It's probably a generational issue, but when my editor first made mention of possibly speaking with Mike Pinder, I wasn't struck by any bolts of recognition. But then a clump of press arrived in the mail, and I was once again staring at a small vacuum in my pop knowledge. It happens all the time. Just when you think you have the majority of pop history lodged under your belt, you read something that reminds you that you've still only grasped a twenty-fifth of it at best and you're still missing out on a slew of "must haves."
But this one, I should have nailed to the floor right away. Go to the sacred spot where you keep your records, pull out the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed (you've got one, trust me...) and flip it over to the back side of the sleeve. There's Mike Pinder's name. One of the founders of the Moody Blues, Pinder was the one of the people who toted around this weird keyboard called the Mellotron back in the heyday of the first UK pop invasion. From their dawn until the zenith of their career, Pinder remained with the band's through most of its artistic success'. But at the end of the band's world tour in 1974, Pinder left the UK and eventually severed ties with the band after the sessions for Octet soured. But for a lost pop figure, Pinder can still generates a fairly big stir. Recently, while promoting his newest batch of songs, Among the Stars, Pinder signed autographs for seven hours worth of fans in a Las Vegas record store. On the day I spoke to him, he had just received an order for 2,500 more copies of the new record, which may not seem "mega" in terms of the Pearl Jam market, but Pinder's sold every copy of his CD right out of his home grown label. No distribution deal, no major league contract, nada. Considering that most of rock elders of his era couldn't see themselves even driving by a studio without six figure assurances on paper first, Mike's attitude is rather distinct. After years in the industry where he "got to know the names of more limo drivers than anybody else...," he prefers it that way. The following is an excerpt of our conversation:
Consumable: When you were putting Among the Stars together, was there any thoughts on your part of going to an established label with it?
Mike Pinder: No, no it was the opposite thought. I kept it quiet and made my own plans and it's just working out great. It's a great opportunity for me and my wife Tara to work together. The whole idea is to keep control of what we're doing. It's a lot of work, but everything I'm doing is floating on good will.
C: What are some of the more memorable experiences you've had with the fans now that you're getting back in touch?
MP: One girl said she had been using Moody's music and now my new record as a pain killer. She rolled back her sleeve and showed me this giant scar all the way up her arm where she'd had this incredible operation and she said "The only way I've been able to control the pain from this is by playing your music." She was just beaming.
C: Are there any creative memories you attach to this record, in terms of when you put it down?
MP: It is somewhat of a diary of a decade because I did continue to write. As you can tell from some of the various songs, some were done when my children were younger. So I am presenting it that way, as a sort of catching up or what I did while I was away. A lot of people refer to me as this "lost Moody," but well, yes, you might have thought I was lost, but I was actually in this other place and this is what I was doing. This is my log. Mostly they were head arrangements, which I like very much because the unexpected can happen.
C: Does the 'Follow Your Bliss' shirt that you're wearing on the cover clue us in to any New Age spiritualism that you're into?
MP: Well I'm very aware of it. It would be true to say that I was New Age in 1976 with The Promise [his previous solo release]. That was the way the New Age was before it became commercial. I'm fully expecting to see New Age birthday cards from Hallmark next week. And if you pick up any of the magazines, everyone wants your $500 (US) for seminars. It's just another big supermarket of people cashing on people who are searching. So I'm very unhappy that New Age has been turned into a musical box. All of these new Adult Contemporary stations, they all started playing New Age music and now they're playing all this smooth jazz. There's about eighteen or twenty top artists who are doing the real thing, but everything else is just filler to me, just drum machine, midi studio jazz wanna-bees. I think it's a terrible format. So the whole New Age idea has nothing to do with the original movement was about back in the sixties. I don't align myself currently with any of that kind of stuff.
C: To settle some of the conflicting stories of you're leaving the Moody's, did it have more to do with being sick of the rigmarole of recording and touring over and over again, or not being satisfied creatively?
MP: When I left and I came to the States in 1974 after the world tour, we had visited 57 countries, playing for millions of people and we had just about done everything at that point. We had been back in the studio one time and it was very unfruitful. We just sort of sat there for a couple weeks, looking at each other in the studio. The well had run dry at that time. I wanted to come to America, because I saw the awesome potential. I think the guys didn't have a great time accepting that I did that even though I told them I was only twelve hours away by plane. Then Tony Clark came over to organize a reunion, and at that time I still hadn't received my permanent residency card and I couldn't come to England, because I couldn't back in as was the case at the time. I think what happened was that the way the message got interpreted there was that 'Mike doesn't want to come to England, you've got to come to America if you want to do this.' which is a very arrogant statement. So they had that sticking in their craw and the lack of communication, put everything into a total shambles. No, I didn't have a nervous breakdown. No, I didn't go live with the Hopi Indians.
C: Is it hard for you to be objective about their stuff now?
MP: It is obviously not quite the same kind of music as when I with the band, but I still find some of it quite pleasurable even though it does have a slightly different direction. They're doing what they want to do and as long as they're happy, that's all that matters. The contact had just become a vacuum, but more recently I've been making the effort to be more in contact. In fact, I met with John and Justin two weeks ago in Reno and we were all quite friendly. Enough water's been under the bridge.
Mike Pinder will be releasing another album in the near future featuring some of his poetry as well as a book in the fall. His current album is titled Among The Stars and can be ordered via phone at 800-PINDER1.
