"THE SHEER GLORIOUS INDULGENCE OF IT!"

The Moody Blues’ JUSTIN HAYWARD on a watershed some bands could not traverse.

We knew Pepper was coming as [Moodies’ keyboard player] Mike Pinder could walk in on Beatles sessions, because he had introduced

them to the mellotron. We spent most of our time up the Abbey Road – the scruffy end! – in the Decca studios at Broadhurst Gardens. But we’d heard the news. Four of us had dropped acid in May ’67 – me, Mike, Ray [Thomas] and Graeme [Edge] – and so we were on that path. I had already bought a sitar from the same

place George Harrison had. And we were already playing Days Of Future Passed on-stage, although we hadn’t recorded it. We got hold of an advanced copy of Sgt. Pepper, maybe only two days before it was due out. Me and my then girlfriend went round to this girl’s flat on Marylebone High Street, got really stoned and we were there a day, maybe two days playing this record! It was the most incredible thing I’d ever heard. The sheer glorious indulgence of it. It seemed to encompass everything with a sense of humour and irony that hadn’t been heard in pop records before. I remember being stunned, when Lucy In The Sky… suddenly goes into Getting Better. I’ve just been down there watching the grass grow and now suddenly there’s this masterpiece of pop, lifting you up. After Pepper it was easier to push at the boundaries of pop. Which was good news for me, because I was lousy at rhythm and blues. The Moodies did the Transcendental Meditation course later in ’67, at the same time The Beatles were doing it, although they were they were in the upper rooms – the upper echelons! But we were lucky, I suppose, to be in the club. A lot of groups that had had success in the previous three years couldn’t make the transition. I felt bad for my pals in The Swinging Blue Jeans. The public wouldn’t allow The Swinging Blue Jeans to navel gaze. They weren’t allowed in.