Frontman Justin Hawkins shines a light on the reformed Darkness for LAUREN MURPHY
So, The Darkness are back, BACK, BAAACK! You’ve been kept busy over the past few years with your solo career and the other guys have had their own stuff going on – why get back together now?
I’m not sure, really. I think we always knew we’d do it again, but at the time I needed a break. I suppose we all did, really. But you don’t know how long a break is going to be . . . it could have been six months, five years, 10 years. We just had to respond to the urge as it came, really.
In hindsight, was it too much too soon? Permission to Land was such a huge success that when follow-up One Way Ticket to Hell . . . and Back didn’t match those sales figures, it was mistreated as a flop in comparison.
Yeah, it was frustrating. It only sold a million copies – only! – and we were really disappointed. But the label were actually quite cool about it at the time. The sales figures were OK, and second albums are always difficult anyway, aren’t they?
So it wasn’t the sales figures, it was just everything else – the relationships in the band, more than the performance of the album. When we started the band, we all said “Well, it doesn’t matter if we don’t sell any records; it doesn’t matter that we’re doing music that’s completely irrelevant and totally unfashionable.” And brazenly wearing Lycra while doing it was the whole idea [laughs]. We were doing it in spite of not being fashionable – so when we were unfashionable again, it didn’t affect us. It affected everybody’s perception of us, but not us. We had our own problems to deal with.
What was the biggest mistake that the band made? Too much, er, “partying”?
I don’t agree with pointing out mistakes, you know what I mean? I think everything happens for a reason. It’s part of the story, isn’t it? Nobody wants to ride the teacups; that’s not what you pay to get into Disneyland for. You want the rollercoaster.
The new album sounds very tight and very forthright – like there was no hesitation at all in the studio.
Yeah, I’m glad you’re getting that actually, because we took a very direct approach to recording it. There was no fucking about. There was nothing progressive, we wanted all the fat trimmed off and kept what was necessary.
It's got a brilliant cover of Radiohead's Street Spirit – a brave move, considering how militant their fans can be.
Can they? But I’m a Radiohead fan and I’m not militant. Or maybe I am . . .
Let’s just say certain factions of their fanbase, then. Why choose that song in particular?
Well, we looked at that one, we looked at Creep, and that’s the one that translated best, really. When we first started everyone said “Oh, you must hate Radiohead”. Or they’d say “You must hate Nirvana”, because they killed the particular kind of rock that we do – and it used to really frustrate us. So when we were choosing a cover, we wanted to either do a Nirvana song or a Radiohead song to demonstrate the fact that we don’t hate those bands.
If The Darkness do a cover, it has to be an octave up, singing-wise, and probably a bit faster. And that’s it – you’ve made it into a Darkness song [laughs].
We didn’t necessarily want to put it on the album, but when we heard the mix, we realised that the album needed it. I think it might have been a bit too sweet without something like that. You have to keep the balance.
A lot of the songs on the album deal with themes of love. Are you at a place right now where writing love songs is easy? Are you drawing on past experiences?
Oh, that’s a good question. You mean am I happy? In a love sense? In a general life sense, I’m definitely happy. Everything else is nonsense [laughs].
I’m really focused on work and the band, which makes writing love songs easy, but doing love itself really difficult. But I prefer it that way, because you need a bit of uncertainty and pain to be able to write. Nobody wants to hear me singing Paul McCartney-style silly love songs. Even I don’t want to hear that.
Continuing with the love theme, how do you feel about songs such as I Believe in a Thing Called Love now? Are they necessary crowd-pleasers?
No, I love singing those songs – I’ve always loved singing them. There are certain songs that we used to do that I was happy to see fall away, but those ones I definitely still love. Now we’ve got three albums of songs to pick from, it’s much more fun, much more immersive. I don’t use set lists anymore, either. They used to distract me, so now I only know what song is next when I go to get my guitar from my tech. It keeps things interesting; edge of your pants, as they say. Or is it edge of your seat? Ha ha. Edge of Your Pants: The Justin Hawkins Story. That’s my biography title, right there.
Hot Cakes is out now and is reviewed on page 14. The Darkness support Lady Gaga at the Aviva Stadium on September 15
