By Shawn Perry
When Moody Blues drummer Graeme Edge passed away in 2021, it marked the end of an era. Because Edge was the only original member who had remained with the group the longest, to many his passing meant the passing of the Moody Blues. Justin Hayward, the group’s guitarist, even issued a statement to that effect, saying the Moody Blues were done touring.
But the Moody Blues isn’t over for everyone.
John Lodge — the group’s bass player, as well as one of primary vocalists and songwriters — isn’t mincing words about that.
“Well, Justin made the statement and he’s going to live by that. Not me. I’m in Moody Blues, always will be a Moody Blue. Graeme said to me, ‘John, keep the Moodies going.’ Because he was a Moody Blue all his life. So that’s where I am,” Lodge told me before repeating and making it crystal clear: “Justin made the statement — not me.”
When I asked Lodge if he had spoken to Hayward recently, he was just as direct: “No, I haven’t. Justin lives in Monaco, which is a long way mentally from England. He wanders around doing his own thing, you know? He doesn’t want to be a Moody Blue. I think his statement said that — he didn’t want to be a Moody Blue. I don’t know why. The Moody Blues is what brought us together, and that was the glue. Now, the glue is unstuck.”
As Lodge was telling me this, at no point did he sound bitter or emotional. He accepts the situation for what it is. Losing Graeme Edge, like losing Ray Thomas in 2018, was a big blow to the Moody Blues. Lodge can be a Moody Blue, and Justin Hayward doesn’t have to be one if that’s how he feels. You could probably say the same about keyboardist Mike Pinder, who left the group in 1978. Others like original vocalist and guitarist Denny Laine, along with keyboardist Patrick Moraz, who replaced Pinder — maybe not so much.
Nevertheless, Lodge is planning to keep the music alive by bringing the Moody Blues’ 1967 opus, Days Of Future Passed, to the concert stage in 2023. The impetus for doing so was none other than Graeme Edge, whom Lodge says was “invaluable” to the group. Though the drummer wrote the poetry that was often sprinkled in between classic Moody Blues, it was actually Pinder who recited Edge’s words. In speaking with Edge about staging a new production of Days Of Future Passed, Lodge was able to record and film the drummer reading his own words: “Breathe deep the gathering gloom…Watch lights fade from every room” and so on. “I said to Graeme ‘If you do that, you’ll always have a place on stage with me,’ not knowing he was going to pass away,” Lodge recalls.
To support Lodge on the tour, he has long-running 10,000 Light Years Band — music director and keyboardist Alan Hewitt and drummer Billy Ashbaugh from the Moody Blues touring band, guitarist Duffy King and cellist Jason Charboneau — along with Yes vocalist Jon Davison, whom Lodge told me would be singing “Nights In White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon.”
“We’ve been rehearsing all these songs and we’ve kept really to what people I hope emotionally got charged with the album,” he says. “But I’ve tried to give it a more 2022 sound, if that makes sense. Because the original record is perfect as far as I’m concerned, but it was perfect for 1967.”
Indeed, Lodge is more than aware of how far the technology has come since 1967 when Days Of Future Passed, which was an experiment in recording technology at the time, was made. Taking it on the road back then, however, wasn’t all that easy. Aside from the problems associated with playing a Mellotron, which is all over the album, on stage, there were other limitations. Fifty years later, replicating those sounds isn’t that far of a stretch.
“The sound nowadays is so good on stage,” Lodge says, “it’s a lot better than you could do in 67. Alan Hewitt sampled all the Mellotrons we used. He uses an array of keyboards, so we’ve got all the things covered.”
There’s also plans for Lodge and his band to play Days Of Future Passed with regional orchestras. In fact, as the finale of his 2023 Winter U.S. tour, there will be a special performance the Coachella Valley Symphony on March 26 at the Rancho Mirage Amphitheater in Rancho Mirage, California. Lodge had been toying with the idea of teaming up an orchestra, but it was something he was thinking about for the future. Hewitt is a resident of the area, so it came together rather easily, and according to the bassist, “seemed like a wonderful way to step my feet into the water.” As of now, this is the only date to feature an orchestra. Needless to say, Lodge is anxious to see how it goes this time around.
“We’ve got all the music for the orchestra and the conductor. My band have learned all the parts, so we can augment everything into the sound,” Lodge tells me. “If it works, and I’m really happy and excited about it, I want to take it on the road because we did two concerts of the Moody Blues with an orchestra [playing] Days Of Future Passed and it was fantastic. I loved every minute. I want to recreate that and bring it to everyone.”
Lodge sees the tour as a golden opportunity to introduce the album to a new generation of listeners. “I’ve had so many young people coming up wanting to know about the album and what I’m doing, and they’re not firsthand to Days Of Future Passed,” he says. “I think by playing this as a whole album, it might kindle a light in their music [journey].”
Looking back on the making of Days Of Future Passed, he fondly recalls how the album was recorded. “The initial thing was in those days, if you get a recording contract or you would have a choice of a morning session, an afternoon session, or an evening session. When we decided to do the album, we went to have meetings with the record company and said, “Yeah, we’d like to do this but we want a 24-hour lockdown on the studio. No one ever thought about doing that. And the record company said, “Yeah.” So, we had the studio 24 hours a day. That meant we could be working at 4:00 in the morning, which is fabulous. it’s a great time to record — no interruptions, no telephone calls. None of us had ever been in the studio all the time. It was a fantastic actually knowing that somebody at a record company had the faith in us to let us have the studio all the while.”
With all that time in the studio, the Moodies were able to spend time developing and shaping the songs. They started out with three songs, and created a loose theme around “the day in the life of an everyman” with additional material. Because of this process, the group didn’t even hear the full songs until they were completely arranged and recorded.
Lodge also remembers the album was originally mixed in stereo, but weeks later, a mono mix was made because, as the bassist recalls with a laugh: “Not many people had stereo record players” in 1967.
With the Moody Blues no longer a working entity, despite Graeme Edge’s request to carry on, Lodge plans to carry the torch by playing the band’s music for audiences around the world. At the end of 2021, he issued a live album, The Royal Affair And After, from 2019’s The Royal Affair Tour Lodge did with Yes, Carl Palmer, Arthur Brown, and Asia. He’s also continued to write new music, having released two songs “In These Crazy Times” and “The Sun Will Shine” during the pandemic There some instrumental pieces he’s put together, and he’s working on new material with Jon Davison and Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes.
Having seen Lodge a few years ago on Cruise to the Edge and knowing one of his upcoming gigs will be on the Rock & Romance Cruise sailing out of Miami in March, I had to ask him what it is he likes about being on a music-theme cruise. Feeding off his generally positive, satiated disposition, I wasn’t surprised by his answer.
“There’s nothing better, to be honest, than walking across the deck at midnight in the Caribbean and looking up and seeing the moon and the stars, and you hear music coming off from the deck. It’s quite a surreal situation.”
Coming from a Moody Blue, what would you expect?
For his part, John Lodge is content with “just carrying on,” bringing the music of the Moody Blues to audiences for as long as he can.
