>> As a young man of only 19 he wrote "Knights
in white satin" and secured his place in music history for himself and his band the moody
blues "Days of future past" has been know stopping sense, more hits, Tuesday afternoon,
more solely projects and the moody blues continue to play today to sold outcrowds across the
globe. I'm Ernie manouse, our conversation with lead singer of the moody blues Justin
Hayward. >> I do find that there's a big difference
between when you sit down for writing something, writing for a solo project as opposed to writing
for something that the moody blues is going to do?
>> I don't think so but there is at the end once I'm writing because I can probably say
things in a solo project that -- that may be not appropriate to say with the whole group,
you know, so I can express maybe personal opinions but there probably isn't
much difference in the method or the way I think about it, no. Song writing is such a
unique -- it's like having a room in your house where noblesville can go, it's a world
of imagination. I always thought my life would be rather sad if I wasn't song-writing. Slightly
disturbing. >> Is it hard to write a song? I heard "Knights
in white satin" you wrote in five minutes? >> Well, the basic song because I just came
home one night and sat on the side of the bed and I just did the basic song and it wasn't
until I took it into the reversal -- rehearsal room the next day that I played it to the
other guys and they went sort of, hmm, ok. But they think Mike said play it, again, so
I "Knights in white satin." He went dah, dah, dah, dah on the melotron and it made senseand
then everybody was interested. ♪♪ Knights in white satin, never reaching
the end ♪♪ ♪♪ letters I've written never meaning
to send ♪♪ ♪♪ beauty has always been with these eyes
before ♪♪ ♪♪ just what the truth is I can't say
anymore ♪♪ ♪♪ because I love you ♪♪
♪♪ yes, I love you ♪♪ ♪♪ ohh, darling, I love you ♪♪
>> Songs come out easily? >> No, it's, you know, if I may quote Picasso
he said inspiration has to find you working. So I'm not unfortunately one of those guys
that can walk around writing on pieces of paper and collecting up those pieces of paper
and work. For me it's a question of 5% inspiration and
then 95% work, really, at it. >> I was talking with an author who said that
he writes every single day. >> Oh.
>> Whether it's a good or bad, sit down and write. He can throw it away if he has to but
always writing to keep it going. As a songwriter do you find -- when the periods you are writing
do you find you're writing in a consistent period and certain things rise to the top
or is everything you write possibly going to be on an album, a song?
>> That's a great question because I'm such a lazy person, I need some kind of focus and
deadline. And in the old day -- the early days with the moody blues the guys were always
expecting me tocome up with something first so I'd have my songs ready for an album. Nowadays
I think when I put my mind to it, I can write as much as I want to but there's a lot that
goes on in life. You know, life isn't always just about work and doing song writing. That
-- that -- that's what I do creatively. So when I devote time to it, it will happen and
I know that. >> Wow, that's fascinating that something
that's so creative and so much a part of almost the soul when 2 comes out that you can structure
it in a way that you know when the period is right, the music will come.
>> If -- if I sit down with a guitar and start to play, something will happen. It's just
getting me to sit down with the guitar. >> Do you find at this point in your career
that when you sit down and play you're playing things you've already written before? Wait
I did that one? >> I think every guitar player returns to
certain phrases that they learned as a child and they return to and particular guitar rifts
and you build a style and it's probably built between the ages of 13-25. >> Really?
>> And then it's a question of leaning on that and using that. But whether I return
and write the same song, no. In fact, the biggest problem for me in the moody blues
when people were saying "Gosh, you just wrote knights in white satin." That cleared up one
story in your eyes and questions and those kinds of things.
♪♪ Why do we never get an answer when we're knocking at the door ♪♪
♪♪ with a thousand million questions about hate and death and war ♪♪
♪♪ when we stop and look around us, there is nothing that we need ♪♪
♪♪ in a world of persecution that is burning in a squeeze ♪♪
♪♪ ahhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhh ♪♪ >> Did it surprise you knights came so early
in your career? >> Well, none of us were expecting that. None
of us thought it could have a hope in hell as a single.
>> Yeah. Just so people know you were 19 when you --
>> Yeah, I was 19 when I wrote it, I was 20 when we recorded it. We recorded it first
for the bbc, the British broadcasting corporation, a long time before we recorded it on the album.
But none of us thought that it had any high hopes for the whole album, really. We just
got lucky that American radio was -- fm radio was being born and our stuff was so beautifully
recorded, it was perfect for that medium. >> And that album came about because you guys,
I'm going to say it poorly, but it had a debt to pay off.
>> Yes. >> You were going to work for them and create
an album so they could publicize this new sound, symphonic sound they were going to
do, instead you wrote a classic. >> Did I?
>> Yes, you did. >> But -- I don't know about that. But, yes,
we had a debt to them. And they wanted -- they had a consumer division where they wanted
to sell their stereo machines. They wanted to demonstrate that stereo could be as interesting
for rock 'N' roll as it was for classical music. They owned the second largest classical
catalog in the world after deutsche gramophone. They came together now it's one great universal
that own the great classical masters. >> I look at moody blues the same way I do
Fleetwood Mac. They brought new blood into the band and changed direction and changed
everything for them. I'm wondering if you thought after you first went in there before
knights knights began did you ever question it?
>> I think all of us in truth were living day by day, seeing what was going to happen.
Nobody knew the possibilities. We were all so young. And we didn't have any worries or
responsibilities. We had worries because we had to eat, but not responsibilities. So we
could go home and live with our parents, which is, as a matter of fact, what I did around
the time of the recording of "Days of future past," we didn't have any money then and I
was still trying to pay off the payments on my guitars and amplifiers. But none of us
knew. But I came to the moody blues as a writer determined to do my songs. And I knew that
it was -- it had -- it had had a very successful year as a rhythm and blues band but the lead
singer who was great for them of the moody blues had left. And the rest of us that were
left after the two, the bass player, the original bass player and the original guitar player
left weren't that great at rhythm and blues. But I could write and Mike could write and
that was the foundation that we built on. ♪♪ Tuesday afternoon ♪♪
♪♪ I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way ♪♪
♪♪ it doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away ♪♪
♪♪ Sundays call to me ♪♪ ♪♪ the trees are drawing me near ♪♪
♪♪ I've got to find out why ♪♪ ♪♪ the voices voices I hear explain it
all in a sigh ♪♪ >> Eventually you take a break from the moody's
in '74. >> Yes.
>> And I wonder at that time did you feel a freedom to go and be yourself, but was there
still a commitment to keep that sound alive? >> I've never -- I've luckily been free of
the pressures of a and R people telling me what to do, I trusted my judgment and did
what I wanted to do. Luckily I was with a company called decker so the in the early
days who said do what you want. >> How did you get that freedom?
>> Because of "Days of future past." "Days of future past," we can't claim it was our
idea, it was a project of a lot of people within decker and it was a great project.
But after that nobody knew quite why it had happened so what decker had was fantastically
staffed recording studios with beautiful recording quality and they just said to us "Listen,
just do what you want. Here's the studio time. Just do what you want."
And I got used to that and that's something you never want to be without. Imagine, boys
and girls if you could just do what you want, some executive producer telling you what to
do, instead of. >> Child in a candy store.
>> Yes, it was, absolutely. >> As you progressed in your solo career.
>> Yes. >> Do you do work that sounds more moody's
than you or is there never that separation for you?
>> There's -- there's only -- no, there's never the separation for me, no. I'm -- I've
always been -- have been determined to do exactly the songs that I want to do and make
my own mistakes and be responsible for it and I'm very happen if people want to share
that but I'm still going to stick to my own guns and do what I want.
>> Hard when the group comes back together then.
>> In what way? >> Well, now you have -- granted, they're
never separate but you're on your own path. >> Yes.
>> Doing your own work and then the moody's say let's get back together. Of course, during
that time you do work with a lot of those members.
>> Yeah. >> It's not like a lot of groups that split
up because there's a lot of anger. >> No, there's nothing said that can't be
unsaid which was luckily for us in the '70s, too, that wasn't the case for us, too, a big
bustup. No, I think that whatever each one of us does outside of theband here we are
talking about the moody blues, it's always good for the moody's and reminds people about
that. And the moody's are such a vast catalog we did together.
♪♪ Once upon a time, once when you were mine ♪♪
♪♪ I remember a time when I looked in your eyes ♪♪
♪♪ I wonder where you are, I wonder if you think about me ♪♪
♪♪ once upon a time in your wildest dreams ♪♪ >> The three of us sort of length representing
that catalog and rediscovering things that we only ever worked on maybe a day or two
in the studio at the time. That's the way recording was. And a lot of those things we
never did on the stage. And I think this is the best incarnation of the moody's that I'm
in now but this is a stage version now, the touring moody blues and it produces thosesongs
faithfully, as they really were, with the right spirit and the right feeling and with
the right people singing them. The original people singing them. My own thing is like
my own life. You know, I'm not a guy in a group. We're all individuals with our own
lives and going our own way, we live in completely different places. When we come together, we
sound like that. But I also have it in me to have a need to do quite things that are
quite different and do exactly what I want to do. I can do that within the moody's context
but it wouldn't be fair, I don't think, to get in the habit of just making solo records
and calling them moody blues records which is what would happen, which has happened.
>> Yeah. When you're out as just you, is the experience going out, seeing people, your
audience reaction, is it different than you going out as part of the moody's?
>> Yes, it is. I mean, this I brought my show, I brought all my own acoustic guitars from
home, you know, they're seeing the world, too, and it's as I wrote these things, it's
as I wrote them before I started arranging them or putting lots of anything on them or
anything like that. >> Interesting point, that's why I jumped
back a little is I heard you went back and remastered the masters of the moody's.
>> I did, yeah. >> For digital recordings because when they
first went to CD they quickly put them out and they didn't really put attention. >> No. They went -- there was such a rush
to go to the digital domain from the vinyl domain, really, that they were transferred
into the digital domain very badly. Everybody's records. I'm not saying not just the moody's.
And so when it was only when universal kind of appointed me the gatekeeper of this great
catalog, which is very time consuming, and I've mixed, remixed a lot of things for them,
that I realized that they were -- that they weren't good enough. They weren't as good
as the vinyl marvelous. The digital ones, the CD ones. I was lucky I was in Italy recording
in the studio that I made the spirits of the western sky at and there was a moody blues
super fan there. >> I heard this story.
>> I brought two copies of every vinyl album that we'd ever done. One that he played and
one that he'd never opened. And the -- my engineer in Italian, graciously, if we could
play for the first time the ones that he'd never opened. And this was a huge, sad, bittersweet
moment to this man. And so he had to stand while we ceremony justly kind of slashed open
the cling film and playedthem. All right. We were able to hear them on the first time
on virgin because the label, nobody else had any --
>> Did they sound different to you? >> Yes.
>> Really? >> Yeah. So I made it my mission and purpose
to go back to the original vinyl two-track master. There was one great difference that
stood out a mile. It was on a track called "Legend of a mine."Timothy leery, da, da,.
♪♪ Timothy leery's dead, outside looking in ♪♪ >> And there's a symbol of graham's that I
always love and I always ask to do it on recordings and on the digital version it always sounded
like tick tick tick tick tick, and I thought, well, it was just a bad day, the engineer
had a bad day. On the vinyl it sounds immaculate. >> Really?
>> That was my starting point. Let's go back to that, yeah. I also had the quad version,
mixes that were done in the '60s so I could hear the echoes and I could hear everything
-- you could hear the original four-track versions.
>> Are you happy with the digital mixes that are out there?
>> I don't know because you couldn't leave them in that same vinyl state because everybody's
-- I know this sounds bizarre but everybody's ears and the way they hear music is different
now.They expect some compression, they expect it to be more in your face. It can't be like
it was in sort of in the background. To at least try and compete with other recordings,
you have to process them somehow in a modern way, in a way for the 21st century. You can't
stay in that '60s mode. >> I've also heard there's a difference in
the ear between America and Europe. Americans like it a little smoother.
>> Maybe it has something to do with the which the women scream, you know. I don't know.
>> You hit stronger in the U.S. In America first and then kind of trickled back to the
U.K., correct? >> Well, we were always making a living in
the U.K., just about scraping by in Europe and in France we had huge success, knights
was number one when it was first released in France and after we played live at the
festival up there. And then we came to America as a support act for a lot of other people.
We came and supported a group called canned heat who took us across America. We supported
cream on their first farewell tour. Supported, knows, no, that's an English word,
we were the opening act for these people. And all the other English groups, almost without
exception, weren't prepared to do that. They're saying we're stars, we're in the charts, we're
stars, we won't go on as an opening act for anybody. We didn't care at all and that was
the making of us. We'd open up for -- we were quite disappointed when we got to a gig and
found out we were on the top of the bill. >> Success hits you and what are you going
to do, you know. Then you took a period where you hadn't recorded for a little bit and now
you've come out with a new album of your own work.
>> Yes. >> Why the time between solo projects and
what made you decide this was time to come back?
>> I had so many songs, I could not see a new moody blues album on the horizon looming
and I had a lot of work that I wanted to do and I had a lot of things in my heart that
needed to be said. I couldn't just keep them to myself. And I was in the studio working
a lot for universal and for the moody's mixing DVDs, remanufacturing, doing a lot of different
stuff, the 5.1 surround sound, and constantly working in the studio. My engineer would say
"You've got all these demos, let's do them properly." And we started to do them properly
then it became my whole life, then a labor of love and "Spirits of the western sky" expresses
exactly what I am more than anything I've ever -- I mean, anything I've ever done before.
♪♪ Upside down and inside out repeatedly defeated I've been missed about ♪♪
♪♪ begin the head and out of bed ♪♪ ♪♪ kicked into believing it was something
that I've said ♪♪ ♪♪ but although tomorrow things will change
♪♪ ♪♪ but tonight I feel I'm going to dry
my sorrows again." >> There's a maturity about it now where I'm
able to speak and I'm able to thinking what I'm saying and to not consider anything else.
And I found that, you know, it's -- I have to express the love that I have for people
around, acquaintances and friends and people that I've fallen in and out of love with,
around, and I'm very much aware of my own -- of the way things are moving through life
and that's when I find someone that inspires me or I want to be with then I really have
to change my life and be with them and that's expressed in this album. So this is the truest
expression of me as a person. >> Do you know what it is in you that makes
you feel the need to share this? Why you? >> That's an interesting thing, I mean, because
that's the kind of -- that's almost a duty. If somebody's prepared to -- to put $30.99
down or $12.99 or whatever it is and buy a ticket and it makes them happy and it's a
nice, warm feeling, then I -- I have a kind of duty to do it. Whether I kind of want to
or not. I'm facing the world with an empty diary.
>> In your real life, outside of your show biz life, have you unburdened yourself also.
Do you feel the same point in your real personal life as you do in your creative, artistic
life? >> Ahh, no, that's the thing. Well, that's
-- that's something that has to be expressed through my professional life, I suppose, because
it's not -- my personal life is just that, my own beliefs and my own faith are just that,
and they're mine. And, um, that's the thing that I'm still searching and seeking about,
really and I realize now that a lot of things aren't forever, they're for now. A lot of the places where I am are for now,
they're not particularly forever. >> Yeah.
>> So I'm avoiding your question like mad, but --
>> Let me ask -- >> That's my business.
>> You just find that your life and your public career parallel or are they not related?
>> No, they're not related. It's a different person.
>> Is it a conscious separation between the two?
>> No. No. It isn't. It's -- it's the song-writing and the music is a kind of mystery that I
don't intend to analyze that much. It's as simple as that. And so there's no intention
to keep them separate.Only in the fact that I've never enjoyed that kind of rockstar life-style.
And wouldn't have chosen that. There was a moment, I think in the late '60s where we
could have chosen to becomecelebrities. >> You made a conscious effort to keep yourself
out of it? >> We never smiled until about 1979 in a photograph,
you know, so. >> We're happy you're smiling today, you're
happy with us still making great music. >> Thank you very much you're very kind, you're
very kind. Thank you very much, boys and girls, and thank you Ernie for all the nice things
you've said, it's been a pleasure. >> An honor to speak with you, Justin Hayward.
>> Thank you. ♪♪ Nights in white satin, never reaching
the end ♪♪ ♪♪ letters I've written never meaning
to send ♪♪ ♪♪ beauty I've always seen ♪♪
♪♪ with these eyes ♪♪ ♪♪ just what the truth is, I can't say
anymore ♪♪ ♪♪ but I love you ♪♪
♪♪ yes, I love you ♪♪ ♪♪ ooooh, I love you ♪♪ ♪♪
