1981 Tommy Vance Interview

Tommy Vance Interview, 1981

This interview features Dave Brock and Harvey Bainbridge talking to Tommy Vance on the Friday Rock Show on 24th October 1981

Messrs. Brock and Bainbridge at around the time of the interview (well OK then, three years later!)

DJ Tommy Vance introduces the interview by playing “Living On A Knife Edge”. Joining him in the studio are Dave Brock and Harvey Bainbridge.

TV: The most constant thing about Hawkwind is the ever-flowing, ever-changing membership of the band but one constant thing is Dave Brock. It’s also quite amazing that the sound still remains the same.

DB: Yes, well it did veer off actually in 1976, you must admit (laughs), but it’s come back again now so…it can’t be bad

TV: The fans don’t leave either, do they Harvey?

HB: No, they seem to get more and more so, they seem to get younger and younger as well, of course…

DB: You see, it’s their parents…I mean we convert their parents and they convert their kids, and that’s the way it goes

HB: What it is, I think they come and they enjoy being excited…

DB: I mean, we’ve got a really good light show now. We’ve sort of been hustling this for a long time and this year it’s back to what we really wanted it to be and next year it’s going to be even better…but this time we’ve got a really good liquid light show with lots of things happening. I mean, they know they can come and see a really good show when they come and see us. That’s what its all about. really.

TV: In the end, that’s got to be it. But then, you always had a pretty good light show and you had what was it, Liquid Len at one time…

DB: Yeah

TV: I mean` you were famous in ’69 when you started in Notting Hill Gate – you were famous for having psychedelic images all over the wall

DB: And it’ll all happen again

TV: But it’s happened so many times and you’ve been there and back, and there and back - and when you actually start looking at the number of times that your previous record companies have re-released your albums…I think one of them has been re-released three times by UA…

DB: Yeah, I bet they do it again

TV: *I* bet they do it again! Are there any record companies left that you could go to? I mean, you’re on RCA at the moment…

DB: You mean, who would have us? (laughs) Well we’re signed to Active actually, which is Kingsley Ward’s label

TV: Which is Rockfield?

DB: Rockfield, yeah

TV: Let me talk to you about Michael Moorcock, this science fiction writer who is pretty constant as far as your creative output is concerned. What sort of fellow is he?

HB: He’s quietly witty I would say, he quietly does his things but then all of a sudden he jumps up and he does something totally out of character from the quiet person that you spoke to 5 minutes before. It was a lot of fun when we were doing this LP down in Wales. When he arrived he came down to say hello and we asked him to guest on a track, didn’t we –

DB: Yeah

HB: – asked him to sing Coded Languages on that, and he was all quietly talking away and then he just goes into the studio and jumps up and down and shrieks and yells and really makes everyone happy. And down it went on to the tape.

DB: Right. The words of Psychosonia, when you see it printed out, you can make out what it’s all about. It’s very, err, there’s hidden meanings in there

TV: Just to quote Psychosonia, the first two lyric lines are "abu wabu…abu wabu", Mr. Brock! (laughter)

DB: That might sound silly to you, but…BUT…in actual fact if you take the first letter, right, of these syllables, you see, they all make a word, so each one of those "abu wabu"…

TV: "abu wabu wabu", "abu wabu wabu", and then "mabu dabu mabu dabu"..

DB: And then you’ve got "catu betta"…

HB: "catu betta"?

(Quick sample of Psychosonia is played)

DB: You take the first letter of each of those syllables and it makes…I forget what the word is…(laughs)

HB: It’s the next bit.

TV: It’s some sort of science fiction anagram, is it?

HB: It’s a message

TV: One thing you’ve always had a lot of call for, and is evidenced on the inner sheet that’s with your album Sonic Attack… I mean, you’ve got the Hawkwind magazine, the Hawkline (Hawkwind lyrics), right, T-shirts, and you also indicate…you say “P.S. Watch out for the Church of Hawkwind album.” Now… you’ve always been *over the top* (laughter) but this is *really* going over the top!

DB: You mean our new religion…?! No, it’s an electronic album that we were working on, that we’ve nearly finished so we decided to put that down.

TV: When you say electronic do you mean totally instrumental?

DB: Um, no, actually, no it’s not.

HB: We’re using chants…in fact there’s one track which we’ve taken and we’ve put on there because we reckon it went with the flow of one side.

TV: Which is…?

HB: Virgin Of The World

TV: Which we’re going to play later on. But at the moment we’re going to play the title track of the album, which is called Sonic Attack…

(plays Sonic Attack)