MUSIC : Moody Blues Just Keep on Grooving in Harmony : Four-fifths of the lineup from 1966 will be at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Sunday night.

The Moody Blues, with four-fifths of the lineup from 1966 still at it, will bring their cosmic consciousness and heavenly harmonies to the Santa Barbara County Bowl on Sunday night. For sure.

The Moodies were one of the first bands to connect rock to classical music with their landmark 1967 pop opera release, “Days of Future Passed.” Well, the future is now, because the Santa Barbara Symphony, overdressed and overwhelming, will be there to back up the band. Let’s see the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam, Snoop Doggie Dogg or the Chili Peppers try that one.

Justin Hayward is the blond having lots of fun, who over the years has played guitar and sung and written lots of cool songs, such as “Tuesday Afternoon,” “Nights in White Satin,” “Question,” “Never Comes the Day,” “The Story in Your Eyes” and plenty more. He spoke by phone from a Salt Lake City hotel, where he was disguised as one Mr. Sandy.

How did the symphony connection come about?

Well, it happened in September, 1992. It was a concert in Red Rocks, Colo., to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of “Days of Future Passed.” It was filmed and they played it on PBS and all over the world as well. Then we started getting calls from all over with people asking us to play with their symphony orchestra.

Is there anywhere the band hasn’t been?

We’ve never been to South America. We’d really like to go there, but we’ve not had the right offer yet. We’ve never been to Russia, but we were in Prague when the Russian tanks rolled in. The Russian generals came and took some of our rooms, and we ended up five guys to a room, three to a bed. We left on a British Air Force plane after being there for 10 days.

At one point in the ‘60s, every British band was a blues band. Was that true of the Moody Blues as well?

Yes, we started as an R&B; band until we developed our own style, but I don’t think that phase was reflective of ourselves. We were then very much a small-time band close to folding . . . and all of us had moved back home with our parents. We had an opportunity to record but without a record contract, and we recorded “Days of Future Passed,” which originally was meant to be a just a stereo demonstration album. But then it took off in France. . . .

What was it like being a rock star in the ‘60s, or can you remember?

Well, you know what they say about the ‘60s. It was like being a member of an exclusive club. London in the ‘60s was surely the place to be--the clubs were cool and all the musicians knew each other. It was a golden age, obviously looking back, led by the Beatles.

The band has gone through keyboard players every 10 or 15 years. There’s no keyboard player now?

Oh no, we’ve got two now, Bias Boshell and Paul Bliss; they’ve played on our last few records. Mike Pinder left a long time ago, which was a great release for the rest of us because it’s difficult when someone doesn’t want to do it anymore. He lives in California somewhere. Patrick Moraz? I don’t know where he is. We didn’t kick them out, they both left us.

What do you think Moody Blues music is like?

I think you can rely on us to go our own way and make music from the heart and the head. We just trust our own judgment, but that’s getting more and more difficult these days with accountants running record companies.

What does everyone always get wrong about the band?

It’s that people always assume that we’re some sort of psychedelic weirdo hippies stuck in that thing. We’ve had a lot of success in the ‘80s with a couple of big hit singles, which has changed our audience considerably. These days, you know, it’s hard to get 45-year-old hippies to go anywhere.

It’s like you guys and the Stones--how do you account for the band’s longevity?

We’ve overcome a lot of crisis points that broke up a lot of other bands.

When we broke up in 1973 for a few years, people thought it was a mistake, but it was probably the best thing we ever did. I discovered I didn’t have a life apart from music and the band. When you’re young, you expect people to want to come to see you; but when you get older, you realize it’s a privilege that people still want to see you. Also, I’m in a band that plays my songs really well, and the money is really good.

In the early ‘70s, was there an extra weight on the band because the fans expected the band to provide The Cosmic Answer to It All?

It was definitely a time of search for enlightenment and also a big party. Then it became a serious search for enlightenment with a background of rebellion, especially in your country, against the war. At that time, I think we knew more than our fans. We were always singing from experience--a lot of religious and psychedelic experiences. But the search was always the same, to make the world a better place. Personally, I did all my growing up by the time I was 15; I mean I wrote “Nights in White Satin” when I was 19.

Details

* WHAT: The Moody Blues.

* WHERE: Santa Barbara. County Bowl, 1122 Milpas St.

* WHEN: Sunday, 7 p.m.

* HOW MUCH: $38 or $30.50.

* FYI: 568-2695.