Hawklords
The Hawkwind spin-off celebrate 50 years of British space-rock with nine shows.
Formed during a period of down time from Hawkwind, the Hawklords made one album and played one tour, but then faded away when Dave Brock and Robert Calvert returned to the mothership. Since 2008, when bassist-turnedkeyboard player Harvey Bainbridge reactivated the name, the revived Hawklords have made seven further albums and toured like maniacs. Guitarist/ singer Jerry Richards reveals why Nik Turner is on board for next month’s UK tour.
The positive response to last year’s album Brave New World prompted Classic Rock to ask: “Why on earth don’t these indomitable psychedelic warlords get a lot more credit?” Is there an easy answer to that question? We are very much a DIY band, and Daevid Allen [late Gong frontman] once told me: “It’s all about cycles.” He talked about the interconnectedness of everything, how things will take you for a ride until a new flavour of the month comes along. It’s the natural order of things.
You’re playing just sixteen dates on this tour, which is short by Hawklords standards. Yeah. Like most of our band I come from the freefestival scene, so we take those sensibilities of playing anywhere, anytime with us wherever we go.
Hawkwind will also be on tour later this year. Dave Brock is celebrating fifty years of Hawkwind, and rightly so. I’d like to stress that I don’t have a problem with Dave, who is one of the greatest ever British vocalists. But in my view he should be having a lot of guest stars up there with him.
That doesn’t sound very likely. No. So the Hawklords are celebrating fifty years of British space rock, and we’re taking Nik Turner [Hawkwind co-founder] on tour with us.
Will Turner participate on the entire tour? He’s looking forward to being part of the whole thing, yeah. Right now Nik’s busy writing the lyrics for a song that we’d like to go onto the album we’re wrapping up. We want Nik on this one.
Six and its successor Brave New World dealt with the themes of war and peace. Heaven’s Gate will close that trilogy by addressing love. It draws together the many musical strands to influence the band members over five decades. We call it ‘Powerful, thought-provoking meditations on perhaps the most endearing of human qualities: love, itself.’ Yeah, bloody hippies.
What does it sound like? I’m a bit worried that we might have a hit on our hands. It’s quite different for us. It’s got psychedelic pop – a jangling, Byrds-ian, San Franciscansounding vibe, and a tune that celebrates The Kinks, The Beatles and the Floyd. It’s real ear worm stuff. Tell us about the mix of Hawklords and Hawkwind songs in the set? A couple of Nik’s songs – Brainstorm and Master Of The Universe – will be played. The Hawklords don’t really do Hawkwind covers, but I’m still absolutely fascinated with Bob Calvert [who co-wrote most of the first Hawklords album. He died in 1988]. Bob’s wordplay was brilliant. We do some stuff that he wrote.
What about the Hawklords’ relationship with Hawkwind? Is there even such a thing? Dave Brock might not agree with this, but I believe our activity has helped them. Christ almighty, not that they needed that. But we still play private parties and free festivals that were so fundamental to the original Hawkwind ethos.
Should a fragile peace exist, the presence on this tour of Brock’s personal Darth Vader, Nik Turner, might change all of that? Oh, they’re two sides of the same coin – just a pair of old warhorses. We don’t get involved in any of [the bad blood], it has nothing to do with the music. We’re just trying to spread the word.