Denny Laine

“I just keep to myself and live in the country and visit the cities.”

“I was into all sorts of music as a kid. I was very curious about ethnic music and different styles. I loved Django Reinhardt. I loved Ella Fitzgerald. I was also influenced by all the crooners of the day, like Johnny Ray, Frankie Lane.”

“One of my earliest inspirations was the 'Allan-a-Dale' character played by Elton Hayes in the 1954 movie 'The Story Of Robin Hood And His Merrie Men.' He was a wandering minstrel with his guitar.”

“Everyone tried to be a singer other than just a player. We had four voices in The Moody Blues.”

“Since 1997 my career has been in America.”

“Colin Blunstone did a cover of one of my songs, and the reason I liked it was he changed it completely from my version.”

“The human voice is one of the most attractive things.”

“The Moody Blues were a blues band, so when we got discovered, we were taken to London. That's where we started to make it. That's where the record labels were. That's where the action was.”

“I like to live in the future.”

“If you end up spending more time in the studio than you do on the road, that's not a good balance for me. Because I think when you're in the studio, you need to come off the road and go in the studio and that's when you're applying your best. That's when you've got the best attitude, best energy, all that stuff.”

“The thing is, I was more blues-oriented, more of a purist than in the pop world. That led me into a folk rock trio and to Ginger Baker before I started recording on my own.”

“After Wings I did a lot of recording rather than live work. I even went into a kind of semi-retirement to places like Spain at one point.”

“I knew Paul when he was in the Beatles. We did the second Beatles British tour with the Moody Blues. And we became friends. I went to a couple of the sessions for the 'Sgt. Pepper' album, we went to parties together, we went to see Jimi Hendrix together.”

“Wings was one of the first bands in the 1970s to do stadium tours, as well as Led Zeppelin. We had all the most up-to-date equipment from monitor systems to a laser light show and that was like the biggest, most awesome experience for me.”

“You can't keep away from the public too much, but you had to be protected to some degree and I saw that in Paul a lot. People were obsessive about the Beatles. It's a hard thing to have to deal with being that famous.”

“I enjoyed the idea of going and playing live. My beef was always with Wings that we never played live enough.”

“I've always been accused of being too clever for my own good.”

“Tribute bands have kind of taken over the market, and I don't want to come across as being that.”

“So I wouldn't see Wings as a band that would go into the Hall of Fame, to be honest.”

“I've no real musical training, although I took some piano lessons a while ago.”