
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: whizzing around on the Pacific Coast Highway, which was I
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: was going up there every day, and um, I could
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: see that this album wasn't really working either. Tony Clark
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: wasn't There was things happening in his personal life, and
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: it's such a lovely man, but things were happening changes
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: in his personal life. Mike clearly didn't want to do it,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: and so I think there was a moment when it
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: came apart then during the Octave album. But at least
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: we had the album The Day We Meet Again and
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: stuff from that album, and but we that then we
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: carried on. I think we carried on because the rest
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: of us wanted to and Mike didn't. Mike stayed there,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: so the rest of us came home and moved on.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: So you talk about eight hours were you taking the
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: sst the Concorde. I did take the Concorde a couple
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: of times, but the Concorde wasn't Concorde. It wasn't called
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: duck Concorde. It was called Concorde. But the Concorde was
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: was going. Um, I don't believe it ever once in
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, I would cut. I took it a few
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: times from Washington or New York and Toronto, and I
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: once I took it to Dallas. But you could you'd
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: have fly sub Sonic over America. But no, I was
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: just doing like a seven oh seven oh seven from
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles to London. They could do it real quick.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: They really put the pedal to the metal. What was
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: it like creating and releasing the moody blues sound when
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: the world was changing the late seventies we had punk
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: and disco, Then into the early eighties we have the
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: new wave sound, we have MTV. Did you say this
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: is what we're doing or did you feel a little
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: like a fish out of water or do you want
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: to change the sound? Um? Well, I don't. We were
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: kind of came through that sort of unscared, I think
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: because nobody kind of pointed the finger at us and said, hey,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: it's over you guys, because we'd always gone our own way.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: We were never, like I said before, we were never
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: kind of chasing a hit. We were never really fashionable,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: so we couldn't really be out of fashion. We were
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: just doing troubling our own road and doing our own thing.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: And luckily enough, when they when I think it was Deutcha,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: I think it was not Deutchra Grantville what were they
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: called before they bought the Deca catalog in or one
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: Redwood was still there and they were still alive. But um,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: there was the record company was refreshed in America and
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: that's when we had a chance to They supported us
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: going back in the studio in the UK and making
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: a long distance Voyager. Yeah. And I think that that
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: album really set us up for the eighties and what
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: was to come. So do you have a relationship with
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: Mike Pinder today? Yes, So there was his family. There
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: was no discord over his leaving the band. Not with me, No,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: I've always been loving good vibes all around bub you know.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: I just I'll make it. I'll make a point of
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: trying to get my own way by pink pink gentle, persuadediveout. Yeah, sure, Yeah.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: I saw Mike at the the Rock and Roll Hall
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: of Fame when we were inducted. It's a lovely time.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: And what was it like having Ray Thomas and Graham
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: Age pass Well? Ray had left the group quite a
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: long time before he died, and so that was his
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: life was kind of separate outside the Moodies anyway, and
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: he he didn't want want to go on. I knew
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: he was uncomfortable on the road and in the studio. Um,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: so that was that Ray had left it anyway, and
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: I loved him. Were always had such laughs, you know,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: there was. That's the thing about the mood is that
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: I should mention that I started laughing in in August
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: and I never stopped it. Funny all the way, but
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: inappropriate and irreverence sometimes but always me so. But but Graham,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Graham's passing really kind of hit me earlier this year. Yeah,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: because Graham loved the group so much. He was the
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: center that he was the thing that held the group together. Well,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: when Ray had left and there was the core three people,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: you continued to tour as the Moody Blues. Uh, there's
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: no chance you will continue to tour with John Lodge
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: under that name. I don't I don't know, is the
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: honest answer. Just have to say, I don't know, is it?
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't know is a good answer. Well, sometimes
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: people are against it, that's the but I have your
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: answer there. So at this time in your seventies, some
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: people might say you you talked about wanting to sleep
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: in the morning in your own bed. Um. Some people
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: might say I don't like my own bed, which bet
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: it is. OK. That's a musicians just want to stay
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: in bed anywhere. So what's the what's the motivation to
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: still go on the road to share the music? You know,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a musician man musicians, So I just want to
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: play music. I want to do a do a gig.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: I love that little bit of magic that can happen
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: in a room as simple as that. You know, the
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: arc of a musical career is that now today, in
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: today's internet world, specific records don't have the impact either
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: commercially or in mind share, and audiences are smaller. Therefore,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: some people don't even record new music and they're depressed
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: about it. What do you think about the modern environment
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: visa via your career, visably my career. I'm not depressed
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: about it. I can. I can still. I could still
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: pop down to Jenuay and do and do something I don't.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: I don't have to employ a great number of musicians
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: to do it, because I can pretty much do it myself.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: But when me and Alberta can do it between us,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: I play the stuff and Alberto plays, and you know,
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: we we've got all the tools that we need. I've
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: got my old I've got my old dear Ex seven,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: my Jupiter eight, which is fantastic. I've got my guitars,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: I've got a time code, and that's about it, really,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: And that's why, you know, we come back to Living
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: for Love and there's almost nothing on that record, but
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: it's for me. It's just so beautiful. It's so it's
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: so simple and so beautiful, and so I'm just fine
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: with how it is. And I really feel for the
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: young kids with the pressure that they're under now in
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: this business to try and become a commodity or a
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: personality and to try and promote yourself in that way.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: And I think for me, I'm so lucky where it's
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: just I don't I don't want to be a celebrity.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: I never I never was wanted that or anything like that.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: I just want to play some some music. And that's
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: what that's I said at the beginning. My goal is too,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: I want to be true to my goal of playing
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: music and recording music and playing live. That's what I want.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: How close were you to John Lodge these days? I
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: think everybody we're all connected that so that the three
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: of us Might and John and myself are connected by
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: just such a wonderful catalog and legacy of things. So
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: which is always nice. So I said before that that
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: not nothing with with Mike or with any with John
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: or Graham, or nothing was said that couldn't be unset,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: which is always very nice. It's not. It's not a
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: brotherhood because I had a brother and I know what
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: that's like. But it's a being in a group is
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: a very different dynamic. You were married at a relatively
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: young age and your marriage sustained, which is not the
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: case with many music marriages. Who is the key to
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: having your marriage sustained? I'm away a lot ha, but
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: a being we leave it at that or anymore in sight,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think, so okay. And what about your kids?
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: What are your kids up to? Um? Well, they have
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: a lovely life. My daughter lives in West Cornwall, which
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: is the most beautiful part of England for me. And
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: she's a sacred cranial osteopathists, which is gentle and kind
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: of manipulation of the spine. It's very beautiful. It it's
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: um did great things for her or when she had
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: some problems and so. And I've got a grandson who
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: is beautiful and fourteen and gets taller every every other week.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: You know, he's different. And I've gotten. You know, my sister,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: I'm very close, and yeah, it's just gotta love. I'm
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: so it's so wonderful to have so many nice friends
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: and gentle and not to have a pressure to do
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: anything outside of that. And yeah, I'm very lucky to
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: have a wonderful crew in a tour with the guitar text.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: Steve Chant, my production manager, and I've been together a
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: long time. And Mike Dawes, the guitar player that I
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: work with now genius genius young man common Gold on flutes.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: And Julie Reagan's who's the most gorgeous as the voice
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: of an angel and is the most brilliant musician I've
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: ever had the pleasure to be in the company of.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: So these are the people that we love. And the
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: Moody sound was unique, but certainly Jerry Weintraub managed other acts.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Do you have relationships with your contemporaries in the music
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: business who were the Moody sort of a self contained
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: unit aside from the other acts. Well, if you might
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: remember that we talked earlier about you were quite interested
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: about how you get how I got my D twenty
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: eight because because there was I have a lot of acquaintances.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: In the music business. We have acquaintances, don't we. People say, well,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: do you know somebody. It's like, well, I'm an acquaintance
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: of this, but I'm not sure that I would say
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: that I know somebody. So I've got a lot of
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: acquaintance is in the music, of course, and the music
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: business is one of those things. If you're a musician,
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: people you go to events or something like that, and
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: I'm often asked to, often asked to play turn up
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: and play nights, which people love and you know it's
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: in their in their hearts, that kind of thing. And
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: and people but hey, justin that that other artists that
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know and I'm not acquainted with. But you
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: can come up and say hey, justin I say, hey, no,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: are you doing love it? And that's the kind of
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: the thing is. That's the wonderful thing about musicians and
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: the music business. So, yes, I'm familiar with quite a
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: lot of people. I have a lot of acquaintances. And
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: are you one of those people who thinks about legacy
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: and being remembered or you more of the type of
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: person says I'm doing this now, I'm gonna diet sometime.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: There's no way afterlife. I live my life. That's it
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: is that a choice of I've got to be one
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: of those, got to be either one or the Well. No,
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be a choice. It can be both.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: It can be like, Hey, I want to live my
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: life having a good time, but I want my songs
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: to live on. I want them to pay dividends from
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: my family. I want them to bring joy two people,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: that further generations. What I know is that I'll never
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: get tired of playing Um the Everly Brothers. I'll never
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: get tired of playing Buddy Holly. I'll never get tired
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: of playing Buffalo Springfield or Cliff in the Shadows or
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: the Beatles, Um or Elvis or a Steely Dan or
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: anything so or Shostakovich or you know, Rene Fleming. I'll
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: never get tired of it. So that it doesn't the
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: personal thing about them, I'm not really bound up in.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not really bound up about with them as people.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: And I understand that's what music is, that there's there's
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: music there and that will be your It will be
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: or or not to be. There's nothing I can do
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: to make that or get worried about that, whether that's
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: a legacy or not. I'll always love certain pieces of
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: music and they'll live forever with other people as well
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: because that that that's the way I feel. So I'm
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: not bound up in thinking about legacy or trying to
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: make anything happen. There is there a way to make
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: things happen there now less than ever. But you just
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: got off of a tour at the end of the summer.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: I know you're doing this cruise coming up at the
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: beginning of the year. What are your plans for live
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: work in the future. Well, I'm offered stuff, that's for sure.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: I had had the best tour have ever had in
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: the UK. So I did three things this year already.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: I did the American tour, interrupted by circumstances, but then, um,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: we had a great tour, very successful and all the
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: places are asking us back, so that's nice. Um. I
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: did the War of the World's tour, which was fantastic, holograms,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: giant screens, explosions, martians, It's just and forever autumn, which
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: has been the most wonderful gift to me around the world. Um. So, uh,
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: that I'm offered stuff, and I think I'm going to
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: say yes. Well, justin I want to thank you so
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: much for taking the time. I gotta tell you it
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: was anxious about talking to you because you know, you
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: hear songs on the radio. Yeah, I know that song
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: that's iconic. But the Moodies are a thing unto itself,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's uh, it's got a special aura,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: certainly for me and I know for others. So want
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: to thank you for talking to me from you know,
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: the Cote de Sur and however you pronounce it. My
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: French is not good, So thanks again. Justin You're welcome
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: until next time. This is Bob left sets h