Justin Hayward explains the noisy cat on ‘Nights in White Satin’ and other Moody Blues stories

Justin Hayward insists there were two Moody Blues. He ought to know, as he was the principal lead singer and chief songwriter of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band.

“We became a recording band that had a particular way of sounding, and then a touring band where I went from 30 watts to 50 watts to 100 watts to 200 watts to 800 watts,” said Hayward, who comes to Minneapolis on Sunday. “It got real loud.”

Hence, the ensemble that singer/guitarist Hayward will bring to the Pantages Theatre — guitarist Mike Dawes, singer/multi-instrumentalist Julie Ragins and singer/flutist Karmen Gould — is more like the original Moody Blues, the British pop/prog rockers band known for their collaborations with orchestras on “Nights in White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon.”

“I’m truer to the way the songs were recorded, certainly the way they were written,” Hayward said this week from the road in Jacksonville, Fla. “There’s nothing missing in my show except mega-volume.”

Hayward is on the Blue World Tour, taking its name from a 1983 single, “Blue World,” that the Moodies never performed live. Hayward will play it, along with tunes from his solo catalog as well as Moody Blues material.

Although he was the frontman, the Moody Blues were an easy democracy, to hear him tell it.

“I never found it hard to be a democracy,” he said. “It helped that none of us were celebrities. The music and the songs have always been the star. There were no egos going out of control, not that I could see.”

He attributes that in part to the willingness of the band early on to open for just about anybody in the United States. His first trip to Minneapolis was warming up for Tiny Tim in 1968.

“Very kind man, the nicest. People would laugh. But he was for real,” Hayward said of the eccentric ukulele artist who had a ’68 novelty hit with “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”

“We were everybody’s opening act for the first few years,” Hayward said. “That made a difference to us because we were the only British band that was prepared to come to the United States and be third or fourth on the bill. A lot of other English bands expected to be top of the bill, as they would be in the U.K. We didn’t care about that, really. We quite liked being back at the hotel at 9 o’clock.”

The Moody Blues were never critical favorites, which may explain why they didn’t get voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame until 2018 (ironically, the year they disbanded) even though they had been eligible since 1990.

“Hey, we were on ‘The Simpsons,’” Hayward joked about a 1999 episode. “That was validation.”

This year, the affable Hayward, 78, has released a new single, “Life in a Northern Town,” with musician/producer Mike Batt. They had an opportunity to record with the London Philharmonic Orchestra a few years ago, and this remake of the 1985 Dream Academy hit was on the list.

“This is a very beautiful song. Mike did a fantastic arrangement. I just did the session from my own musical memory,” Hayward said. “We did a couple of other songs and they will come out once we find a deal for them.”

A couple of years ago, though, Hayward dropped the new song “Living for Love.”

“These songs jump out of the guitar. I’ve had quite a few things out in the last few years. It’s not often that I’m around to promote them. There was a song I did called ‘One Summer Day’ and another one called ‘My Juliette.’ If you’re not on tour, you don’t get a chance to promote them.”

Hayward also explained what sparked some of the Moody Blues’ favorites that he wrote.

“It was a follow on a song called ‘Your Wildest Dreams,’ which we had great success. Produced by Tony Visconti. It was a time in the ’80s when we still looked good as a band.

“I used the same LinnDrum to do my demo. Lyrically it’s a common experience for most people to wonder what happened to the first person they ever loved. And that’s right: They are out there somewhere.”

The revamped Moodies’ second album, “Days of Future Passed,” was conceived by Hugh Mendl, a producer at Decca Records.

“We weren’t famous and we didn’t have a deal,” Hayward recalled. “It was a demonstration record to demonstrate stereo. We weren’t the stars of it, stereo was the star of it, along with the arrangements and the London Festival Orchestra, which was a name we just made up. Didn’t actually exist.

“ ‘Nights in White Satin’ had already been recorded. But in a meeting with Hugh, we came out thinking it would be nice to have a theme about parts of the day. Mike [Pinder, the keyboardist] had already written ‘Dawn Is a Feeling.’

“I went back to my parents’ house in Wilshire and went out in the field with a guitar and wrote ‘Tuesday Afternoon.’ It came naturally. I think Tuesday is probably the nicest day of the week. The other days don’t sing, although the best day of the week song was Seals & Crofts’ ‘Year of Sunday.’”

When the Moodies were young men, they performed at a lot of American college campuses. In England, the draft was over, though keyboardist Pinder, the band’s oldest member, had been conscripted into the British army.

“We were coming to a country we loved, the land of our musical heroes, and you have the draft. Kids in college were wrestling with their conscience about what to do. The world was involved like it is now with wars all over the place. [The song] was just a reflection of that.”

Hayward actually wrote two separate songs — one addressing the attitudes of college students and the other a love song — and, in the studio, combined them into one tune.

“I never had the title till after it was recorded. Sometime the titles are the hardest thing to write about a song.”

“I was at the end of one big love affair and at the beginning of another. Every word in it means something to me. I’ve spent my life trying to explain it, really, but not very well.”

Near the end of the song, there is an out-of-tune percussive crash that was caused by the studio cat running through the room and knocking over a percussion stand. Hayward was the only one of the Moodies, who had already recorded their part, in the studio when it happened.

It happened after the orchestra practiced the piece, took a tea break, and had time for one full take.

“I think they left it on the recording because you can’t redo the whole thing just for that,” Hayward pointed out. “I accepted it.”

However, in 1990, an arranger for the first concert the Moody Blues were playing live with an orchestra asked about it. Hayward told him to ignore it.

In retrospect, the songwriter said: “Who knew anyone was going to hear that record? Not one of us in the band. We never thought anybody would ever hear it.”

When: 7 p.m. Sun.

Where: Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $76 and up, ticketmaster.com