Justin Hawkins of The Darkness: 'I love Cork! I had a birthday there'
Justin Hawkins and his The Darkness band members.
Things are going well for perennially fabulous British rock group The Darkness, currently on an (almost) sold-out arena tour of Europe which includes three Irish dates in Belfast, King John’s Castle in Limerick, and Killarney’s INEC.
Conscious of the Munster roots, singer Justin Hawkins takes a wild opening punt.
“I have a great affinity with Ireland and the Irish,” he declares when I rouse him at the crack of 5pm on a day off. “And you don’t get the true taste of the island until you get to those southern regions. I was born on St Patrick’s Day and that’s not just some cosmic coincidence.
"If you cut me, I bleed green, or whatever the correct thing is. A lot of my best friends are Irish. There’s something about playing in Ireland I’ve always loved. It’s a beautiful country.
"I love Cork! I had a birthday there, incredibly memorable for all the right reasons.” This writer was there when they played Cyprus Avenue in 2019 and we had a fine night on the town afterwards.
The band’s resurgent popularity and those bigger venues could in part be attributed to Hawkins’ emergence as an internet personality. His very funny Justin Hawkins Rides Again YouTube channel features the man pontificating in his own inimitable style. Like Bill Nighy’s bewildered rock star in (the character could have been based on Hawkins, a man having a very good time back in 2003) who can’t tell the difference between Ant and Dec, a recent episode where Hawkins couldn’t distinguish between Keith Duffy and Brian McFadden as the latest Boyzlife ‘classic’ played in the background is particularly hilarious. The channel has 600,000-odd subscribers which is not nothing.
“I noticed it last year when we had our busiest summer on the festival circuit. People would come up and say ‘I love your YouTube channel’. It wasn’t, ‘I love your band’. It’s an indicator of rising stock when I can’t go to the hairdressers without having my picture taken and it ending up in the . It’s obviously good for the band.”
There was also the patronage of one Taylor Swift who was videoed singing along to the band’s biggest smash and the one they’ll play on the radio should the plane go down, , at the US Open with her boyfriend last year.
“It was a huge thing, no question about it,” Hawkins nods. “It had an influence on the way the tour sold but not directly. At Christmas, when they’re commissioning TV appearances, they’re like, ‘What happened this year? Oh, that happened. Let’s get The Darkness on’ and that caused a tangible sales spike. So it’s been brilliant. Taylor was, directly and indirectly, a huge bonus for us.”
And, of course, there is a marvellous new album (“The title means absolutely nothing”). Hawkins may sing that he’s “under the moon” about it on life-improving, instant classic but somebody’s obviously excited given the myriad of different versions being flogged and even a tour laminate available at the gigs that, if scanned correctly, registers an album sale. A high first-week chart placing is being deliberately sought after.
“That’s Tom who works at [record company] Cooking Vinyl. He’s gone from being office junior to product manager. He’s determined to make an impact on the charts. We’re up against Ariana Grande who I’ve never heard of but young people probably like. It’s going to be a scrap.
"The album is a creative triumph and probably our best work and he wants it to go to the top so he can walk around going, ‘I got The Darkness back to number one, I was in charge!’ He’s just a young skater bloke but he’s really determined. I love working with people like that.”
Wise and attractive folk who invest in the album may be surprised by the noticeable country influence on and but the lyrics of the latter concern a trouser-related, dietary mishap on a romantic evening (“the rest of the night was written on the wind”) so it’s still gloriously business as usual. Hawkins does reveal that the former song was tried with several different arrangements including “caribbe”. When your antiquated correspondent gives him a quizzical look, he clarifies this by saying it was like a Lilt advert, totally tropical, which I completely understand.
Reaching his fifties after decades of bogus claims to being 28, Hawkins may if we take the lyrics literally be finally feeling his age. As well as the aforementioned pants accident, details waking up early “in a middle-aged body” to use the facilities and feeling mortality’s icy fingers on one’s shoulder,
“These are all written from Frankie’s perspective,” he retorts, referring to Darkness bass player, published author, and greatest living Scots man Frankie Poullain who is a positively prehistoric 57. “You see other bands who’ve been around as long as we have and they’re still, at our age, singing about teenage girls and all that and it’s just downright perverse. I wanted us to make a record that’s actually talking about what it’s like, you get to our age and everything’s more difficult.”
does exactly what it says on the tin and is akin to being hit over the head with a bag of elephants but in a good way. Hawkins effortlessly displays his lyrical prowess by rhyming ‘cowboy’ with ‘Tolstoy’ (elsewhere on the album he ‘rhymes’ ‘away’ with ‘electricity’).
“It’s laughing at the tropes of metal and rock. I wanted the character to be a misogynistic macho man – ‘where the ladies at’ – but he keeps talking about his pool boy so he’s got a little bit of gayness he’s not prepared to fully share.
"He’s loosely based on a guy I used to buy drugs off in Holland [Hawkins has been clean as a nun’s conscience for years]. He was describing his Christmas to me, ‘Lots-shh of Jack Daniels-shh. Big party, big party’.”
The riff behind certainly has an AC/DC influence, but Hawkins’ superb and startling ‘flow’ on breaks new ground in fine style. He declares himself both “the Earl Of Chertsey” and ”the undisputed king of rap” before displaying his “talent on electric lute”.
“My girlfriends it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I did it to make the band laugh but they were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do that!’ I’ve created a rod for my back but my mother tongue is hip hop.”
There are also two beautiful chansons d’amour in the pop perfection of ELO/Queen hybrid The Longest Kiss – “It’s just a lovely song” – and the closing Weekend In Rome which features a narration from Hollywood man Stephen Dorff – “his voice is amazing” - and a breath-taking orchestral finale – “it sounds like , or something”.
"I’m in love,” Hawkins states by way of explanation for this overt romanticism. “We’ll get married eventually and everything will be alright.”
- The album is out now. The Darkness’ upcoming Irish gigs include June 20, King John's Castle, Limerick; June 21, Gleneagle INEC Arena, Killarney; Aug 9, Custom House Square, Belfast.
