The Darkness

Some people might try to tell you that in 2003 the entire country was listening to The Strokes, Dizzee Rascal, The White Stripes or something other “cool” act. You can tell them to their face that they’re either highly mistaken or filthy liars. 2003 was the year that the Jack Black classic rock comedy School Of Rock was released and, by some possibly divine act of harmony, it was also the year that absolutely everyone in the country fell in love with The Darkness. With the film and the band’s debut album working in tandem with each other, 2003 was the year of the riff, and a good year it was too.

The band began four years before all that, beginning in 1999 when struggling guitarist Dan Hawkins met bass player Frankie Poullain. The duo promptly moved in together and started looking for other instrumentalists to form a band with. They found a drummer in Dan’s old school friend Ed Graham, but a singer wouldn’t be found until millennium eve, when Dan watched, stunned, as some clown at a karaoke contest completely aced Bohemian Rhapsody. He nailed every tricky octave leap and star-jumped like a maniac when the riff kicked in, all without missing a note. Said clown was Dan’s older brother, Justin Hawkins, who was immediately recruited as the bands singer and rhythm guitarist.

By 2000, the band was set, and they started performing live everywhere that would have them. Their astonishing live sets in pubs and small clubs around the country gained them a devoted following and buckets of hype. This hype was mainly centred on how Justin Hawkins performed like the bastard child of Freddie Mercury and Angus Young captivating an entire stadium, whilst the band was actually playing grotty pubs in Kentish Town. The following they built up was so large that in 2002 they became the first unsigned band to ever headline London’s legendary Astoria club in Charing Cross.

Clearly, they were not going to be unsigned for long, and by 2003 the band had signed to Atlantic Records. Now, at this point they had a large amount of hype behind them, but nobody was prepared for quite how huge they were poised to get. The album was released in July and within a year had sold 1.5 million copies, their big single “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” was released in September and peaked at number 2 as did their Christmas single “Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) and things only got more insane come 2004.

2004 saw them support Metallica on tour, win three BRIT Awards for Best British Album, Best British Group and Best Rock Group, and then capped off their debut album campaign by headlining the Reading and Leeds festivals. To put that in context, that puts them in the same category as the likes of Guns ‘N’ Roses, The Cure and Foo Fighters. Put simply, they were a big deal. The downside of all this is that it was all downhill from here on out. The cracks were showing as Justin Hawkins’ party lifestyle started to get as much press as the band’s music, but it seemed under control. For now.

The bands commercial pull had deteriorated as well due to over-exposure. The backlash had begun in earnest and releasing an album in 2005, the year after they’d been absolutely everywhere, was a bad move. Although it eventually went platinum, the bands second album “One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back”, missed the top ten entirely, where their debut had gone straight in at number two. The resulting tour saw a tired, out of it band performing to dwindling audiences and constant tabloid attention concerning Justin, who in 2006 admitted to spending £150’000 on cocaine in three years after the success of “…Thing Called Love”.

Everything had to stop, Justin was sent to rehab for his own health, and while he was in he decided to leave the band to stay away from old habits. Without their totem and frontman, the band called it a day soon afterwards. The band members went quietly into other projects for the next five years, but in 2011, the band reunited to play second on the bill at that year’s Download Festival. Since then, the band have been on top form, with their third album “Hot Cakes” hurtling into the top five of the album charts, and some of the best live shows of their entire career. Clearly they’re a band on their second wind, and it would be a crying shame to miss out. Highly recommended.