Moody Blues lines up old rock songs

“With a career full of many years, it’s amazing that I can still have these moments,” he says during an interview from France. “Right now, we’re enjoying discovering our old catalogs. It’s really quite nice to hear these songs and get some of them lined up to perform. This time around we’re not just doing the singles.”

The Moody Blues began in 1964 in England. Over the course of more than 45 years, the band has sold more than 70 million records worldwide and has had 14 platinum and gold discs. The band’s lineup consists of Hayward, Graeme Edge and John Lodge.

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The band is known for hits such as “Your Wildest Dreams,” “The Voice,” “Gemini Dream,” “Tuesday Afternoon,” “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” and “Nights in White Satin.”

Despite all of the band’s success, Hayward admits that it wasn’t an easy journey.

“A year into me getting in the band, I moved back with my parents,” he says. “Times were tough and we didn’t know how far the band would go. I was struggling to pay the payments on my amplifier. Never in a million years would I have imagined to still be performing 40 years later.”

Hayward says getting the call to join The Moody Blues in the summer of 1966 was a gift.

“I had found a group that would do my songs,” he explains. “At the same time, the band was looking to change and become something more than a British R&B band. We had no idea on what was coming. The only plan for the band was to make music.”

Hayward says the band was lucky in the sense that there were no pressures set on top of them by the record company.

“They let us have a lot of studio time,” he recalls. “I think we were able to absorb any changes as they came along.”

While the band continued to make music, Hayward says some of the toughest times recording came in the 1980s.

“The technologies weren’t very good back then,” he says. “Nowadays, there is technology all around us and at our fingertips. We were a band that was always trying to push boundaries and in the ’80s it transferred quite bad. Those are the joys and woes of recording.”

When it comes to songwriting, Hayward flat out calls it a “mystery.”

“I accept what comes to me and enjoy it when it does,” he says. “In the early years, I was under a lot of pressure to come up with songs. The other guys would expect me to have something. Now, there’s not that pressure and I think that inspiration has to find you working. You have to really put the effort into songwriting and devote the days to it.”

Hayward says the band is able to enjoy the touring process a lot more now that they are older.

He says the pressures of touring are long gone.

“We don’t have to compete in the business anymore,” he says. “What’s great is that our music is finding new fans and once we get into the second half of the show, it’s about making people happy.”