Bassist Alan Davey’s upcoming Hawkestral album will feature recordings by Ginger Baker, Mick Taylor and William Shatner, among others
Bassist Alan Davey joined space rockers Hawkwind in 1984 — more than a decade before Post Malone was born — but he felt such a kinship with the pop star’s Number One hit “Circles” that he decided to redo it with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee Todd Rundgren. Violinist L. Shankar also sits in.
Davey’s version, an instrumental, is naturally trippier and more psychedelic than Post’s, with Shankar taking the lead on most of the song before Rundgren plays a freewheeling solo toward the end. The one-off track is credited to Hawkestrel, Davey’s consortium of Hawkwind alumni, and it’s coming out ahead of the group’s 2020 LP.
Davey recently told Billboard the Post Malone cover came about because the song reminded him of his own “Cosmic Doll,” which he wrote in 1985. “I started playing it in the house and started to hear, ‘Oh, I can do this with it and that with it … ‘” he said. “Before I knew it, I was recording it. Three hours goes by and all of a sudden you’ve written this piece of music for no reason. Then I approached Cleopatra [Records] with it, and they were like, ‘Wow, this sounds like Post Malone meets [Hawkwind’s 1975 record] Warrior on the Edge of Time!’ — which is kind of relevant because I’m making music with all these old Hawkwind members. Everything goes around in circles, I guess.”
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Hawkestral’s debut, The Future Is Us, came out earlier this year and it featured guest recordings by former Hawkwind members, including Nik Turner, Simon House and Paul Rudolph, among others, as well as several now-deceased members such as Huw Lloyd-Langton, Ginger Baker and Lemmy Kilmister. Davey, who was a member of Hawkwind from 1984 to 1996 and again from 2000 to 2007, told Billboard his new record will feature contributions from Baker, Carmine Appice, Mick Taylor, Arthur Brown and William Shatner.
In This Article: Hawkwind, Post Malone, Todd Rundgren