The name "Hawkwind" is stitched into the very fabric of great British music. Renowned as a band that transcends time, space and musical counter cultures, to call them legendary actually feels like an understatement when you are trying to broad brush their six decade long career spent warping our fragile tiny little minds.  With the imminent release of the band's latest studio album 'Onward', I took my chances speaking with band mainstay Dave Brock, drummer Richard Chadwick and bass player Mr. Dibs as they were tinkering in their studio. Would I get any sense from the guys?  Well read on to find out...

So you're in the studio right now - what are you up to?

Richard: We are at the moment creating an atmospheric odyssey. A very atmospheric electronic odyssey, which we've just begun, but we've also used a brand new ingredient in the sound, which is Mr. Dibs' strange black scrapey thing - called a cello!

Dave: right now I'm watching Barcelona vs. AC Milan! To my right is our Apple screen so I keep one eye on the football and one eye on what's going on in here, while Dibs and Richard are playing drum loops and Dibs plays his cello though an echo unit making weird noises!

Richard: He wants to know why!

Dave: Why? Because we're artists! It's just for the fun of it at the moment. We've already got half way though another album called 'Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad' which is about the killing of animals and over fishing and all that.

You have a new album out at the end of the month called 'Onward' - tell us about that.

Dave: It's not a bad album; it's quite an interesting one.

Richard: This album is about stuff that relates to us all, from weird electronic happenings to internal movements of one's guts. It's all there! It's a soundtrack to the cosmos!

And compared to previous Hawkwind albums, how's it going to sound?

Richard: It's a collection of our songs from the past year or so. We made them at different times over the year, so there are wonderful different moods going on.

And you have some lives shows starting about May time?

Dibs: We're working on a new stage show with quite a few songs from the new album put into a production with the dancers choreographed and the light show choreographed so it all fits in with the songs and tells a story, so it'll be like watching a film with the soundtrack all matched.

You've described it as a new multi-media event, so what does that entail exactly?

Dibs: We'll have the dancers on their usual stilts but in a different way, so their costumes are a bit more static and the projections will actually project onto their costumes.

In previous years you've done your own Hawkfest in the summer, will you be doing one this year?

Dibs: there might be a Hawkfest this year, but we don't know for sure yet.

Do you all have any particular favourite Hawkwind albums from the entire history of the band?

Dave: My favourite is the first one that I ever did, and the next one that I'm going to do.

Dibs: I'd say the first one that I ever heard which was '25 Years On'

Richard: That's the Hawklords one

Dibs: Yes, but it is Hawkwind

Richard: I can't remember the first Hawkwind music I heard, but I think that's my own fault! My favourite album is probably one that nobody else likes, like 'Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music' - I always liked that one

Dave, what motivation do you have to keep Hawkwind going after all these years?

Dave: Well sometimes I do find it quite difficult, I must admit, but as long as it's fun. It does get quite stressful, especially as one gets older in life!

Going back to the new album 'Onward', I've read that it is going back to the 'classic' seventies sound. How true is that?

Richard: Basically, Hawkwind is a generally accepted musical style; I suppose you'd call it space rock. So on those terms, we are producing music that is 'classic' because we're still operating under those auspices, creatively. So yes you could say it has hints of the 'classic Hawkwind'

Dibs: the hint is in the title 'Onward' because we're always moving onward. It sounds like Hawkwind, but it doesn't sound like any other Hawkwind that has gone before.

Dave: It is Hawkwind - now!

Well guys, thanks for taking the time to talk to Uber Rock

Dave: We don't mind at all, we are normal beings! (laughing)

http://www.hawkwind.com/

All live pics by Dave Law courtesy of Hawkwind.com

Band profile shot courtesy of Melvyn Vincent