Riding a Seesaw Between the Moody Blues and a Solo Career

The Moody Blues is among the most long-lived and commercially popular bands in the history of rock. It is also one of the most maligned.

Always a love ‘em or hate ‘em type of group, the Moodys came to epitomize either the bloated, grandiose pretensions of so-called progressive rock or the artistic yearning to reach new tonal plains, depending on one’s point of view. The titles of the band’s early albums said it all: “Days of Future Passed,” “On the Threshold of a Dream,” “Seventh Sojourn”--the Moody Blues was British Space Hippie personified. Really, who could ever take the group’s biggest hit, the triple-platinum “Nights in White Satin,” seriously after hearing American punk group the Dickies chew it up and spit it out in a demented 1979 cover version?

Justin Hayward, lead singer and principal songwriter for the Moodys since 1966 (the year after the band’s formation) has also maintained a more modest side career as a solo performer. He debuted in 1977 with “Songwriter” but, according to Hayward--who appears with a backup band Tuesday at the Coach House--that album and his next three (relatively unsuccessful) solo efforts were slapdash affairs, not fully realized projects. He views them as dry runs for a real go at solo legitimacy that began with the release in October of “The View From the Hill” (CMC Records).

“My other albums were collections of random bits of recording that I would finally put out once I had an album’s worth of material,” said Hayward in a recent phone interview.

“This is the first time I’ve ever done this, made an album from start to finish. It means a lot to me, and I know that it’s good. It’s all a matter of if you like it or not from there. And that’s how it’s always been in the Moody Blues as well--I know we’re a good band, but whether you like it or not is up to you. At the very least, [the new album] will make your hi-fi sound good. . . . It’s a trippy, dreamy, romantic kind of thing.”

Trippy, dreamy and romantic? To no great surprise, “The View From the Hill” does sound much like a project from the Moodys. Hayward’s pretty, airy vocals and cabalistic lyrics are showcased in a swirling sea of synth-heavy, ethereal sound. The difference is that there’s a bit more of a pop sensibility on “View” than there is in the Moody Blues’ denser, more suite-like works. While Hayward’s solo songs are a layered, complex listening experience, there are hooks and choruses that owe as much to fellow prog-rocker-turned-hitmaker Peter Gabriel as they do to the Moodys.

Hayward also stresses that the material is much more visceral and personal than the songs he writes for the Moodys.

“There’s no difference between what I write for myself and what I write for the band to start with, really,” he said. “The difference is in the finishing. I came to the Moody Blues as a singer-songwriter, and that’s always what I felt I was and am. If I’m writing for the Moodys, then I’m speaking for the rest of the band as well as myself. But when I write for myself, I feel it’s much freer. It’s probably a lot more from my heart and more revealing, more honest.”

Being front man for the Moody Blues has been both an asset and an albatross for Hayward, 50. While the singer came to fame and fortune with the band, it also entrapped him in an era from which, it seems, it’s most difficult to escape.

“I feel like only in the last few years have I been able to walk out of the shadows of the ‘60s, really,” he said. “It had loomed so large over so many [bands] of my particular generation--particularly those that came from the London scene of 1963 through 1969--it’s like a shadow that was cast. There would be a time in just about every day where it would be invoked; everything I did was always compared to that. ‘Nights In White Satin’ is the song the whole world remembers; it was a hit internationally. How does what I’m doing now stand up to it? Does it have as much meaning?”

No one will ever let Hayward forget the legacy of the Moody Blues. But the many critical slings and arrows cast in the group’s direction over the years appear to have had little effect on him. According to Hayward, the sniping was always the product of professional faultfinders rather than the public anyway.

So will Hayward concentrate now on establishing himself as a solo artist, or will he continue to front the still-arena-packing Moody Blues?

“Being a solo artist is more of a priority than it used to be,” he said. “But I love doing both and selfishly want to have it both ways.”

Justin Hayward plays Tuesday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 7 and 9:30 p.m. $29.50-$31.50. (714) 496-8930.