Interview: Haz Wheaton, Hawkwind

The yanks had the Grateful Dead, we had (and pleasingly still have) Hawkwind – we win. The band have been making & performing music for a long, long time and have gone through something of a renaissance during the past few years – they’re recording powerful, vital and relevant music once again and the tunes are easily the measure of the best tunes in their illustrious back catalogue. There’s no doubt this is partly due to the presence of BS resident Haz Wheaton on bass (particularly on stage, where his forceful yet melodic bass has reinvigorated the mothership’s Captain Brock). The band are playing the O2 Academy on May 24th but meanwhile Haz has given us some insights in to the newest recording Into the Woods and other related matters.

This was your first full LP with the band, how did that feel, how involved were you in the writing & recording process?

It was a lot of fun making this album. Most of the material was born of Richard, Dave and I recording long jams, just the three of us playing for ages and seeing what happens. Then we’d whittle down the best bits, then we’d go away for a bit, and Dave would add more layers. Most of the songs were developed in that way. Dave and I traded riffs, and I pitched ideas that I had demoed. Dibs provided separate compositions that he’d written, and towards the end of recording, we got our new keyboard player, Magnus to come and lay down some decorative keys and guitar on some of the numbers.

The new LP is hot on the heels of the previous, quite unusual in these days when a lot of bands seem to need five years for each record; were the new songs created at the same time as the batch for The Machine Stops or did they come later?

Yeah, I think it’s the first time the band has put out two successive studio releases in such a short period since the early nineties. It used to be commonplace for bands to do that back in the Seventies, bands would put out an album a year, but as you say, that’s not usually the case these days. 90% of the material on this album is totally fresh and we began writing and recording after we’d finished The Machine Stops touring cycle last autumn. It was about four months from conception to completion.

There’s been some speculation of a link between The Machine Stops and Into the Woods, are they linked and if so, how do they fit together?

It’s like a progression; when the Machine falls apart, and the mechanical, underground race is doomed, it’s back up to the surface, to nature and “into the woods…” But this an adult fairy-tale, and there’s all kinds of stuff happening. I think the natural theme of the album is reflected in the organic approach to the music, and it’s a bit different to the spacey or political vibe, but it’s still very psychedelic, of course there’s numbers about tripping! And Ascent has a serious message. Again, this album is something entirely different, but yeah, it’s like the next stage after The Machine Stops.

With two albums in relatively quick succession, can we expect another as swiftly?

Well, it’s all go right now, and it’s been fairly non-stop for the past two years. We’re touring Into The Woods and once that’s done we’ll see what’s next I suppose. I think without the pressure of having to do an album, we can do one. That’s kind of what happened with Into The Woods, we didn’t set out immediately and say “right, we’re going to do an album”, we just started recording ideas and once we had some material and a vibe going, we began working to a deadline.

The band’s set lists are nice and eclectic, a great mix of old and new, and always with a surprise or two – what’s the process for selecting the songs? All sorted in advance or made up an hour before stage time?

With nearly fifty years of back catalogue to choose from, there’s a lot of choice, but it’s definitely about achieving a balance. People always want to hear some of the classics, but the hard-core fans want to hear something different too. We always play newer material, because that’s kind of what this band is all about, so we’re playing a lot of material from the new album on this tour. But you’re also thinking about continuity, flow and playing to people’s strengths in the band. And trying to make it different so it’s not just peddling the same set for too long. There’s a lot to think about but we do get it together in advance, but we’ll usually change a couple of things each night to make it a bit different, and sometimes some numbers work better than others so perhaps a number in the set gets dropped or added.

What’s up with the support act – Hawkwind Acoustic – how did that idea come about?

We did it at our Hawkeaster festival this year, which is the first time it’s ever happened. People have been begging Dave to do this for years! It went down so well that we figured we might as well take it on the road (something different again!), and it’s nice and fun to do. Our new weapon, Magnus from Tarantism, is a really good guitarist as well and is well versed in acoustic playing, so he’s able to do all this pretty lead work over the songs, and I think that addition has rounded it off nicely.

Any thoughts about a whole tour of acoustic tunes, maybe in more intimate venues?

If people want to hear it and we want to do it, maybe something like that could happen.

The Warrior tour was very well received (and of course the recital of the Space Ritual was incredibly special), any plans to tour another album in its entirety?

I don’t think so, I think that happened because Warrior got a proper re-release. Dave’s philosophy is onward and upward…. Next!

Captain Brock is still a commanding presence onstage, however, he’s been steering the mothership for aeons, have you guys ever discussed what will happens when he retires?

I know Dave has said a few times that it could continue when it retires, but I’m not sure there can be an actual Hawkwind without him; it’s his band, and his style is irreplaceable and vital to the sound of the band, in my opinion. And every ship needs its Captain… Still, we think in the here and now, not the past or future.

The band have a very active fan base, they’re all over the social media and of course you guys organise the Hawkeaster events, why do you think there’s such a strong bond between band and fans?

We all make up one big family. A lot of Hawkwind fans are fiercely loyal and we appreciate that. This has never been a band to exploit its fan base, it isn’t really like that in our world, it’s not “us” and “them”. We try and be fair with everything we do, and hopefully the fans realise that we are all collectively part of something special, that can achieve positive things for people and causes, and everyone can have a good time. The Hawkfamily is a team that looks out for one another.

Final (somewhat cheeky) question: this year is the fortieth anniversary of 2000AD, home of the inimitable Judge Dredd, and a comic that shares a lot of attitude with Hawkwind – irreverent, satirical, fantastical. Any likelihood there will ever be any tunes inspired by Tharg’s Mighty Organ?

To be honest I don’t read any comic books, so I don’t know. But I saw a poster for 2000AD at a recently actually and it looked really fucking cool, and the way you describe it sounds like I should check it out. I know Richard’s into this sort of thing so I’ll pass on the suggestion…