Dave Brock is in a good mood. Actually, scrub that: Dave Brock is in a very good mood. Unlike our previous encounter (see Prog 124) with Hawkwind’s founder and sole constant member that found him bemoaning what passed for his 80th birthday, Brock is back where he belongs and who he belongs with. And he loves every minute of it.
“We’re all here in the studio,” he says with no small amount of enthusiasm.
And who can begrudge him that? With Hawkwind’s previous two albums being recorded remotely via the less-than-exciting method of file sharing thanks to the global event that brought everything to a grinding halt – that’ll be 2020’s Carnivorous (released under the banner of Hawkwind Light Orchestra) and Somnia the following year – their latest and 35th studio album, The Future Never Waits, finds the band of Magnus Martin (guitars/vocals/ keys), drummer Richard Chadwick, bassist Doug MacKinnon and multiinstrumentalist Tim ‘Thighpaulsandra’ Lewis reunited to stand toe-to-toe in the creative environs of Dave Brock’s home studio on the grounds of his Devonshire farm.
“For this album, we’ve actually all been together,” Brock enthuses. “Being in a room together means we can make a song quite easily. We can come up with a riff, and from that riff we can get an idea and then someone else gets an idea and then it comes together.”
Warming to the theme of Hawkwind’s creative process, he continues: “You know, sometimes we do 20 minutes on just one riff. Then we record it and then everyone goes away. I might spend like, four or five days fiddling around doing things with it, and then, when everybody comes back, it’ll be totally different. Then there’s a lot of talking that goes on.”
So putting this album together was more of an organic process then?
“Oh, we like organic!” laughs Brock uproariously. “We’re free range!”
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. In keeping with Hawkwind’s previous two studio releases, The Future Never Waits is a concept album. Whereas Carnivorous and Somnia were inspired respectively by Covid and the intense dream states that the lockdowns brought on, this time around the band tackle the internal cycle of life in their own inimitable fashion. Perversely, the album starts with the terminal conclusion of mortality before moving backwards track by track through life’s numerous stages and milestones to arrive at the miracle of birth. Should we really expect anything else from Hawkwind?
“It is an unusual concept,” concedes Brock. “It’s back to front.”
It is indeed. According to Brock, The Future Never Waits has been inspired by the stresses and pressures of contemporary living that’s become the common currency the world over.
“It’s the state of mind people get in,” he elaborates about the album’s thematic origins. “Though your mind is not right, you know, you sort of lay in bed and think about all these things, and it’s quite easy to get tormented. So we utilise these topics that befall us, really.”
The 10 tracks that make up The Future Never Waits are the distinctive sound of Hawkwind in full flight. Be it extended and creamy workouts (I’m Learning To Live Today), the characteristic chugging rock of The End or hook-laden acoustic reflections underscored by their innate melodic sensibility, there’s no mistaking who is at the helm. And with that comes a sense of comfort, as much for the band as it does for the listener. Throughout, there is a palpable sense of unity and the sharing of ideas as Hawkwind’s bandmembers spark off of each other like live wires skimming water.
Curiously and in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the album’s narrative, The Future Never Waits’ conceit developed along with the music that took shape in the studio. Indeed, three of the four sides of the vinyl edition open with hefty instrumentals that variously delve into electronically powered space rock coloured by pulsing beeps and bleeps (The Future Never Waits), jazzinflected explorations (They Are So Easily Distracted) and undulating psychedelia (USB1).
“It wasn’t planned,” offers Brock by way of explanation. “We were going off on the jams that we do. Some of them lasted about 15 minutes before we finally reduced them to about eight or nine minutes. It all depends, you know? Sometimes we’ll record stuff and it’s all perfectly okay. Other times we cut things back to the bare essentials.”
In keeping with Hawkwind’s longstanding psychedelic credentials, the visionary author, philosopher and psychonaut Aldous Huxley is given the nod towards the beginning of the album – or end of life depending on how you view the album’s inverted narrative.
“That one’s about taking LSD, actually,” reveals Brock.
Huxley’s wife, Laura Archera, famously administered him with two doses of the psychedelic chemical on his deathbed in November 1963, and it’s their voices that are sampled to run throughout the track. Given Huxley’s proselytising of the psychedelic experience, does Brock view him as a sort of prophet?
“Yes,” he replies, “because I suppose you would call him a brave explorer. You could say the same thing about [60s psychologist and LSD evangelist] Timothy Leary.”
It should be noted that there were clear demarcation lines between the two enthusiasts when it came to endorsing LSD. While Huxley favoured a selective approach as to who should take and benefit from it, Leary’s “turn on, tune in, drop out” attitude saw him lose his job at Harvard. His subsequent arrests for marijuana possession resulted in custodial sentences.
With this in mind, it does sound as if Dave Brock is siding with Huxley when he says, “LSD would change huge amounts of people’s lives. And it was very creative, but as days and years went past, it all became corrupted as usual. Basically that’s what humans are like; they always end up being corrupted.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1681379403/articles/ce_6KJCZZ1682599970165/7225728979.jpg]
Given the ongoing legalisation of pot and magic mushrooms across the world, it might come as a surprise to some that Dave Brock expresses caution regarding their change in legal status.
“Marijuana is used for many sorts of ailments like back ache,” begins Brock. “Science has realised that these substances – which lots of doctors were saying in the 60s – are helpful to relieve people who’ve got mental [health] problems and so on.”
It’s here that Brock becomes wary of freeing the weed and other psychedelic substances. With licensed growers in parts o...
“We’re all here in the studio,” he says with no small amount of enthusiasm.
And who can begrudge him that? With Hawkwind’s previous two albums being recorded remotely via the less-than-exciting method of file sharing thanks to the global event that brought everything to a grinding halt – that’ll be 2020’s Carnivorous (released under the banner of Hawkwind Light Orchestra) and Somnia the following year – their latest and 35th studio album, The Future Never Waits, finds the band of Magnus Martin (guitars/vocals/ keys), drummer Richard Chadwick, bassist Doug MacKinnon and multiinstrumentalist Tim ‘Thighpaulsandra’ Lewis reunited to stand toe-to-toe in the creative environs of Dave Brock’s home studio on the grounds of his Devonshire farm.
“For this album, we’ve actually all been together,” Brock enthuses. “Being in a room together means we can make a song quite easily. We can come up with a riff, and from that riff we can get an idea and then someone else gets an idea and then it comes together.”
Warming to the theme of Hawkwind’s creative process, he continues: “You know, sometimes we do 20 minutes on just one riff. Then we record it and then everyone goes away. I might spend like, four or five days fiddling around doing things with it, and then, when everybody comes back, it’ll be totally different. Then there’s a lot of talking that goes on.”
So putting this album together was more of an organic process then?
“Oh, we like organic!” laughs Brock uproariously. “We’re free range!”
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. In keeping with Hawkwind’s previous two studio releases, The Future Never Waits is a concept album. Whereas Carnivorous and Somnia were inspired respectively by Covid and the intense dream states that the lockdowns brought on, this time around the band tackle the internal cycle of life in their own inimitable fashion. Perversely, the album starts with the terminal conclusion of mortality before moving backwards track by track through life’s numerous stages and milestones to arrive at the miracle of birth. Should we really expect anything else from Hawkwind?
“It is an unusual concept,” concedes Brock. “It’s back to front.”
It is indeed. According to Brock, The Future Never Waits has been inspired by the stresses and pressures of contemporary living that’s become the common currency the world over.
“It’s the state of mind people get in,” he elaborates about the album’s thematic origins. “Though your mind is not right, you know, you sort of lay in bed and think about all these things, and it’s quite easy to get tormented. So we utilise these topics that befall us, really.”
The 10 tracks that make up The Future Never Waits are the distinctive sound of Hawkwind in full flight. Be it extended and creamy workouts (I’m Learning To Live Today), the characteristic chugging rock of The End or hook-laden acoustic reflections underscored by their innate melodic sensibility, there’s no mistaking who is at the helm. And with that comes a sense of comfort, as much for the band as it does for the listener. Throughout, there is a palpable sense of unity and the sharing of ideas as Hawkwind’s bandmembers spark off of each other like live wires skimming water.
Curiously and in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the album’s narrative, The Future Never Waits’ conceit developed along with the music that took shape in the studio. Indeed, three of the four sides of the vinyl edition open with hefty instrumentals that variously delve into electronically powered space rock coloured by pulsing beeps and bleeps (The Future Never Waits), jazzinflected explorations (They Are So Easily Distracted) and undulating psychedelia (USB1).
“It wasn’t planned,” offers Brock by way of explanation. “We were going off on the jams that we do. Some of them lasted about 15 minutes before we finally reduced them to about eight or nine minutes. It all depends, you know? Sometimes we’ll record stuff and it’s all perfectly okay. Other times we cut things back to the bare essentials.”
In keeping with Hawkwind’s longstanding psychedelic credentials, the visionary author, philosopher and psychonaut Aldous Huxley is given the nod towards the beginning of the album – or end of life depending on how you view the album’s inverted narrative.
“That one’s about taking LSD, actually,” reveals Brock.
Huxley’s wife, Laura Archera, famously administered him with two doses of the psychedelic chemical on his deathbed in November 1963, and it’s their voices that are sampled to run throughout the track. Given Huxley’s proselytising of the psychedelic experience, does Brock view him as a sort of prophet?
“Yes,” he replies, “because I suppose you would call him a brave explorer. You could say the same thing about [60s psychologist and LSD evangelist] Timothy Leary.”
It should be noted that there were clear demarcation lines between the two enthusiasts when it came to endorsing LSD. While Huxley favoured a selective approach as to who should take and benefit from it, Leary’s “turn on, tune in, drop out” attitude saw him lose his job at Harvard. His subsequent arrests for marijuana possession resulted in custodial sentences.
With this in mind, it does sound as if Dave Brock is siding with Huxley when he says, “LSD would change huge amounts of people’s lives. And it was very creative, but as days and years went past, it all became corrupted as usual. Basically that’s what humans are like; they always end up being corrupted.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1681379403/articles/ce_6KJCZZ1682599970165/7225728979.jpg]
Given the ongoing legalisation of pot and magic mushrooms across the world, it might come as a surprise to some that Dave Brock expresses caution regarding their change in legal status.
“Marijuana is used for many sorts of ailments like back ache,” begins Brock. “Science has realised that these substances – which lots of doctors were saying in the 60s – are helpful to relieve people who’ve got mental [health] problems and so on.”
It’s here that Brock becomes wary of freeing the weed and other psychedelic substances. With licensed growers in parts o...
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 139