Just what you want to be, you will be in the end.
Justin Hayward
I'm very lucky that people are able to say, 'Oh, that's that Moody Blues guy!' I'm very fortunate with that. That's all. Without the songs, I think, I'd just be a pretty average karaoke singer. In the end, it comes down to the songs: the strength of the songs.
When I came to The Moody Blues, we were a rhythm and blues band. I was lousy at rhythm and blues - I think the rest of us were.
The Beatles were in a different stratosphere, a different planet to the rest of us. All I know is when I heard 'Love Me Do' on the radio, I remember walking down the street and knowing my life was going to be completely different now the Beatles were in it.
I can be stupid in my lyrics or say whatever I want without having to worry about anybody else's feeling or anybody being embarrassed by it or anything like that.
I never used to speak to the audience at all. I never really knew what to say onstage.
And if you stop and think about it you won't believe it's true: That all the love you've been giving has all been meant for you.
The Moodies is a responsibility to deliver the goods every night onstage and to do it sincerely; otherwise, it doesn't work. You've got the three guys left in the Moodies that really want to do it onstage, so I think we're truer to the old records now than we ever were.
Several years ago, I was asked by a songwriter's association to go to Nashville - I think it involved some kind of award - and be part of the showcase. It was myself and Stevie Winwood and Michael McDonald and then some country people that I didn't know. The whole community was just so welcoming to me.
I often write things, and then I think it's too personal for the Moodies. It's not something that I could share with other guys to say.
I would say trust your own judgment and develop your own style that is true in your heart and don't be deterred from that. Just develop that something that's unique to you that you feel you can give. Be true to yourself, trust your own judgment; that's all.
I sometimes don't know what songs are about for several years after I've written them.
I never got a stereo system until about 1969. It was only when I went to America in '68 and listened to FM radio; I really thought, 'Wow, there's something in this.'
My songs form a kind of biography or diary of my life as they are about people I have loved and people I only knew in my heart, places I have seen only for a moment and places I have lived all my life.
I was born in Swindon... a place that always looked west. I found that wherever I go I love to have a room with a view of the western sky. My late brother and I, when we were small, had a room at the back of the house that overlooked the sunset; and both for he and I it was kind of magical.
America was the one territory where they didn't release 'Nights In White Satin' at the time it was made. It was about three or four months later, after 'Tuesday Afternoon,' so I think we have a special fondness for it.
I certainly know that on our first tour of America in 1968, David Crosby came to see us backstage at the Fillmore East in New York, and I was very pleased to meet him from Buffalo Springfield and that kind of stuff. He didn't ask me anything about the music, but he said, 'Where'd you get your clothes, man?'
The problem with the Moodies is not what to play, it's what to leave out! That's always difficult. We stopped having support acts many years ago just because of that. We needed getting on to two hours; there's such a big catalog to call on.
I think there'll always be a kid with a guitar with a song in his heart that's going to turn me on - that's as far as I can see. Whether lots of people agree with that, I'm not sure.
I feel a duty to write because I can write songs.
There's no secret, but inspiration has to find you working. And that's one of the key things that I've always remembered. And if I put my mind to it tonight, I think I could take a guitar, and by 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, something will have happened - I'll have had something to hang onto. But I think that's the key.
