Television icon and singer David Hasselhoff appeared on the “Side Jams With Bryan Reesman” podcast to talk about his first heavy metal song, “Through The Night”, which was recorded with Martin Kames and Bernth Brodträger of Austrian duo CUESTACK. The Hoff also spoke about motivational speaking, scuba diving, and skydiving.
In Europe, Hasselhoff often plays small to large arenas in Austria and Germany. He recalled how he was asked to go on after IRON MAIDEN (and ANTHRAX and TRIVIUM) at the Nova Rock festival in Austria in 2014. (He also headlined over SABATON and HATEBREED at the same festival in 2017.)
“We do these massive concerts anywhere from 65,000 people — I’m doing one on my birthday which is an ’80s concert — to Nova Rock festival where I come on 11:30 to 12:15,” Hasselhoff told “Side Jams”. “They told me I can’t do more than 70 minutes, and then I went on following IRON MAIDEN. ‘Following IRON MAIDEN?!? They’re going to leave!’ And they didn’t leave. As a matter of fact, they came from different stages, kind of like Coachella, to see what I was doing. It’s humbling. And it’s amazing when you go to Norway, and they start chanting ‘Hoff, Hoff, Hoff.’ Sometimes the longest I’ve had was eight minutes. I mean, eight minutes is a long time. I just stood there, and at first I got emotional. Then I got kind of not annoyed, but ‘come on, let’s get on with the show type attitude’. I look back…and I go, ‘Wow, I have done a lot.’ And I don’t realize it.”
The Hoff may not always get treated well by the press, but he still has fans who are fascinated by him.
“It’s amazing how people respond to David Hasselhoff and how people don’t respond to him,” he said. “I’m hoping that they respond to to the heavy metal because I just did that. It was in front of me and because it was fun. Martin [Kames] had done my [concert] backdrops, and he had done such a great job. He said in exchange for something that he did that we should do this heavy metal song because ‘we’re trying to get into heavy metal because that’s what we do.’ And I liked it. I liked the song. I liked Bernth [the guitarist]. I call him Mr. B. We ended up doing that as a basically a labor of love to tip the hat to the heavy metal crowd, and then I found out I had a heavy metal audience which is bizarre. They would come in because they would listen to ‘True Survivor’ [from the ‘Kung Fury’ movie soundtrack]. It’s kind of heavy metal. It’s followed by a heavy metal crowd. It’s weird. I’ll look around the audience and see girls, guys dressed up as David Hasselhoff, and people getting hammered. And then I will see a heavy metal crowd. Give me the heavy metal side with weird hair and weird clothes. I go, ‘Wow, that’s really cool.’ Because I’m a fan of METALLICA, because I’m a fan of IRON MAIDEN, because I’ve listened to this rock and roll, the good stuff. I’m not a heavy metal aficionado. There’s absolutely no way, but I liked the song. I like the rock and roll. I like the hard music.”
He added about working with CUESTACK: “‘Through The Night’ was only done because it was in front of me, and it was good. And I decided to have some fun. So it was like four or five days of just hanging out with Martin and his son and family and Bernth. I tweaked the song to make it to make it more pertinent. This was before COVID, before the disaster that America is in, and the words seemed to be appropriate.”
Hasselhoff also discussed his love for scuba diving.
“I love [being] underwater,” he said. “I dive with sharks. There’s a thing that I want to do called the sardine run. You should look it up. It’s really cool. That’s on my bucket list, for sure, because that’s gonna be probably the most amazing dive ever in South Africa. Sardines get eaten by everything. You just watch the birds fly down and sharks and whales and dolphins. You need to be in the water for that. I told my wife, ‘You can sit on the boat and look down, but you’re gonna want to be in the water. At least put your head in the water. At least hang onto the boat and look at it because it’s just gonna be sensational. You just don’t want to get near the bait.”
The singer has also been skydiving a few times, and he was asked about it changed his perspective on the world.
“If anyone goes skydiving, they will appreciate life because when you land you smile for about four days,” he said. “You smile because you made it and you smile because you did it, and the rush is incredible. Everybody who skydives once will definitely go back. Unless they had a bad experience. I have a friend who broke his ankle, and he went back and broke his ankle again. But anyway, I think it’s an incredible experience.”
As far as motivational speaking, it is something the singer fell into when he was making Comic-Con appearances where he was asked to speak for 40 minutes. He would often improvise and engage in audience Q&As.
“I have so much material and such a life,” he said. “And people respond to one man can make a difference that I usually come out and I just wing it. I just say one man can make a difference. And the reason is, ‘I’m here, maybe I’ll make a difference today in your lives. But you guys are all here. And you made a difference in my life. Without you, I would not be up here. And so that’s the truth. I just speak the truth.”
Fans of Hasselhoff‘s unique collaboration with CUESTACK can also get the extended “Through The Night” box set, a digipak CD featuring a retro synthwave remix by BEARTOOTH singer and mastermind Caleb Shomo, as well as an unplugged version and two additional CUESTACK songs. The box set also contains a unique poster, gym bag, autograph card and baseball cap. “Through The Night” is available for physical purchase at the official CUESTACK webshop.
Hasselhoff‘s latest album, “Open Your Eyes”, was released in September 2019, his first with L.A.-based label Cleopatra Records.
The first full-length CUESTACK album, “Diagnosis:Human”, will be released in 2021.
