Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, courtesy.

“Living for Love,” the latest single by Justin Hayward, came about in a familiar way as many of the songs he’s written for the Moody Blues and subsequent solo projects.

“I always think things jump out of my guitars, and then I have a few lyrics that just seem kind of obvious and then, voila,” Hayward said recently in a call from his studio in Italy, where he’s working with his longtime producer, Alberto Parodi.

“You know, you have to put in the last 5 percent, which is all the effort,” he said. “The first 95 percent with songs is just fun and fooling around on a guitar. And the last 5 percent is like, ‘Come on, you have to make this work.’”

Hayward has been making his music work for almost six decades now, famously as the guitarist, singer and composer with the Moody Blues, as a solo artist and also as a stage performer, last year having returned for another stint as part of the cast of Jeff Wayne’s “Musical Version of The War of The Worlds – Alive on Stage!” In that production, as in previous ones, Hayward sang “Forever Autumn,” which was a solo hit for him in 1978.

And this year, Hayward was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his lifetime of “services to the music industry.”

He played 16 tour dates in the U.S. in mid-2022, followed by about a dozen dates in England; the latter shows included performances of “Living for Love.” He’s now preparing for a tour of the U.S. starting in late January in Florida.

The 2022 U.S. shows had Justin Hayward playing acoustic sets alongside guitarist Mike Dawes, with electric guitar sometimes providing tasteful accents. Joining them were singer and multi-instrumentalist Julie Ragins and flautist Karmen Gould. Many of his best-loved songs of yore – “The Actor,” “Driftwood,” “Tuesday Afternoon,” “Your Wildest Dreams” – would figure to be naturals for that approach. But a more electric, hard-driving number like “The Story in Your Eyes” also made a successful transition to less frenzy. When this journalist told Hayward he thought that latter song works well without the electric guitars, he feigned mock indignation. “You were surprised?” he said.

A lower volume level, Hayward said, will likely be a key element of his musical future.

“I’m not sure I want to get really loud again; I kind of like quiet,” said Hayward, insisting that change of tune, as it were, has nothing to do with getting older, but simply an evolution in taste.

Though he said the pressure to write songs was far greater during the heyday of the Moodies than it is now, he said his basic approach to songwriting – the rough drafts mostly come quickly, while the real work comes in the finishing – has remained fairly constant.

Two major impacts on Hayward’s writing came in the early 1980s, when he acquired a LinnDrum drum machine and a Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer. He said they were crucial in enabling “constructive demos” that grew into, among other songs, “The Voice” and “Your Wildest Dreams.” Hayward said that latter song, along with the subsequent “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere,” are two of his favorite songs he wrote.

The other major adjustment, Hayward said, centered on his mental state.

“In the ‘80s, I was really in the moment of it; I was alive and awake,” he said. “I kind of missed the ‘60s – I know I was there, I’ve seen the pictures – but a lot of the time my mind was elsewhere, chemically, mystically, emotionally.”

When he wants to relax, he often listens to CLASSIC fM, a British radio station that plays classical music. And when asked what’s next on his musical horizon, Hayward said it may incorporate classical music to one degree or another. He acknowledged there’s a symmetry to that, given the Moody Blues made such a big splash in 1967 with their album Days of Future Passed, a now-classic song cycle that merged classical and rock elements.

He said he stays in contact with fellow Moody John Lodge. “Everybody’s in touch in the Moodies’ world, because it continues” after the band ended in 2018, he said. “We don’t have to be a group for it to continue.”

He said he isn’t sure there will be any new solo album forthcoming in the near future, but that he’ll be back in the studio with Parodi shortly, plus the upcoming tour, and just maybe a few other things.

“I’ve been offered some stuff and I’m thinking about saying yes!” Hayward said.

In the meantime, “Living for Love” would fit in nicely in a set that also included “Meanwhile,” “It’s Cold Outside of Your Heart,” “Running Water” and other later-period Moodies songs, and some solo work as well. There’s still a place in the world, Hayward said, for a good melody and an affecting lyric.

“I think there are people listening,” he said.

Follow journalist Sam Richards at Twitter.com/samrichardsWC.