JUSTIN HAYWARD | INTERVIEW PART 2
Rhonda Lee Reali talks to the Moody Blues frontman ahead of his gig at Cardiff St David’s Hall on Mon 2 Oct. Part 1 is here.
The song Troubadour, which is included on your latest album All The Way, is on the country side of things. Will you be writing anything like that in the future?
JH: Oh, wouldn’t that be nice? You know, I hadn’t thought of that. I’m going to give that some thought.
To me it sounds a bit country…
JH: Yeah, it is. It’s myself and Phil Palmer playing guitar, kind of duelling guitars. It’s a lovely track, and I’d forgotten it actually, and just now you mentioned it. Yes, it’s a nice idea.
How important is it for you to stray from the lush, orchestral Moody Blues sound and experiment, like on Troubadour?
JH: I do, and I think it’s reflected in the album I had out a couple of years ago called Spirits Of The Western Sky. On that there’s a lot of different directions and different styles, probably because I’ve never really known where I belong in that – what style of music really fits for me. At least on this show then, I can present [songs] in this acoustic way and present them as they were written, and I hope that gives some insight into them.
On All The Way, they’re not all your own compositions – you have Scarborough Fair and Vincent, for example.
JH: There’s another song on [All The Way] that I didn’t write, which is called The Best Is Yet To Come, written by Clifford T. Ward. It’s a lovely song, and I’ve had some success with that, really, through Radio 2 play a few years ago. I’m very pleased to be able to do that.
When you a cover a song, how important is it for you to try and put your own stamp on it?
JH: Scarborough Fair and Vincent were two songs that were on an album called Classic Blue, which was an album that I made with my friend Mike Batt and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was in collaboration with them, and between us all, we picked songs we thought would be right to work on, so we wouldn’t have anything that didn’t work. That was an interesting exercise for me as well. I’d never really worked just with an orchestra like that, and it was a great joy.
This solo tour, is again, very pared down and relaxed, as opposed to a big Moodies production and having an orchestra…
JH: I like this show because I can hear everything clearly. The musical side is so important to me, and working with two brilliant musicians is just a joy. They both inspire me too – greatly. It’s a completely different experience than the one with a big sound with drums and orchestras and things. It’s a great pleasure and very, very enjoyable. I’m very lucky to be able to have both, I suppose.
Did you write Night Flight [also on All The Way]?
JH: Yes, I did. I wrote it with Jeff Wayne who I also did Forever Autumn with. We did an album together – right after I did the War Of The Worlds album – which was called Night Flight and that was the title track on it.
Will you be trying dance-oriented tunes like that again?
JH: I don’t know. I can’t say that it’s been the best thing that I’ve ever done, that kind of stuff, but people said you couldn’t dance to Nights In White Satin, but actually, it was the easiest thing to dance to. I noticed Rolling Stone put it up there in their Top 10 prom songs because people would just stagger around the floor holding each other. Anyone can dance to it.
I wasn’t going to bring it up because you’ve been asked about Nights In White Satin so much, but when you wrote it, did you have any inkling it would be such an enduring song?
JH: No, no, not at all. I’d have run a mile I think, if anyone had told me that would happen. No, but you never know. It didn’t fit the bill of what songs were being released at that time. Actually, it was a hit in France first, then it was a minor hit in the UK. They didn’t even release it in America until about a year later, but no, I don’t think any of us thought it would have any success at all.
For me, it expressed what I was going through at the time, and for the group, it was a sort of snapshot in time of our sound – the sound that made The Moody Blues. Everybody has a very clear part on it. It was such a long, slow success that we had plenty of time to get used to it.
You had problems in the UK getting it played because it was so long…
JH: Yes, it was hardly on any play lists at all. I think it was probably only the pirate stations that were playing it. It certainly wasn’t Radio 1. It was probably before Radio 1, then it was FM radio in America that really started to make it happen because it was so beautifully recorded – the new FM radio format and sound – so I think they had a lot to do with it.
A friend who was at college in the US before me, was thrilled to have seen The Moodies in 1972, and mentioned that you were very popular on FM radio and especially among college students.
JH: Yes, that’s right. On our first few tours, we were playing mostly colleges and kind of psychedelic clubs. Right from the off, they took to our music. That didn’t mean lots of sales, it was just kind of an underground sound and style. So yes, I think being part of that youth culture of that college circuit and being on FM radio really formed us, and we were very, very fortunate.
Not to dwell too much on the past but The Moody Blues were also bringing up things like the Vietnam War, time – the future, space travel – ecology and the earth with records such as Days Of Future Passed, To Our Children’s Children’s Children and A Question Of Balance. Do you still have those interests and now concerns over global warming?
JH: I think so, and I worry about our children’s children, yeah. I certainly do. I think we all do, don’t we? It’s just some people don’t seem to act on their own, on the concerns of their own families, really, and the people that surround them. The people they love.
It was very forward-thinking and responsible for a rock group in those days, to question and to bring up that subject matter.
JH: We were also in the fortunate position of not having an A&R guy standing over us saying we had to make hit singles. So we could make music about what was actually in our hearts and what was important to us. I think that was a great benefit, the way that we recorded, because we had that freedom. I wouldn’t say that there was a lot of groups that did have that freedom, you know. We were given the freedom of the recording studio and were able to put our own personal feelings into the records, instead of trying to get a three-minute hit single. We were lucky to have a career with albums when you still could have an album that people listened to and put on from the beginning and played to the end.
Yes, you were there in the 60s with the Beach Boys, Beatles, Kinks and The Who being some of the first rock bands to do concept albums. Was that a conscious decision then, to do whole albums based around a theme?
JH: It was, and it suited us, and it suited our label Decca. Because they had such beautiful recording studios, I think it was their intention as well, to be known as making great quality records as well as trying to get hit singles by other groups. Yes, we just happened to be in the right time at the right place. After the first album, Days Of Future Passed, which nobody thought would be a success, the record company said to us, ‘Do what you want to do. Please yourself and do your own thing.’
I read where the top brass at Decca put themselves on the line for letting you run with that.
JH: With Days Of Future Past? Certainly, yeah, absolutely. It was meant to be a demonstration stereo record. They wanted something a little bit different, but we saw an opportunity to record our own songs, and we did. Thankfully, one of the elder statesmen at Decca was encouraging us and right there with us. Without him – he was a lovely man called Hugh Mendl – it would never have got done. He convinced the board of Decca that it was the right thing to do.
And the rest was history…
words RHONDA LEE REALI
