Hawkwind’s main man Dave Brock took some time before the band started their UK tour to chat with Metal Express Radio about the live shows and their new album Blood Of The Earth.
Metal Express Radio:
You’re just about to start your 13 date UK tour … are you looking forward to hitting the road?
Dave Brock:
Yes, we’re looking forward to this tour very much, but I think it’s going to be a chilly one with all this snow around, but we’re looking forward to playing these shows.
MER:
The first date of the tour is at Holmfirth. That’s not the most Rock ‘n’ Roll of places. How do you feel playing bang slap in the middle of Emmerdale Farm country?
DB:
It’s a funny old place — it’s an old cinema and the crew have to push all the gear across this little bridge, but it’s such a beautiful little village and not the type of place you associate with Rock concerts.
MER:
You’ve released over 25 studio albums in a career spanning over 40 years. How do you decide what songs to play?
DB:
Do you mean, how are we going to do new numbers with all the older material we could play? We quite often have fans contacting us with suggestions asking for ones we haven’t played for a long time. We haven’t played “You’d Better Believe It” for a few years now, so we practiced it and it sounded good, so we’ll hopefully do that one. We just try and get a good mix of the new songs and the older stuff and make it sound exciting and interesting so it all flows together.
MER:
Are there any that you simply can’t leave out that the fans always expect to hear, apart from the obvious one?
DB:
No, not really. Music is an art form similar to painting, but we paint our picture with sound. Sometimes we think we won’t do that song as it doesn’t follow on in colors … if you know what I mean. People accept that from us as if you’re an artist … you have that right to occasionally be erratic and change your mind if you want to.
MER:
What songs have you got lined up in the set list for this tour? Will “Neon Skyline” from the Xenon Codex album be in there?
DB:
No, I don’t think we’ll be doing that one. Simon House played on that album and he was a wonderful keyboard player and was classically trained. He was great at playing that, but I don’t think it’s Tim Blake, our current keyboard player’s type of thing, so we won’t do that. We are doing “Song For A New Age”, which is one of Tim’s numbers and “Tide Of The Century” where we have our dancers dressed up as huge lobsters!!
MER:
As a band you pioneered the use of visuals in your stage show at a time when other bands stood around and just played. How important do you think the visual element was to the growth of Hawkwind?
DB:
I think it was all pure escapism and developed as part of our show and became part of who we were. Technology has come such a long way since then and now we use computer graphics as part of our show. All of these things cost so much time and money and you have to learn how to operate it and it’s so time consuming … but we’ve got this guy, Martin, who’s working with us doing our computer graphics and he projects a story-line onto a screen between the swirls and psychedelia, and we have dancers interpreting the story as we go along. It does make it interesting.
MER:
Talking of dancers, Stacia is probably your best known dancer. Do you know what she’s up to now?
DB:
I still hear from her every now and then. She’s living in Ireland now and she’s a contemporary artist and her paintings are in galleries all over the place.
MER:
You have a new album out called Blood of the Earth, which is your first in 5 years. Why did this one take a long time to complete compared to the others?
DB:
We actually did an album with Jason, our keyboard player, before he died 2 years ago. Last year, we mixed it all and we did a couple of nights at the Porchester in London, and what we decided to do was to give the fans who came to those gigs a free copy of it. So we really had to start all over again after that and we had a new guy in the band and it took awhile for him to settle in. Music people have different influences and it takes time for this to blend in with the band. It also took Niall Hone, who can play guitar and computers too, time to settle in, so that’s why this album has taken a little longer than usual.
MER:
As well as new material, the album includes reworked versions of “You’d Better Believe It” from 1974’s Hall Of The Mountain Grill and “Sweet Obsession” from your solo album Earthed To The Ground, released in 1984. Why did you decide to re-record those 2 songs?
DB:
“You’d Better Believe It” has never actually been recorded in the studio; it was only recorded live, so we fancied recording it in the studio so that we can go off in the middle of it into a different realm. “Sweet Obsession” was on one of my solo things, and was actually a hit record many years ago you know … Ha!! We thought we’d go into the studio and give it a go and it came out really well, so we decided to use it on the album.
MER:
There’s a limited edition double disc version available as well. What extras will this feature?
DB:
There are so many different permutations that are released these days … it’s difficult to remember. There are some live tracks on there and a Syd Barrett track “Long Gone”, and there’s a 10-minute interview on there too. When we originally planned to do the album, we were going to do a double CD with studio stuff on one and live material on the other, and we presented it like that to the label, but they decided to put out a regular single CD version and a limited edition two disc version. This is the way labels market albums these days, I suppose.
MER:
You support The Sea Shepherd charity. Can you talk about this organization?
DB:
This is all about saving the whales. It seems as though the only way you can do this is actually go out there and stop them from whaling, and we feel that’s a good thing, so we support what they are doing. I think everybody should try and do something to help save these fantastic creatures.
MER:
Over the years, Hawkwind have featured dozens of members and you have been the one constant throughout the band. Do you think this fluidity with the line-up has kept you going for 4 decades and keeps creativity fresh within the band?
DB:
I don’t know, really, it’s hard to say. I sometimes wonder if they hadn’t withdrawn Urban Guerrilla, then it would have been in the Top 10. That could have totally changed our album sales. We’d also have gone over to America and done some really big shows over there, and you think that it might have totally changed everybody in the band. Who knows what might have happened. I think it’s turned out alright in the end. We’re really lucky in that we can play what we want and choose where we want to play and we just about get by. It’s not a bad old existence, really.
MER:
You’ve worked with many fascinating characters over the years, including Sci-Fi writer Michael Moorcock. Are there any authors around now that you’d like to work with in the future?
DB:
Not really at the moment. We tend to do our own writing, but it’s nice when different characters come along and guest with you and we have worked recently with John from The Levellers, and he’ll be joining up with us halfway through the tour, and we’ve also got Bob Kerr from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band joining us too. I’ve known Bob for a really long time; maybe about 45 years. He’s a real character and his own band is a really fun band. When we played at Porchester, we played “Lighthouse” together ,which is one of Tim Blake’s numbers, and it worked out really well, so he’ll be joining us at some point on the tour.
MER:
In the summer you had your very own festival, Hawkfest At The Isle of Wight. Is this your alternative to the commercialized festivals that take place every summer?
DB:
It’s a small festival and very family-orientated, and people bring all their kids along. We did this one at the same spot where the legendary Isle of Wight Festival was, and it was the first time since that festival that they’ve allowed any music to be played there. It was fairly difficult to organize and Chris had to go over there four or five times to have meetings with the Councillors, and there were loads of people freaking out as there’s a golf club just above it and they thought people would run riot over the golf course and take off all their clothes, but none of that happened in the end!!
MER:
Do you run this at different locations every year?
DB:
Yes, we try to. It was down in Devon last year and up in Blackpool before that. We try to find nice sites for them to make sure they’re special events for everyone.
MER:
Have you any thoughts for the next one and where it may be?
DB:
It’s quite stressful organizing them, and you have to start at least 6 months in advance and there’s a lot to organize and do. When you look back though, you can see what fun it was and we all had a really good time, so we’ll have to give some thought where and when the next one will be.
MER:
Also in the summer, you officially opened the new Academy of Music and Sound in Exeter. Do you feel it’s important to have academies such as this to develop new talent throughout the country?
DB:
I think it’s a great idea and there should be a lot more of these. There’s a lot of people willing to give their time to help with these and we need more to help nurture the talent that is out there.
MER:
Do you think that genuine talent is being pushed back by the music industry in favor of quick fix hits by X factor contestants?
DB:
These shows just seem to teach people who can’t sing that they are going to be stars. They have people telling them how wonderful they are when they are not. They just seem more concerned about being celebrities than being musicians, which is a real shame.
MER:
Last year saw you celebrate your 40th anniversary. Did you ever think when you first started back in the late ’60’s that you’d be doing this 4 decades later?
DB:
No, absolutely not. You just lived day by day and enjoyed the moment. We never thought for one moment that it would last this long.
MER:
It’ll be around before you know it, so what would you like to do for your 50th?
DB:
I’ve got no idea. I might even be dead by then. We’ve got plenty of time to think of things, but I’m sure if it happens it’ll be a great celebration of Hawkwind’s music.
MER:
I see you’ve confirmed some dates in Australia in March next year. Bearing in mind the blizzards in the UK, you probably can’t wait to get down there to play …
DB:
I’m looking forward to getting down there and seeing a bit of the sun. It’s freezing here at the moment and I just don’t like the cold weather. We’ll be playing four or five dates and a couple of TV shows too. Hopefully we’ll get to have a look around for a while too. We have quite a few friends who live there and last time we stayed for about a month, so I really hope we can spend some time seeing some people and enjoying the country while we’re down there.
MER:
After our UK tour ends, what will you be doing for the rest of the year?
DB:
We have to start rehearsing for our Australian tour and we’ve also started work on our new album, which we’ve been working on over the past few weeks. We’ve already done 4 or 5 tracks. We’re constantly doing things and we spend 3 or 4 days a week together creating music and fiddling around.
Hawkwind’s Blood of The Earth UK Tour Dates:
Fri 3rd December Holmfirth Pictured Rome
Sat 4th December Glasgow O2 ABC
Sun 5th December Newcastle Academy
Mon 6th December Lincoln Engine Shed
Wed 8th December Wolverhampton Wolfram
Thurs 9th December Worthing Assembly Halls
Fri 10th December Liverpool Academy
Sat 11th December Manchester Academy
Sun 12th December Salisbury City Hall
Tues 14th December Bristol Academy
Wed 15th December Bedford Corn Exchange
Thurs 16th December Oxford O2 Academy
Fri 17th December London HMV Forum
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