Top 44 Denny Laine Quotes

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

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.

Art is really more musical than it is visual.

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

I like to live in the future.

I’ve always been accused of being too clever for my own good.

I can’t even get people to spell my name right in my own biography!

I had to make a name up, and it came from one of my sisters; she was a fan of Frankie Laine. The ‘Denny’ thing, in those days, everyone had a backyard, and a den to hang out. I think I got that nickname there.

I don’t have a normal job, so I don’t consider retiring.

‘Mull of Kintyre’ was the biggest single of all time up until ‘Don’t They Know It’s Christmas’ by that big charity.

Paul and I were friends, the Moody Blues toured with the Beatles on the second British tour. That developed into me working with Paul, whom I always admired.

My fondest memories are of being hidden away in Scotland or Spain writing and working on songs for Wings.

There’s no real animosity, anymore… Me and Paul had a good team and we still are a good team. When Lennon died, Paul said he was never going to let that happen again, he was never going to fall out with anyone again.

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.

I don’t like not working.

I was doing something of my own after I left The Moody Blues, I went away, lived in Spain for a while.

My sisters and my brother were all very much into music. A couple of them were dancers.

Nostalgia is one thing. It’s great to go and play the old songs. People know them and appreciate them. You got to give them what they want to hear.

Band on the Run’ was pretty significant for me because two of the guys didn’t turn up to record it. It was just me and Paul. The two of us had to go into the studio and make that album ourselves. With Linda of course.

I like being in a band where everybody’s equal.

I began writing with Mike Pinder and eventually we went on to form a new band called The M&B, which later became The Moody Blues, what I would call a progressive blues band.

Since 1997 my career has been in America.

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.

The human voice is one of the most attractive things.

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.

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

But I’m more of a recluse when it comes down to being a writer and being a creative person rather than being a celebrity.

Paul forced the Beatles to work a lot harder than they would have otherwise, and he did the same thing with Wings.

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 Moody Blues was very big in France, because they liked that we were basically playing blues.

Wonderful Christmas Time’ is a Christmas song but it was supposed to be an attempt at a traditional song.

Early on I was more interested in gypsy jazz music until rock and roll came around and I listened to a lot of Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan.

I’m not just a Sixties act.

In the sixties when Paul was with the Beatles and I was with the Moody Blues, we shared the same bill and tried to blow each other off the stage.

I was part of that whole early Moody Blues transitioning from a sort of R&B-blues band to being more progressive.

Traveling around, coming down to Florida for a few days, it’s fun! You go on the road, you get inspired to write other stuff.

I’ve lived in England, France, Spain, Portugal and Germany in the ’80s. I don’t like being settled. It’s not really healthy.

When you go to a new country, you don’t have the same facilities as you had in the one before. You adapt very quickly to the circumstances.

Music is my first love.

And I had such a great working experience with Paul during the ‘RAM’ album.

Brian Jones was a big friend of mine.

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.

Although the Beatles were big to the world, within the business, we’re all very, very equal.