Moody Blues bringing timeless hits to Santa Rosa

Like most long-lived rock bands, the Moody Blues have survived some personnel changes over the decades, but the group’s core trio of John Lodge, Justin Hayward and Graeme Edge remains solid.

And that’s the lineup that fans will see up front at the band’s concert Wednesday, April 29, at Santa Rosa’s Wells Fargo Center for the Arts.

The band has seen half a dozen members leave overall, with most of the turnover taking place during the band’s formative years, between its beginnings in 1964 and 1966, when Lodge and Hayward joined.

“We started in 1966, and we been essentially the same since,” despite a couple more departures later, said bassist and singer Lodge, speaking recently by phone from a concert tour stop near Niagara Falls.

“Now it’s Justin, Graeme and myself,” said Lodge, 69. “We haven’t replaced anyone. What we try and do is something different onstage, by adding different musicians to recreate the songs we recorded.”

So look for four more backup musicians onstage with the star trio, on percussion, flute, saxophone and keyboards.

“We find that’s the way to do it, really, and not change members, because we are the Moody Blues - the three of us,” Lodge explained.

The current Moody Blues spring tour, continuing through June, has a very specific theme - “Timeless Flight: The Polydor Years,” featuring hits from 1986-1992.

“The record company released a boxed set of the Moody Blues recordings with Polydor, which is part of the Universal group, which we’re with,” Lodge noted. “Obviously we’re doing a few songs from that era. ‘Wildest Dreams’ is probably the major song from those years. We’re not promoting the album as such, because the Moody Blues have such a variety of songs from over the decades.”

To Lodge, performing with the Moody Blues is not about reeling off a list of hits, although the band knows the fans need to hear their mega-hit, “Nights in White Satin,” no matter what the tour’s theme might be.

“This is an album band, really,” Lodge said. “We’re a long-form band. We’ve never been singles-oriented or an MTV group. It’s always been about long-form videos and albums.”

Lodge attributes the band’s impressive longevity to the group’s basic artistic honesty.

“There really is a truthfulness about the Moody Blues, because we write all our songs, and have done from day one,” he said. “It’s our music. When I get onstage I want to perform the songs as best I can, and I think an audience sees that. We put a lot of thought, time and effort into the concert, just like an album, and we hope that by the end of the evening it will leave the audience with an emotion, something that will bring them back again.”

The tour is not Lodge’s only current project. Next month, he’ll release his new solo album, “10,000 Light Years Ago,” which features Moody Blues alumni Mike Pinder, the band’s original keyboardist, and Ray Thomas, flutist, singer and composer.

“Mike Pinder dropped out in 1980. He wanted to live in California and not tour and not record. That’s his prerogative. Ray Thomas stopped touring with us 12 years ago,” said Lodge, who still lives in his native England, south of London.

“It was a great adventure,” Lodge said. “Ray and I have been friends since we were 14, so I rang him up. Then we called Mike in California.”

The solo album, featuring songs all written or co-written by Lodge, sums up what he has learned about his life and his work so far, he said.

“It was based on a premise that I had, which is that the future is always within reach, but the past is gone forever,” he said. “I don’t look backwards. That’s why I’ve never written a book about my life. I’m not really interested in the past.”

Meanwhile, the Moody Blues roll on, bound together by friendship and dedication to the band’s musical mission.

“We respect each other. That’s the important thing,” he said. “We were never bound by fashion. We had melody and harmony with a backbeat. We’re rock and roll.”

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. Read his Arts blog at arts.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.