| Another year, another No. 1 album. What was the inspiration behind
your first album not to be promoted by any singles?
JOHN LODGE: It was a continuation, really, of A QUESTION OF BALANCE.
EVERY GOOD BOY... is saying, well, if you get it right and continue along
this road, perhaps things do come right and you see both sides of the picture.
The title, of course, is the musical scale of EGBDF. The tuning of a guitar.
JUSTIN HAYWARD: It's how people remember to learn sonic scales, a finger
exercise. It's repeated over and over again in different places on the
album, which was musically based on those exercises. That's where it came
from, and the Moog keeps playing those phrases. We used a lot of strange
electronics, and the album was very much Moog-based more than Mellotron.
It was the beginning of synethesisers.
How did you come across the Moog?
JH: We met Mr. Moog in America. I've got Mini-Moog number 0000002 and
Mike, I think, had No. 1. The Moogs we were using then were
like a semi-detached house with lots of wires and flashing lights, all
black. We went back recently and sampled a lot of our old sounds, because
some combinations of analogue instruments are lost forever but sound great,
but you can't find them now.
GRAEME EDGE: This was the only time I sang lead grunt! We had nerve
in them days. We decided we would write the history of music. Why not?
So we started off grunting, making hollow log-type sounds and then gradually
evolved through to sitars. I'd got in touch with the professor of electroncis
at Sussex University, Brian Groves. We worked up an electic drum kit, a
marvellous idea. I had a control panel in front of me — it's old hat now
but we were the first to do it. There were pieces of rubber with silver
paper on the back, with a coil attached that moved up and down inside a
magnet which produced a signal, so it was touch-sensitive. I had five snares
across the top and then ten tom-tom's [sic] and then a whole octave of
bass drums underneath my feet and then four lots of sixteen sequencers,
two each side. There was a gap — to play a space — a tambourine, ebony
stick, snare and three tom-tom's [sic]. This is pre-chip days, back when
you did it all with transistors. So it had something like 500 transistors.
The electronics inside looked something like spaghetti! When it worked,
it was superb, but it was before its day, because it was so sensitive.
I'd be working on it at home and when the fridge switched itself on, the
whole kit would go off! Any surge or peak of electricity or any scratchy
broadcast threw the automatic switch. And when I tried to use it on stage,
the whole kit went absolutely bananas as soon as people flicked lights
on and off. So the experiment failed, but I smile to myself when I see
all these electronic drum kits around now, because I had the idea before
technology was ready for it! But we did use the kit in the studio because
when it cocked up, you could start again.
The production sounds quite different from the other Moody Blues
LPs.
JH: There was a kind of rebellion happening. We moved away from Decca
for the first time, to use other studios to try different engineers — because
we'd had the same engineer for ages. it was change for change's sake. We
were just wondering if the grass was greener. Also, we were trying to come
to terms with the fact that our music wasn't underground anymore. It had
taken on a life of its own. We were having to explain ourselves to a large
audience. We'd moved into vast stadiums. We were changing as people and
that's very much reflected in EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR. It's almost
apologetic, I find.
JL: I think ‘Procession’ was what the LP was all about. We were taking
music and people from the very beginning and coming right up to date with
everything which had happened through history. The closest summary to me
would be that the lyrical content — and perhaps the music — is our answer
to A QUESTION OF BALANCE.
RAY THOMAS: That's right. The theme was definitely like that on A QUESTION
OF BALANCE the ying and the yang of it. You've got to have this to have
that.
What's your favourite song on the LP?
JL: I can't really answer that fairly because I wrote a song on there
for my daughter, ‘Emily's Song’. Obviously, that has a special place for
me. ‘One More Time To Live’ was interesting because it was a concept song.
The idea was to start from nothing — desolation — and bring it up to where
we were today. ‘Procession’, you see, equated a similar theme — and I think
EVERY GOOD BOY... was saying that as a whole.
And Ray contributed ‘Nice To Be Here’ and ‘Our Guessing Game’.
RT: I thought that was fun. And so was trying to get Justin to play
a guitar solo using only one string, as the frog. He got it down to two,
actually. The original lyric was “banjo with only one string!” and then
we changed that to guitar. I like to get out, especially when the weather
is better, and go fishing. Most guys who go fishing don't just go there
for that. It's amazing what you see. I just thought it was a great kids'
song — you know, to have a Beatrix Potter band (laughs). ‘Our Guessing
Game’: well, it's questioning. It's about those times when you think you've
got it right and then you realise that maybe you haven't — just a reflection,
really. It's like you haven't changed that much. I don't believe anybody
changes their spots that much.
By now, the band was enormous in America. Why do you think the Moodies
were so popular in the States?
JL: American FM radio had come on-line and instead of having a 2'45"
watershed, they'd play the music regardless of its duration. It started
off in the college circuits and small local stations and cities in FM —
because everything had been AM — and the Moody Blues seemed just perfect
for this new format. So they didn't talk about a six-minute track as the
new single, just as a song — it was a different aspect. I think this is
where a profound difference emerged between the U.S.A. and the U.K. — the
U.K. was still, and still is, single-orientated, whereas America is album-orientated.
Because we had a no-compromise situation with EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR,
where we didn't issue a single at all, the really affirmed a stance for
the Moody Blues as an album band. And the record company in the U.S.A.
knew that, so they just went with it.
Despite your enormous fan base, some of your albums tended to get
short shrift from some quarters of the British music press. Did that bother
you?
JH: Probably the last good review we had was for ON THE THRESHOLD OF
A DREAM! It seemed to me that we lost the British press after that. I think
it was because the British rock scene is so transient — it changes so quickly
— that it's very difficult to retain someone's attention. Even the music
critics, every few months, would be changing. That's why British music
is so thrilling and exciting, because it progresses very quickly. You have
to be thick-skinned and realise that if you're hip, you're going to be
unhip pretty quickly, which happens to this day. We just weren't their
cup of tea anymore. But we won't be losing sleep over it, I can assure
you!
Notes: EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR was named after the tunings
for a guitar — a reflection of the Moodies musicological interests. It
captured the band at the height of their popularity but the album also
featured some of their most unusual music.
Special thanks to: Wyn Mather at Threshold, Bill Levenson, Matthieu
Lauriot-Prevost, David Costa, Phil Smee.
Digitally remastered by Steve Fallone at PolyGram Studios.
Sleevenotes and interview by John Reed. |
