Rocker’s Current Gig Has No Tunes, Just Tales for Tots

Veteran cosmic rocker and founding member of the Moody Blues, Mike Pinder, is into kids’ stuff these days. The mellow-voiced keyboard player will be reading folk tales for children during a pair of stops at area Borders Books & Music locations Saturday afternoon.

The Moody Blues, one of the first bands to combine cosmic lyrics with rock and classical music to soothe the stoned during those silly ‘60s, have sold millions of albums in the last 30 years. Every member of the group was a songwriter, including Pinder, who wrote, among other songs, “Melancholy Man.” Pinder, who quit the group nearly 20 years ago, has continued to record solo albums but is currently involved with his folk-tale project. Pinder received permission from 21 authors from all over the world to narrate their stories, simple fables with deep meanings.

“A Planet With One Mind” and “A People With One Heart” are the first two releases. “An Earth With One Spirit” will complete the trilogy and should be finished soon. All three, on Pinder’s own label, One Step Records, will be available in a collection entitled “One Mind, One Heart, One Spirit.” The CDs all have background sounds to add dimension to the stories, but Pinder won’t be bringing his keyboard, the famous Mellotron, to these readings.

Pinder spoke recently by phone from his Auburn, Calif., home.

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How did you get involved with these folk tales for kids?

It came out of my interest in the work of [mythologist] Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious. I came to realize while raising my own children that things I heard when I was a child set me on a path. I remember when I was 5 years old I heard a song on the BBC called “The Lost Chord” sung by Jimmy Durante. Then 22 years later, the Moody Blues recorded “In Search of the Lost Chord.” I think we need to expose children to the right kinds of things as an alternative to all the violence on film and in video games.

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How did you get turned on to Joseph Campbell?

By watching PBS. That man spent his entire life showing how everything is related to everything else. He took all these ideas and expanded and demystified them and related them to the collective unconsciousness. It’s like we’re all wicks on a very large candle, all burning at different intensities.

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What are these bookstore performances like?

I read a couple of stories and have a chat with the kids. There’s no music.

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Do old hippies and old Moody Blues fans show up?

Sometimes--I’ve done this about a dozen or so times so far. You can’t do much to change those old hippies now, but old hippies have kids now.

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You don’t approve of MTV?

Definitely not. Where we live A&E; and MTV are right next to each other on cable. The other night, we were watching A&E; and we turned to MTV during a commercial and there was that basketball player--Dennis Rodman, I think--with that woman who hosts that dating show. They were in the back seat of a car and she was mooning the audience and talking about how big his penis was. It has really gotten down to the lowest common denominator. That shows you the state of the world these days, so there’s nowhere to go but up.

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Dennis Rodman sells more shirts than Joseph Campbell.

Yes, he does.

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What was it like being a rock star in the ‘60s?

Well, it was an incredible roller coaster ride, realizing that I was a part of something big.

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Moody Blues fans expected the band to come up with the Cosmic Answer to It All. Was that a problem for you?

Personally, no, but I think it was a problem for some of the other guys. I remember one time we were playing in San Antonio and on the way to the gig a guy had a sign that said, “The world is going to end, right after the Moody Blues show.”

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Do you ever see the guys in the band anymore?

Actually, I saw them this year when they were doing one of their cabaret shows in Reno. I hung out backstage for about half an hour, then left before the show, of course.

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Why didn’t you watch them play?

Would you go to watch your ex-wife have sex with her new boyfriend?

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Good point. Once upon a time, it seemed like all the British bands were blues bands.

Yes, we were, too. That’s where the “Blues” comes from, and the “Moody” comes from an old song, “Mood Indigo.” We wanted anything with the initials “M.B.” because that was the name of a local brewery we were trying to hit up for some cash. It didn’t work.

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How did you end up with a Mellotron?

I was working for the company that made them--it was only two miles from my house in Birmingham. I read a job ad for someone with electronics and musical experience. I got to be the guy at the end of the line that checked them out. For me, it was like Indiana Jones finding the Holy Grail.

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Why did you leave the band?

For the same reason we started it--it was a good time to do it. I had just met my second wife and I decided I was not letting go of this, and I wanted to raise my children outside of show business. We had already recorded the eight core albums, and family life was so much more of an attraction than a career that had already peaked.

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Will there be new Mike Pinder music soon?

This year, actually. I’ll continue to do children’s material, but I’ll be starting something this year. I’m writing a book, plus working on a couple of other albums.

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So you’re not the “Melancholy Man”?

No, not at all. That was just a song.

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If I had a faster car, a richer girlfriend or both, here’s where I’d be rocking out this weekend:

TONIGHT: Teresa Russell and Stephen Geyer (Hungry Hunter, Thousand Oaks), David Crosby (Ventura Theatre), Papa-Nata (Bombay Bar & Grill, Ventura).

FRIDAY: The Buds (Hungry Hunter), Social Distortion, Swingin’ Utters, Supersucker (Ventura Theatre), Ska Daddyz (Bombay), Swamp Boogie Queen, Itchy McGuirk (Nicholby’s, Ventura).

SATURDAY: Blue Stew (Hi Cees, Ventura), J. Peter Boles (Ash Street Coffee House, Ventura), Social Distortion, Swingin’ Utters, Supersucker (Ventura Theatre), Ska Daddyz (Bombay), Spencer the Gardener (Nicholby’s).

SUNDAY: Blue Stew (Hi Cees), Southern Cross (California 66, Ventura).

MONDAY: Teresa Russell (The Whale’s Tail, Oxnard), Harmonica Fats & Bernie Pearl (Cafe Voltaire, Ventura).

DETAILS

* WHAT: Mike Pinder reads folk tales for children.

* WHEN AND WHERE: 11 a.m. at Borders Books & Music, 125 W. Thousand Oaks Blvd.; 4 p.m. at Borders in Santa Barbara, 900 State St.

* HOW MUCH: Free.

* CALL: 497-8159 (Thousand Oaks) or 899-3668 (Santa Barbara).