Jus Forrest :: Looking at your site and your list of projects you’re obviously extremely busy almost all of the time – is it fair to say music is your life?
Alan Davey :: Yeah, it’s a full on musical existence for me these days! Since leaving Hawkwind, I find myself free to try out loads of different things with different people! Yourself being one of them Jus! (Desolate Angel Music). We [Gunslinger] have started learning more songs to record a 2nd Gunslinger album when the time is right! So it’s music, day in, day out! I’m really happy about it!
Igloo :: You are of course noted for your contribution to one of the longest standing space rock bands around – how would you sum up those twenty or so years in Hawkwind?
AD :: Good, bad, ugly and in the end bitterly disappointed in what were supposed to be my friends behavior!! I’m really having a ball doing Gunslinger, Hawklords and new studio work so no looking back for me, upwards and onwards, your Capt is dead…!! Sometimes I wish I’d never joined Hawkwind, I would’ve still done music professionally ‘cos Gunslinger were offered record deals right from the start. So I didn’t need Hawkwind, Hawkwind needed me. I’m not blowing my own trumpet, that’s the feedback I get from a lot of fans. Sometimes they know best!
Igloo :: Sure! Hawkwind was home to some crazy situations – I believe you once played in a layby near Stonehenge England?
AD :: Yeah in a layby, crazy scene that was! I played a gig with Dumpys Rusty Nuts on a beach on the Isle of Man too. There’s so many things happened in all those years it would take a book to tell them all….!!! Oh yeah I did a gig in someone’s bathroom once!!
Igloo :: Your exit from Hawkwind seemed quite sudden? I was quite shocked to get to the U.K. Hawkfest 2007 and not find you there – what happened?
AD :: I was sacked without being told then offered a guest spot at Hawkfest 2007, but with all the deception and back stabbing I didn’t wanna do anything with the band anymore! They told the fans a pack of lies about why I wasn’t there too, more deception and lies! I was gonna leave after Hawkfest 2007 as I’d had enough of the band not sounding right. I was gonna tell everyone at the Hawkfest that I was leaving so they would get the truth direct from me, that’s how they would’ve wanted it! But Hawkwind just lied to the fans about the whole thing in the same way I was lied to! The only Hawkwind member from the 2006 line up who didn’t lie to me and who I stayed in contact with was Jason Stuart. We’d been friends for years before anyone in Hawkwind met him. He was gonna leave too as he thought he was being lied to about money and he rarely got his expenses either which used to upset him a lot. Expenses are expenses; the whole band should get them not just one member! So he was getting fed up with the whole thing. He came to visit me several times moaning about being skint. I moved away from Devon (Hawkwind country) to move back to East Anglia and spend more time with my parents. I lived with them for six months while one of them recovered from an operation which was nice! A couple of months after I last spoke to Jason, I was shocked to hear that he’d died, he was a special person that will be sorely missed. He’d always be the life of any party and everyone took to him! See you on the other side Juice (his nickname known by his CLOSE FRIENDS!!).
Igloo :: You have certainly been missed – the band is not the same without you!
AD :: That’s right, I was inundated with messages about how bad Hawkwind sounded without me and I still get them! People who have seen them recently on their tour have had to leave after 30 minutes because it’s so boring, I quote: “it sounds like they’re going thru the motions, they sound like a tribute band of themselves” etc, etc are the kind of messages I’m always getting. It’s a shame really it should never have ended that way.
Igloo :: Many people will now know Gunslinger as your latest successful project, however Gunslinger is actually ‘an old flame’ so to speak, which started life many moons ago! How did it all begin and what led you to resurrect the name all these years later?
AD :: My cousin Nigel Potter got himself a guitar and I got a bass at about the same time, so it wasn’t long before we found out about each other! We started playing and writing songs together and we soon realised we were a great partnership! Then after two or three try outs we found our drummer, Andy “Liffy” Lamb. We started rehearsing the songs and then started gigging. I joined Hawkwind in 1984 so that was that until.. many years, bands and travels later, I found out Nigel had a digital studio so we (for old times sake) decided to record a couple of the Gunslinger songs and put them on our Myspace sites. Well, the reaction was HUGE, huge enough to set up a Gunslinger Myspace site, as so many questions and interest were coming through our own sites! It was, and still is getting 1000-1200 hits a week! It’s past the 100,000 mark now! Then the requests for live gigs started and so it all began again.
Igloo :: Since the bands resurrection, you’ve actually injected some younger blood into the band haven’t you? Your nephew plays guitar and you also have an extremely talented female drummer – how do fans respond to her [Cat]?
AD :: Very well, she’s very popular with the guys, and the odd girl too! She’s only a slip of a girl and looking at her you wouldn’t imagine she’d be the drummer for Gunslinger, but when people watch her play their jaws hit the ground in amazement, as did mine when we first tried her out. Louis was already in the band when we tried Cat, we did try a guy out but it wasn’t clicking with him. Louis is twenty three and Cat is nineteen which equals to forty-two and I’m forty-six so yeah, they’re young alright. Or am I old!!?? HA. It’s great to have them in the band, they both get along well and all is cool on the road and on stage, we all just enjoy it and it shows!! Besides, most my age can’t keep up with me so I need ’em young!
Igloo :: Your nephew – he’s quite an innocent looking chap! How’s rock ‘n; roll treating him – I heard some funny stories from you previously about his experiences backstage!
AD :: Innocent indeed! Yeah he’s a nice young man! Mmmm… backstage? Nothing bad goes on backstage, really bad maybe! That’s rock n roll and he getting the hang of it! As for Cat, I’m saying nothing!! I like my face the way it is!!
Igloo :: 2009 was a busy year for touring – what has been the highlight so far?
AD :: Well the first real gig with the young-uns was a real eye opener; it was in Le Klub in the centre of Paris, France. It was sold out and the crowd were going ape!! That was definitely a highlight! The band clicked live immediately and the crowd’s response to it showed me the chemistry was right! After that its just been getting better and better!! The reaction to us is HUGE, people are becoming real big fans. Just last night three fans from Paris came to see us in Belgium, a three hour drive away!! We play Europe a lot, mostly Belgium and Holland, but Germany, Spain, France and now America are all on the cards. Some of the best gigs in Europe are the Sunday Rum & Beer afternoon matinee’s we do! We start about 5pm and by then we’re all a bit tiddly so they’re good fun! We treat the tours like a half tour half holiday affair, so we’ll stop off at say, on the way to a gig for lunch and sight seeing, so highlights are those parts of it too!
Igloo :: Your music is actually very upfront and in your face compared to some of those more spacey moments of Hawkwind – can you give our readers an insight into the album Earthquake in E-minor?
AD :: All the songs on it were written by Nigel and myself in 1979-1981 so they’re in fact older than the other band members in Gunslinger now! The title Earthquake in E Minor was also the title we had back then if we ever did an album. The songs are about sex (Savage Love), the female orgasm (Night Song) and the female multiple orgasm (Blitzkreig Baby)! There’s anti war songs (“Warhorse” and “Cyanide”) and songs about some bitches we had a bad experience with (“Don’t Need You”), all the stuff that goes on in ya life. It’s good that the songs are going down well with people now, they have definitely stood the test of time!
Igloo :: You established Earthquake records in 2008 – was this a conscious decision to bypass the middle man taking his cut?
AD :: Well these days you can produce your own CD’s and sell them and still own the music copyright and have control etc. Only if you have a big band does the record company thing work these days! The cottage industry way is for most musicians nowadays. It wasn’t a conscious decision to cut out the middle man, it’s just the best way for now!
Igloo :: Gunslinger have played just about all over Europe this year – is the European scene treating you guys well – there appears to be no shortage of demand for gigs?
AD :: In Europe they know how to put on gigs! There are so many half ass promoters and agents in the UK who think they can put on gigs and tours, when they aint got a clue how to do it! Then they’ll chicken out at the last minute f**king up the bands plans etc and making the band look bad! In Europe this never happens! It’s a pleasure coming to Europe to play, you always know it’s gonna be well arranged, attended etc! They really like their rock in Europe, there are loads of great small rock clubs because of it. So that’s why we play in Europe a lot more than the U.K. If we can find a GOOD agent/promoter in the UK we’d play the UK more than we do!
Igloo :: You are also involved in a band called Bedoin – what’s the status with that project at the moment? Would you say Gunslinger is now your main band?
AD :: Bedouin finished as a band in 2003 as I went back with Hawkwind full time so had no time to do both. There was a little bit of bad band politics going on in Bedouin at the time, which I hate so I got outta dodge! Shame though it was a good band! Things were hard as most clubs were doing club music which made it harder to get a good gig. Gunslinger is my main priority now Hawklords Zoo being 2nd, that’s with Dan Thompson, Jerry Richards, Harvey Bainbridge, Steve Swindells and Ron Tree with guests coming and going! (myspace.com/hawklordsinmyspace)
Igloo :: I’d like to talk about the Hawklords – how did this come about and what was it like working with key people like Nik Turner and Harvey Bainbridge? Could this be the start of more future live projects?
AD :: Yeah we took the Hawklords out on a one off in London at the 229 Club on 29th Nov 2009, this year Hawklords Zoo will do a UK & European tour, maybe the USA too. Working with these guys again is really good fun, it’s what the Hawkwind sound & attitude should be. The current band Hawkwind sound really stale and unlike Hawkwind at all, I recently saw a band called Hoaxwind (a Hawkwind tribute) and they sounded more enthused and more exciting to me than the current Hawkwind. That’s partly why I left Hawkwind in 2006 it was boring, no jamming, the same old set list which even the fans were moaning to me about. When I play with the Hawklords the jamming thing is easy and we all just go with it, and that’s what the HW fans want! Maybe sometimes a jam doesn’t work out but the fans know this and there’s nothing wrong with it.
Igloo :: Coming back to the excellent Gunslinger – there was talk of you doing some dates in the U.S. this coming fall, how concrete are these plans? Do you have any ideas with regards to location as yet? Will we see you in California?
AD :: Well we did have plans but the world economy has proven to be a fence too high, with so many venues closing down it’s too risky to set a tour up on the scale we were planning! But, there is now a mid-west plan in place such as Cleveland OH, Chicago IL & Rochester NY, so all’s not lost and in 2010 don’t be surprised if that happens. If the mid-west tour goes well then we can spread out to more states like Texas & Arizona where lots of people want to see Gunslinger play.
Igloo :: The dynamic within the band seems to work extremely well – you have a well balanced heavy and full on sound – as I’ve said, some of it is quite Motorhead and Cat really does kick ass on the drums. I know you have the greatest respect for Lemmy, what other influences have been brought into the band?
AD :: Well Nigel’s biggest guitar influence is Jimmy Page so there’s a Motor-Zepplin thing going on, the guitar riffs Nigel wrote are strong like Page’s are, so that gives us a tuneful full on sound that’s a little different than Motorhead. Cat`s drumming has a modern approach as she’s so young, so that’s good for the overall sound of Gunslinger. Louis brings a big blues influence into the band so we ain’t got that widdly, widdly guitar crap type lead ya hear so much of, so the mix is good all round!
Igloo :: You recently married and honeymooned in Arizona State – a great place to shoot a Gunslinger video don’t you think?
AD :: Well yeah a video shoot in Tombstone would be perfect, eh? That’s one cool town. The people in Tombstone are very nice and hospitable, but then so were all the Americans we came across traveling around the U.S.A.
Igloo :: Absolutely! You mentioned your record label earlier – where can fans in the U.S. buy your records?
AD :: At the moment I’m having a new web site/shop set up by a very nice guy in Arizona (1912 Webworks) as my other site www.alandaveymusic.co.uk is so outta date (long story!). So my new main site is now www.alandaveymusic.com for all news about solo projects, other peoples projects I’m involved with, Gunslinger news and tour dates, all things Alan Davey. It’s people friendly too so you can join a list, comment on albums of mine you’ve got and comment about the Gunslinger gigs you’ve been to etc.
Igloo :: Thanks for taking time to talk to Igloo Alan, is there anything else you wish to share with your U.S. fans?
AD :: A big hello to you all! You guys live in a beautiful country; I come to visit every two to three years for three to four week vacations, mostly in the South West, my favourite part of America. One day I’ll move to Arizona (probably Phoenix) so fingers crossed, eh? I feel at home in the desert! If ya see Gunslinger advertised to play in the U.S.A. come and see us, we wont disappoint! Hope to see you all soon, happy trails, cheers & beers & rum!! Alan Davey (The Bass Monster!).
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For more information about Alan Davey, visit his website at www.alandaveymusic.com. [Listen | Purchase]
