The Darkness
Some rock bands would laugh at the idea of opening for the world’s biggest pop star. For The Darkness, however, it’s the ideal opportunity to rake in new fans.
Some rock bands would laugh at the idea of opening for the world’s biggest pop star. For The Darkness, however, it’s the ideal opportunity to rake in new fans. We join them backstage.
It’s December 10, 2002, and The Darkness are supporting indie hopefuls The Libertines at a Christmas party organised by London radio station Xfm. They’re half a year away from releasing Permission To Land, the album that will catapult them towards stardom; the album that will turn the band into the unlikeliest of pop stars; the album that will eventually turn their lives upside down. Pete Doherty is the only Libertine who’s bothered to show up for sound-check, and he’s backstage, deliberately burning holes in his T-shirt with a cigarette.
“I think he wanted to simulate the look of someone who’s fucked up,” recalls Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins. “With that sort of thing it’s ‘fake it till you make it’ – pretend to be fucked up until you really are. Well, job done.”
An hour later, The Darkness have triumphed. While The Libertines may have been a more comfortable fit for Xfm’s indie demographic, The Darkness do what they always do. It’s what they’ve done ever since: they work, and they entertain. And by the time the set climaxes with Hawkins being ferried around the packed venue on someone’s shoulders, still soloing furiously, the audience – somewhat buoyed by the free whisky cocktails provided by the event’s sponsors – are going absolutely nuts.
“I’m not sure what inspired me to book them,” says the party’s organiser, Jim Benner. “They weren’t the obvious support act for The Libertines. But they stole the show.”
It’s August 23, 2019, and The Darkness are supporting pop goliath Ed Sheeran as the highest grossing tour of all time nears its conclusion. It’s a tour that’s made more money than Guns N’ Roses’ Not In This Lifetime trek. A tour that’s pulled in more cash than the Rolling Stones. More than AC/DC. More than U2. It’s a tour that’s raked in over $700,000,000, which is significantly more than the total GDP of Tonga. And as it rolls into Ipswich’s Chantry Park for four final shows (Sheeran grew up in Framlingham, just 18 miles up the road), The Darkness (from Lowestoft, a further 30 miles north) are taking on someone else’s audience again.
“It’s nice to have a group of people who aren’t prepared for you,” says Justin. “We’ve got a few tricks to win them over.”
When Classic Rock arrives backstage, the party is in full swing. Justin is at a table with brother Dan and drummer Rufus Taylor, relaxing under an awning that shields them from the scorching midday sun. It’s so hot that Justin is wearing a dress – and it suits him. Bassist Frankie Poullain is sucking down a green smoothie, the kind laced with peculiar ingredients like spirulina and algae. There are pots of oatmeal, and recycling bins. The band’s seamstress, Angela, is on her knees, carefully hammering rivets into a pastel blue crushedvelvet catsuit. Overall it’s a picture of tranquility.
The scale of the event is extraordinary. Local newspaper the East Anglian Daily Times has changed its name for the first time in its 145-year history, rebranding as the Ed Sheeran Daily Times for one day only. ‘Back Where It All
Began!’ screams the headline above a photo of Sheeran holding his guitar aloft. Backstage, security is tight. We’re told not to share photos of our passes on social media, lest they be immediately counterfeited by those with impure intentions. Lose your pass? That’s a £200 fine. Sniffer dogs roam the site, checking for explosives. Negotiations are required so that Classic Rock’s photographer can shoot from the stage. And the catering is on another level. There are beautifully cooked steaks with bearnaise sauce. A bowl of ripe avocados. A kale drawer. Bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar – the expensive kind. After lunch the band have media duties, and after they’ve dealt with a local BBC TV crew, it’s Classic Rock’s turn. So. Ed fucking Sheeran. What’s going on? “Ed’s been a fan for years,” says Dan, in a manner which suggests he is to be believed.
“What do you think was the first song he ever played on guitar?” he continues. “Get Your Hands Off My Woman. To be honest, we’re more likely to turn down a support slot with a big rock band, because we’re trying to find a new audience, and play our music to people who don’t know what we sound like.”
While Justin is quick-witted and mischievous, Dan comes across as the senior partner despite being the younger brother. He’s the one who’ll give you the band’s official position on any given subject, after the others have had their say. Are you a Sheeran fan? “I know what he’s doing, and I’m fascinated by how he’s doing it,” says Dan. “There are so many things that can go wrong, and he just doesn’t get it wrong. It’s just wild. It’s mind-blowing how technical it is, and how much thought’s gone into it. He’s essentially doing the job of a whole band, and then he’s singing, but he’s also thinking about what he’s going to do next. It’s incredible.”
“I think he needs to add a harmonica,” adds Justin. “And have bass drum on his back.”
“We are one of the world’s most entertaining hard rock bands. I like to think we’re pushing the boundaries every time we make an album.”
Dan Hawkins
In an era when so many bands are po-faced about what they do, reluctant to be seen as entertainers, The Darkness make choices that other bands won’t. Such as stepping out in front of 160,000 delirious Ed Sheeran fans over the course of a long weekend. They’re the kind of choices that have encouraged new converts but alienated others. As if, somehow, The Darkness aren’t taking rock seriously enough. As if they’re mocking something sacred. And there are moments on their new album, Easter Is Cancelled, that are certain to annoy those people, such as Heavy Metal Lover, or when Justin impersonates Liam Gallagher on Choke On It.
“The humour only counts against us in the eyes of the ignorant,” says Justin. “It isn’t a conscious inclusion, although the only time we’re not happy is when it’s not there.”
“It’s like a garnish,” adds Frankie, who comes across as something of a deep thinker. “When there’s too much it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. But it’s just a flavouring for the dish, never the meat and potatoes.”
There are other moments of humour on the album, some musical, like the climax of opener Rock And Roll Deserves To Die, which features a gleeful hat-tip to AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock before the track fades with a hokey country and western riff. There’s also some brilliant wordplay, with Justin cramming clumsy runs of words together with almost baffling ease. ‘Kids can be cruel, I wasn’t popular at school/I became the subject of a campaign of ridicule,’ he sings on Live ’Til I Die, as if it’s the most natural, perfectly written line in the world, and on Choke On It he somehow conspires to rhyme ‘smoother’, ‘hors d’oeuvre’ and ‘Heimlich maneuver’.
There are a few nods to the singer’s beloved Queen: Love Of My Life on Deck Chair, and Tie Your Mother Down on the title track, while closer We Are The Guitar Men finds Justin doing his best Freddie Mercury before the Bohemian Rhapsody harmonies arrive and a chorus of Brian May-style guitars rings in the climax. It’s a very, very good album;
adventurous, funny, brilliantly played, beautifully produced, and featuring at least four tracks that sit soundly beside their best work. It’s an album born of intense, sapping effort (“If we had to make another album like this next summer,” says Dan,”there wouldn’t be a band by the winter”). It’s also a concept album.
“Some of it’s multiverse theory,” says Justin, explaining the concept, “and some of it’s childhood memories told as allegorical love tales. Some of it’s matters of the heart. But it’s framed by our view that our compatriots in the sphere of rock aren’t pulling their weight. We all agree that the really challenging musical endeavours are happening in other genres. That’s disappointing to us, so we’ve spent nine months showing people how to fucking do it properly.”
Not even Greta Van Fleet, another band who’ve taken templates of old and dusted them with modern sparkle?
“The timbre of his [Josh Kiszka’s] voice is so similar to Robert Plant’s that you can’t help but be excited when you hear him sing,” says Justin. “There’s lots of potential for them to be as amazing as Led Zeppelin, but they’re going to need some better songs. When something like this comes along and everyone gets excited, it shows you how little we have to offer as a genre. That’s not to slag them off, because I think they have the potential to be amazing. They could be the next phase of what Led Zeppelin should have been doing. There’s nothing wrong with adopting classic rock choreography and clothes, but you have to kick on from there.”
After Permission To Land broke The Darkness, they struggled to kick on. And then they just struggled. And today, with smoothies and pots of oatmeal on the rider, it’s only natural to wonder how different this scene would have been a decade and a half ago.
“We’d have been walking round like we owned the place,” says Justin. “Now we’re a bit more respectful. We’re not in people’s faces like we used to be. We’re not drinking and falling about.”
“I’d have definitely been halfway into a bottle of Jack Daniel’s,” adds Dan. “We’d be either hungover or pissed.” Is there anything about those days that you miss? “I don’t miss playing all the songs too fast,” says Frankie. “It was hard to keep up.”
“I remember being absolutely over the fucking moon,” says Dan. “With myself. With what we were doing. With the gigs. With the success of the band. And that was half the problem.”
It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Rufus Taylor – son, lest we forget, of Queen drummer Roger. He’s presumably grown up with his father’s tales of bacchanalian rock’n’roll excess, only to join a band of his own at the very point they’re beginning to calm down. He’s young. He’s good looking. He has perfect teeth. And his bandmates are doing yoga.
“As polite as they’re being, it’s not all flowers and meditation,” Taylor says. “Although I think if I’d joined back then I might be dead.”
“I’m just glad I’ve got someone to party with,” says Frankie.
“Rufus is in charge of supermodels and kicking ass,” adds Dan.
It’s an easy trap to fall into, thinking of The Darkness as the band who did that one album and never truly capitalised. But Dan has a theory about that.
“As polite as [the rest of the band] are being, it’s not all flowers and meditation. Although I think if I’d joined back then I might be dead.”
Rufus Taylor
“We came across a really transient pop audience,” he says.” It was huge, and then it went. Luckily we held on to enough fans to have a career after that, but essentially we were part of a pop phenomenon. And that’s the weird thing with us. It was a really fortunate thing that happened, but we’re kinda where we should be. The band that we were designed to be is the band we are now. And this is why things like this are a happy addition to what we do. We are one of the world’s most entertaining hard rock bands, and I like to think that we’re pushing the boundaries every time we make an album.”
Interview over, the band dress for the stage and strikes poses for Classic Rock’s photographer. He has them jumping out of portacabins and draped over golf carts, and they do it all willingly and without fuss. No airs, no graces. And then it’s time. Taylor windmills his arms. Justin stretches his calves. There’s a quick embrace from Ed Sheeran’s manager, Stuart Camp, who used to work with The Darkness at Warner Brothers, and a group huddle in which the band’s long-time booking agent Rad Saunders delivers an impassioned motivational speech. The message he passes on?
“This is East Anglia!” Saunders repeats, straight-faced. “We have to go out there and ejaculate wild rock semen into their faces.”
And that, in a manner of speaking, is what The Darkness do. They roll on stage with guitars held aloft, flicking plectrums into the crowd from the off. “We’re all East Anglian here,” exclaims Justin, before a brief headbanging demonstration. He’s clearly enjoying the stage, enjoying being on home turf, and enjoying taking on an audience that doesn’t look much like it rocks and rolls all night or parties every day. There are a few Darkness T-shirts dotted throughout the crowd, but it’s mostly Ed Sheeran’s people, and the band are greeted with a mixture of curiosity and bewilderment.
“Anyone here from Blythburgh?” Justin asks. “This one’s for you! It’s called Black Shuck”. Even this enticing piece of local history (the song is named after the ghostly hellhound that killed a man in the village’s Holy Trinity Church in 1577) doesn’t seem to excite the crowd, but a jubilant version of the new album’s Heart Explodes begins to turn the tide in the band’s favour. “Ahh, that Suffolk air,” Justin enthuses. “Hands up who swam in the North Sea today! Anywhere near Sizewell?”
He’s on a roll now. During Get Your Hands Off My Woman, a rivet pings off his catsuit, but it doesn’t stop him hoisting himself into a headstand to count the rhythm with his feet. “Do I look like an American gladiator?” he asks, flicking his hair flamboyantly. “What would be my gladiator name? Wolf? Wolf?! That’s an existing gladiator, sir! If you weren’t wearing a Darkness T-shirt I’d come down there and hit you with this guitar.
“This is the last song of the evening,” Justin announces, as the set draws to a close. “Thanks for tolerating us.” He then plays the guitar intro to Sweet Child O’ Mine. But not for long. “Let’s bounce around!” he says excitedly, stopping the music and going on to rap further instructions. “A bounce, bounce, a-bouncey bounce! A bounce bounce bouncey-bounce! Then we can all go backstage and masturbate in the compound next to Ed’s dressing room!”
Quite what the Sheeran fans make of this unexpected turn of dialogue isn’t immediately clear, but any doubts are swiftly dispelled; I Believe In A Thing Called Love is euphoric. Toddlers are hoisted onto shoulders, the uncommitted are suddenly stricken with near-evangelical fervour, and everybody bounces. They’ve pulled victory from the jaws of confusion, and the grin on Justin’s face tells you he knows it.
Job done, The Darkness walk backstage, adrenalin pumping, happily pausing on the way so that the security guard who’s been looking after their portacabins can have his photo taken with them. “I love those guys,” the security guy says, after they’ve vanished into the dressing room. “So much energy!”
He could have said any number of things. He could have told you that Easter Is Cancelled is better than anything the Darkness have released since re-forming. He could have told you they’re one of the great British bands, and that Justin Hawkins and his brother Dan and their bandmates Frankie and Rufus are still one of the most entertaining live acts you’re ever likely to witness. He could have said that they’re just about ready for National Treasure status. And he’d have been right.
‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love is euphoric. The uncommitted are suddenly stricken with near-evangelical
fervour, and everybody bounces.’
Easter Is Cancelled is out now via Cooking Vinyl. The Darkness tour the U K and Ireland in November and December.