A long time ago (a week and a half to be exact), in a galaxy far, far away (England), Dave Brock is potting tomato plants and putting the finishing touches on Hawkwind’s soon to be released 36th studio album. All this, mind you, while coming off the heels of a brilliant 35th studio album in The Future Never Waits. Yes, in a day and age where bands young enough to be Brock’s grandchildren take their sweet time in the studio, the 81 year old is as busy today as he was when his band tore up the psychedelic underground some 50 odd years ago. We caught up with Brock to discuss this unrelenting work ethic, the anatomy of a Hawkwind song, and the late great Lemmy, amongst other topics guaranteed to expand the outer reaches of space and time.
Greetings Dave and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Dave Brock: I’m doing very well! It’s a sunny day, so it’s a good day.
I’d like to start by congratulating you on the new Hawkwind album, The Future Never Waits.
DB: Thank you!
I know you’ve been busy playing shows in support of it, including headlining sets at the Prognosis and Northern Kin festivals. How did those shows go?
DB: Okay, actually. Quite a lot of people there. It was quite muddy at the Northern Kin festival because it had been raining for days on end, but it was a good festival. The people are very nice. So yeah, we did our dates. We did Rock City in Nottingham *laughs* and Manchester as well. We did alright! We got a good show, so there you go *laughs*!
Expanding upon the last question, Hawkwind has played the open air festival circuit going back to the scene’s early days of the 70s. What are the differences between the fests of the past and today, and what remains the same?
DB: Well now…whereas before, they were not commercial. Young bands could turn up and say, “Is there any chance of us playing?” at the old outdoor free festivals, and there was always time for them to get on and play. Whereas now, I think it’s very difficult for young bands to actually play festivals. Now, commercial festivals are all well organized, whereas before, they were quite chaotic in the 70s *laughs* there you are.
Do you think that chaos fed the energy of the performances, which in turn fed the energy of the crowd?
DB: At that time, yeah. Sometimes, at some of these festivals, there were a ton of people just out of it on drugs. They were nuisances, you know? Loonies *laughs* that got in the way. The usual sort of thing that used to occur at these free festivals. Now it’s different. We’ve all grown old now!
Perhaps, but still keeping the ball rolling with killer new music. When did things start coming together for The Future Never Waits?
DB: Funny enough, we’ve already recorded another album since that one *laughs*! We practice a lot. We play about 2 or 3 days a week. Quite often, we just record stuff as we go along. I’m here all the time, so I can write stuff. We just come together. It’s a good band at the moment. Everybody in the band is a good musician. It makes a lot of difference sometimes when you have a band in the past and you prop people up.
There is an emphasis on instrumental passages throughout this album, which really showcase the band’s musical abilities. How does this lineup of Hawkwind compare or contrast to past incarnations?
DB: It’s a good one. For one, we’ve got Tim (Lewis) who plays our keyboards and synthesizers. He’s a really good synthesizer player. He also does his solo career and has played with The Charlatans, Coil, Julian Cope, so he’s played with quite a few people. He does a lot of solo electronic shows as well. Doug (MacKinnon), our bass player, is a really good bass player. He’s really solid. The good thing is, when you’ve got a good rhythm section, you can relax. Magnus (Martin) is a really good guitarist, so he can go off and get on with things *laughs*. It makes a lot of difference when band members that you play with, you can stop playing and things are still going on *laughs*. Whereas in the past, you stop playing, and fucking hell, it all fell apart *laughs*!
There are some songs on here, like “Rama (The Prophecy)” and “The End”, that are reminiscent of the band’s 70s heyday with their rocking riffs and the intergalactic atmosphere. For you as a guitarist, what makes a killer Hawkwind riff?
DB: I don’t know. Repetitive sort of…well, it’s our style of playing. We’re a space rock band *laughs*! We have our own style, you see, and this is it. There are good bands around that have got a style. You hear them and you immediately go, “That’s so and so.” They have a style of playing. When the members of the bands are good instrumentalists, you can recognize them by the bass playing or guitar or keyboards or singing, you know? Now it’s quite fun. We all enjoy ourselves, which is what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re supposed to be doing our artform and enjoying what we’re doing *laughs*.
What served as the lyrical inspirations for this record? Were there any recurring themes that you and the band noticed while writing this record?
DB: We did touch on LSD, of course, and also on Aldous Huxley, with the piece that Magnus wrote. It was a really nice piece centered around his death, but anyways, there’s that. Of course, there’s going off into space as usual. We always like a bit of sci-fi. Experiences like sitting down and watching sunsets *laughs*, which isn’t here unfortunately, but on a beautiful island off of Morocco called Madeira. It’s an old, extinct volcano. It’s a beautiful place. The only comparison I can give is that it’s similar to Hawaii. Yeah, very similar to Hawaii, but it hasn’t got sandy beaches. It’s got rugged, stony beaches, but it’s a lovely spot. They’ve got a fantastic sunset, so that was one of the things I wrote about on this one *laughs*.
Are there any other unexpected lyrical or musical influences that you or the band have had over the years?
DB: We are into veganism and animal rights. Of course, we write stories about human endeavors, and love *laughs* all the pitfalls of love! Oh yeah, that’s another one, “Computer Cowards”, about the evil side of technology. You can go on. Now, I’ve just written another song which is gonna be on the next album about how as you get to my age in life, it’s like you’re fading away. People are dying all around you. My friends and so on who I’ve known for many years have died. Christ, you know?
Also, as you know yourself, over here quite often, nearly everyday, there’s some musician roughly in his 70s or 80s that we’ve all known and listened to who’s passed on. Anyways, I wrote a song about that *laughs*. Let’s get away from doom laden things, but yeah, you just write all these things about your personal life sometimes.
What are your thoughts on Hawkwind’s impact on and role in the evolution of heavy metal?
DB: Our music is, quite often, very basic. The good ol’ 3 chords. We do a few more than that now *laughs*, but in the past, it was thundering basslines! I find it strange, you know? We’ve played a few black metal festivals in Germany and different bands will come over and say, “Hey, my dad had your records! We’ve really been influenced by what you’re doing!” *laughs* You hear them and it’s, *imitates guitars* “Duh duh duh duh duh!” *does black metal shrieks* I’m thinking, “Fucking hell! Surely we didn’t influence that band!” *laughs*
Richard (Chadwick), our drummer, is into black metal and stuff like that. He knows all of these bands. It’s quite interesting to me, meeting guys who come along and say this stuff. What we do is basically play heavy chords relentlessly. You can relentlessly go on. You can play the chord of E for half an hour and not make it boring *laughs*. Thundering along with a good bass player and a thundering drummer behind you, you can drop things down, bring them up, like we do here. We muck around sometimes and record all this stuff, half an hour of one chord.
When we listen to it back, it’s quite interesting. Different things are going on *laughs* and you can mute things. On the computer, you just mute different bits and pieces. Then you think, “Well, should we release that track? A half an hour of mayhem and weirdness?” You think, “Would people buy it?” This is the problem *laughs*.
Have any of Hawkwind’s songs, whether they be past or present, come out of extended jams like that?
DB: Yeah, lots of ‘em. Many of the ones we do, quite often…like I said, you play some chords that sound great and you operate. I record everything onto my laptop, my Apple Mac. We can actually cut things up and loop things and just separate whatever we want, loop it as many times as we like, so we get little pieces that are interesting. You can play on top of them and off you go. It’s quite fun having this modern technology now.
Would you say these advances have helped Hawkwind’s musical development? In what way have they impacted you, coming from the analog age?
DB: It’s taken quite a long time to actually adapt. I can mix and record, cut up, do whatever you like. I’m still not really that fantastic on the old computer. The other thing is, I still got all my old analog EMS synthesizers, which make certain sounds that you can’t get on the internet *laughs*. Those old analog noises…I’ve got 6 audio generators that go through 2, if you see what I mean. You can modulate those 6 into a click track as it were, so you’d get “Boing, boing, boing!” Or when it goes up, it goes, “Ooooohhhh!” It’ll make a weird noise, and then you play the Moog synthesizer on top of it.
Modern technology is fantastic. It’s opened lots of doors for us. Years ago, I used to play my guitar into a Roland unit, where I could play all the keyboards. I think when we did the Electric Tepee album, around that time, I was actually playing the keyboards, like the orchestras and all those weird sounds. That was my first step in that way of being able to play any instrument. It’s quite fun when you can do that.
Being a heavy metal webzine, I’d be remiss to not bring up your old bandmate, the legendary Lemmy. The story goes that he initially joined the band as a guitarist, but switched over to bass on the spot as Dave Anderson left the band abruptly. Is this story true? Subsequently, how did Lemmy impact the sonic direction of Hawkwind?
DB: Well, he was a guitarist. It was (former Hawkwind audio generator) Dik Mik. Dik and Lemmy used to hang out down in Notting Hill a lot. Dik said to me one day, “Look, there’s a mate of mine. He’s a really good bass player. Let’s get rid of Dave Anderson. Lemmy’s far better!” *laughs* Well I met Lemmy and he said, “I play the guitar, but I’ll play bass.” He didn’t have a bass. We got to talking and all that, and we got on wonderfully well. At the end of the band, Dave Anderson left the band…or was sacked. I can’t remember. It’s been such a long time *laughs*.
At this point in the interview, Kris Tait, Hawkwind’s manager and Brock’s wife, intervened.
Kris Tait: He was sacked.
DB: He WAS sacked *laughs*! Dik Mik sacked him, that’s who, to get Lemmy in the band. Because Lemmy didn’t have a bass, we had to go and find one. Funny enough, years ago, people used to leave things on trains. There was a sale. Someone had left this bass on a train. It was an old Hofner bass, or a Japanese copy. I think Del Dettmar, who used to play synthesizers, went and bought it and gave it to Lemmy.
Playing with me, you have a different style of playing, because you’re a guitarist. When you play the bass, you play it totally different to a proper bass player because you play a lot of block chords. It’s hard to explain, but that’s why with Lemmy and me, Lemmy’s bass playing and my guitar were so intertwined. Both of us played either 6 string bass at one point, which Lemmy used to borrow *laughs*. That’s how it all came about. That’s how he joined up with us.
And the rest is history!
DB: Yeah!
Expanding upon that, it’s interesting to consider how Lemmy approached bass and subsequently how his delivery complimented your guitar playing. It was almost a twin axe attack, but now how we’d traditionally envision it with say Thin Lizzy or Wishbone Ash. You guys were going for the jugular with those low, interstellar riffs.
DB: Yeah, and we played a semitone down as well. We didn’t play in actual E. We played a semitone below E, so it was a lower key. When we had (former Hawkwind keyboardist) Simon House join the band, he hated it because he had to play all the black notes on the keyboard *laughs*. Eventually, we went back to playing ordinary concert pitch as it’s called.
While so many of your peers are embarking on so-called “farewell tours” or calling it a day altogether, Hawkwind continues to remain prolific as ever. What drives you to keep Hawkwind going in 2023?
DB: I don’t know. Richard and I quite often sit here talking, saying, “Well, if things start going bad, we’ll stop.” *laughs* Every time we say that, something good will come along. Then we go off and play some gig somewhere and it’s sold out. Then we do a record and it goes into the charts. I guess we’ll keep going *laughs*! That’s what we do! As long as you can make good music…if I started singing badly and couldn’t play the guitar properly, I’d stop, and the same with Richard. Richard is a really good drummer. He’s been with us for over 30 years. People don’t realize what a good drummer he is. He’s a relentless drummer, and he’s getting on a bit as well *laughs*, but he’s got a style of playing. So many people strive to achieve a style. That’s something. It comes with time, of course *laughs*.
Speaking of time, it’s been some years since Hawkwind last toured here in the States. Off the heels of the pandemic and amidst various global circumstances, do you think there’s ever a chance the band could play here again?
DB: Well now, the damage that (Nik) Turner did to us was so great, now it’s difficult because he got the promoters to believe…well, you know. Anyway, we won’t go into it.
At this point, Tait intervenes again to present a hypothetical Hawkwind show in America scenario.
KT: The only thing we could do is if we got booked for a big event, like we did in 2007 when we did that big festival in Pennsylvania. If we got booked for something like that, it’d restore the faith of promoters around and then we could book a tour around it. As for just booking gigs now, the promoters have such low opinions. They think Hawkwind plays pizza joints for 50 people for free. They have no idea and they’re so confused about it. It’s very difficult to restore that confidence, but yeah, if we got on a big festival, like South by Southwest or one of the big university gigs, then we could come and do it.
DB: There you go! That’s our manager talking!
KT: We’d love to come back! We really would.
DB: It’s a shame. We go off to Europe regularly and play lots of festivals in Sweden, Germany, France, Poland, all the time. We would like to go back there. It’d be nice. Then I can go to Hawaii again *laughs*. Every time we’d do a tour of America, Kris and I used to go off to Hawaii afterwards. We fell in love with Kauai. We always wanted to go and live there, but of course it’s very problematic with work permits and things like that as usual. In the “land of the free” that you live in, it’s very difficult *laughs*!
Don’t get me started on the irony there! Going back to when Hawkwind would tour the States in the 70s, do you have any memories that stand out? Specifically, do you have any memories of playing here in Chicago, at venues like the old Auditorium Theatre?
DB: Oh yeah! In Chicago, Rob Godwin booked us there. I think the venue was called East and West. We were signed to Rob’s label, actually, Griffin Music, and we did a tour. We did the Omni in San Francisco.
KT: When we booked our tour that we had to cancel because of the legal case, Chicago immediately sold out. Then we moved it to a bigger venue. Chicago is one of the hotspots in America for Hawkwind, probably the best selling place of all, I would say.
DB: Like I said, we did the Omni in San Francisco. There’s a few places we’ve done that are really good places to play, that we sold out! We did some of the old psychedelic joints too. When you go look at what we just did over the past few weeks, people can see we’ve got a huge laser light show. There’s not many people doing that anymore. We’ve got a back projection and lasers. It’s quite a big show, you see, which is the thing. To go to the States would be quite costly, wouldn’t it?
KT: It would be, but one big show would cover the cost of getting out there and we could book a whole tour around it. If you know of any festivals in Chicago, put us in touch *laughs*!
In closing, Dave, at the beginning of this interview, you mentioned that the follow up to The Future Never Waits is already fully recorded. When do you think we’ll hear this upcoming album and what does the rest of 2023 have in store for Hawkwind?
DB: Yeah, the funny thing is, speaking of Rob Godwin, he’s just written a book about space rock music. It’s a really interesting book because it goes back to how the first theremin was made, all the old echo units like Dynacord, Moog synthesizers, and all the different bands that have used electronics. It’s a very, very interesting book. I was talking to him and said, “I’ll tell you what. We can do an album and release it alongside your book if you want.” He said, “Well that will be a really good idea! Let’s have a go at that.”
OF course, we got on with recording it and lo and behold, we got another album together *laughs*. We told Cherry Red, “We got another album together!” They said, “We could probably release that at Christmas!” *laughs* We’ve got 4 albums released this year. We had the boxset of Hawklords. Then we released our own one, which is the one we’re talking about now. The next one is the reissue of Space Ritual, which is like 4 double albums. That’s coming out later this year. And then, if they have this album we just finished, they’ll release it around Christmas, so that’ll be 4 albums in one year. It’s quite a lot!
It sounds like we’ll be talking about more Hawkwind activities in 6 months!
DB: Yeah, we should be! It is a shame we can’t get to the States and do something because we are quite active. What day is it…Friday? The band rehearses on Wednesday and Thursday. They’re here next week and then we’ve got another place that we’re playing. Then we’ve got 2 festivals in Germany we’re doing, so that’ll be quite fun. There’s lots of things going on at the moment!
The new Hawkwind album, The Future Never Waits, is available now on Cherry Red Records. For more information on Hawkwind, visit www.hawkwind.com.