How Hawkwind’s “most popular” song upset their former bassist
While stability is often the key to a band’s success, with lineup changes often causing unrest and friction within the ranks of a band, Hawkwind have somehow managed to survive since 1969 with almost 60 different members having been a part of the band.
Since their formation, multi-instrumentalist Dave Brock has been the only constant throughout, and during his time with the British psychedelic rock stalwarts, he’s been joined by 57 other musicians. To put that gargantuan number into perspective, that’s the equivalent of introducing one new member for every year the band has existed, which, unless you’re Mark E Smith of The Fall, seems like an unfathomable amount of recruitment.
While it’s pretty crazy to conceive the number of people who have been a part of it, it’s also just as staggering to think who has at one point been involved with the band. Everyone from Motörhead bassist Lemmy Kilmister to former Cream duo Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker has been in Hawkwind at one point, whether for a prolonged period or not. Even The Wombles theme tune writer Mike Batt was in Hawkwind at one point, which just goes to show that virtually anyone could have a stint in the band if they wanted to.
Not only have they had a significant number of members over the years, but they’ve managed to release 37 albums as well, proving that these lineup changes have hardly got in the way of the group remaining productive, no matter who was in it at the time.
However, when you’ve got a catalogue consisting of over three dozen studio albums, how do you go about picking out the best record that a band like this ever produced, let alone the best song that they ever made together? You’d probably argue that ‘Silver Machine’ is up there as one of their most famous, but with so many shifts in their personnel over the years, the band have found themselves constantly changing their sound, and have had a number of people contribute to the project as songwriters over the years.
One-time member Dave Anderson, who was officially a member of Hawkwind in 1971, has a bold claim in response to the question of what their best song is. The former Amon Düül II bassist only ever appeared on their second album, In Search Of Space, but it’s a track from this record that he thinks was the best they ever made – most likely because he claims to have written it.
The trouble is, ‘Master of the Universe’ isn’t credited to Anderson on the liner notes, and it’s instead noted down as a track composed by Brock and then-saxophonist and flautist Nik Turner, who spent a remarkable nine years with the band in two separate spells. The fact that these two are given co-writing credits and not Anderson is something that has aggrieved the latter for the rest of his career, and he claims that it eclipses everything else they ever made after his departure.
In the 2004 biography The Saga Of Hawkwind, Anderson argued that his contribution to ‘Master of the Universe’ was more than significant. “That’s the most popular song I’ve ever written,” he protested. “After 30 years of being told I didn’t write it, it’s funny that they’ve never come up with anything like it.”
While this sounds somewhat bitter, if he did indeed co-write the song, then it’s perhaps one of the greatest injustices on the part of the other Hawkwind members who allowed this to happen. That being said, claiming that ‘Master of the Universe’, an album track from an early release, is their most popular song is perhaps a bold statement to make, considering the vastness of their catalogue.
