If there is one thing you can count on from Justin Hawkins – frontman, falsetto-wielder, and all-around raconteur of The Darkness – it is a festive, freewheeling and entertaining chat. We talk about Christmas covers, the band’s enduring outsider appeal, the peculiarities of musical success, and why, sometimes, injury really does make you stronger.
“When somebody asks you, ‘What’s your favourite Christmas song’, the cool answer is Fairytale of New York. If you’re being a little bit playful, you might say Last Christmas, but if you’re being honest, it’s Mistletoe And Wine. I think it’s time for us to be honest about the fact that it’s the best Christmas song.”
This confession from Justin Hawkins explains the reasoning behind The Darkness releasing a cover of the Cliff Richard classic, available as a single and on the Christmas edition of this year’s acclaimed Dreams On Toast album.
Regular listeners to Justin Hawkins Rides Again, his deservedly successful YouTube channel, will recognise this trademark blend of outrageousness and intelligent insight, soon to be unleashed on theatres across the nation in a live format.
As with everything Darkness-related, there is much more to this single than merely picking a crowd pleaser. It is also a way of paying homage to legendary bass player Pino Palladino, who appeared on the original as well as countless other classic tracks over the years.
“On paper, it’s three chords, but in reality, there’s much more going on,” Justin explains. “Pino Palladino is an omnipresent mega session bassist, and he always did interesting stuff. He’s very seldom operating on the root. He’s picking the fruit, as I would put it, wandering around and doing all these iconic lines that really work in the same way that a string arrangement might work, but on a bass. It’s really clever.
“We really needed to do note-for-note what he had done on there, and then everything else is a free-for-all. So we did that, and then it was like, OK, let’s do it shoegaze, let’s make it into a drone thing.
“A lot of people thought that when The Darkness started up, we were the anti-shoegaze, we were the anti-nu-Metal or whatever. We’re not anti-anything. What excites us is that sort of Queen-type rock, but that doesn’t mean that we dislike anything else. In the ’90s, bands like Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine were huge for us, so much dissonance, it’s hard to say what the chords are. We wanted to do that, but with Mistletoe And Wine.”
The result? A version that keeps Cliff’s vocal stylings and Pino’s bassline, but bathes everything else in a haze of ’90s soundscapes. Does Justin know if Cliff has heard it yet and what he thinks? And if the favour will be returned? I would certainly pay to hear a Cliff Richard cover of Barbarian.
“I don’t know if he would ever do that,” Justin muses, before launching into a riff worthy of a Christmas ghost story. “I’m not sure if Cliff Richard’s heard it because they haven’t reanimated him yet. I think the reason why he is perfectly preserved is ‘cos he’s in a crypt somewhere, and they haven’t played him the music yet because it’s not time for him to feed, he’s in a super slumber at the moment.
“I mean, I’m saying that as a compliment because he’s absolutely ageless and will continue to feast on the blood of younglings until the end of time, most probably. Or until someone drives a stake through his heart, which this song might do, actually.”
Anyway …
We are quite anoraky here at MetalTalk, and we love a good connection. So with The Darkness on the bill as main support to Iron Maiden at Knebworth this coming July and Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter knocking Cliff’s follow-up festive offering Saviour’s Day off the number one spot, that would have made a fairly cool link to the summer show.
“That’s a brilliant point,” Justin laughs. “When we were compiling this album and making Mistletoe And Wine, we didn’t know we were gonna be playing at Knebworth with Maiden. If we had known that, then we would have gone for the full-on Saviour’s Day – that was a really excellent observation.”
Looking ahead to their upcoming performance at Knebworth, Justin reflects on how much has changed since The Darkness last played the legendary venue over two decades ago, supporting Robbie Williams.
“We were playing to Robbie Williams’ audience before, and we were just doing our thing really, we didn’t change anything. It changed our lives, though, because so many people were there over the course of that weekend that on the Monday afterwards, we were suddenly famous.
“So I’ll always be grateful to Robbie Williams for that ‘cos it was like he didn’t have to put us on, he did, and it really made an impression.”
The lineup is heavier now with The Hu, The Almighty and Airbourne also supporting, yet this time round Justin confirms that The Darkness “won’t be approaching it any differently, but I do think it’ll be a different audience. I think it’ll be a collection of people who reject the mainstream, and that’s just really exciting.
“What I’ve noticed is that since we got announced on this, I’m seeing a lot of kids in the front row of Darkness shows with Iron Maiden t-shirts on, which reminds me of me and my friends when we were young. If you wore an Iron Maiden t-shirt at my school, then you were declaring yourself an outsider. You weren’t a townie or trendy or whatever. You were making different lifestyle choices and wanting to be part of something different.”
One of The Darkness’s enduring USPs is their ability to appeal to lots of different outsiders from many margins. Their diverse approach is their strength, with Dreams On Toast a testament to that, veering from pop to Metal to country. The songs are everything, though. The music dictates the direction of the band. Justin explains the process.
“Rock And Roll Party Cowboy can only ever be Rock And Roll Party Cowboy, that’s all it could be. Believe it or not, as ridiculous and simple as it seems, we spent years on that. For the first two years, it was called Rock And Roll Cowboy. Then I came up with the ingenious suggestion of adding the word ‘party.’
“And then suddenly we got a song because we’ve got enough syllables to turn that into a refrain, just about. We were trying so hard to make it melodic or make it work in some other capacity. It wasn’t going to do that, it was always that animal, it had to be that.
“Then you get a song like Cold Hearted Woman from that album, which is like a country song, but like all songs, you should be able to transplant them into any genre, really, so we tried everything with that. I remember there was one bit when we did it reggae, and we even arranged it so it sounded like a Hall and Oates song. But the one that really made it sing properly was country.
“We’ve definitely chased all of the avenues for every song and then try to realise them in the way that made sense for the individual tracks. It wasn’t a conscious decision to do a diverse record. It was more we wanted every song to sit in the genre that it felt most comfortable in.”
The conversation turns to the unpredictable nature of singles and success in the streaming era. “One of the things that’s happened that’s so wonderful is that some of the radio stations [in America] hear an album and then they earmark what they think is an appropriate song for their playlist and they put it on rotation.
“And the one that’s taking off in America is Mortal Dread, which we didn’t do as a single here… but in America they’ve just gone, yeah, that’s the one. It’s like, OK, fair enough, guys. They didn’t ask us, that’s the one that’s being played on the radio, and I think that’s amazing really.”
He shrugs off the idea of ever making the right choices about singles. “It’s all just a matter of opinion, really. I suppose the other question is what does success look like in a world where singles don’t matter. How do you define success, and how do you quantify it? It’s really hard.”
I mention that there have been more piano and synths creeping higher into the mix over the years, and in response, Justin enthusiastically pulls up his shirt to show me his tattoos.
“That’s a Moog, a Mini Moog, here’s a DX7, that’s a Roland VP 330, and up there, that’s a Juno. I’ve always been a massively enthusiastic synthesiser collector and player. I’m a guitarist first and foremost, but I’ve played piano on every album we’ve done so far. I suppose it’s a bit more prominent in the mix on some of these songs ‘cos stuff like Longest Kiss needs that. And I suppose Don’t Need Sunshine is very much a piano song. It’s just part of what I do, really.”
As well as his instrumental skills, his voice is, of course, legendary. It’s astonishing that over the years, listening to the audience, there has been no noticeable deterioration in power and range. The performance is as electrifying as ever.
Considering that he needed throat surgery in 2018, I wondered if he had needed to change the way he approached things, especially considering the amount of touring The Darkness do.
“It was a polyp on my vocal cords, probably a vocal injury caused by singing in the wrong way or trying to put distortion on using the vocal cords themselves,” Justin explains. “And it’s probably when I recorded the vocal for Open Fire that nearly killed me. It was really, really hard, and I never felt like I recovered from it.
“I did one tour where I was singing really badly, and it was very, very difficult, so I went in and had the operation. I chose the surgeon very carefully. There are two choices you have to make in that situation. You can either have it burnt off with a laser, or you can have it cold cut with steel.
“There are risks involved with both, but I didn’t want the meat around it to be cooked, so I decided to go for the steel and found a great surgeon, and the really great thing about it was the aftercare.
“I went to the Zurich Opera House, and I spent a lot of time rebuilding my vocal with this woman called Barbara Böhi, who I thank on every album since. She showed me ways to direct and visualise the placement of the notes to further enhance my range.
“Now my range is probably about five octaves, and I only use it when I’m building up backing vocal tracks, but I’ve found more in the bass end because I know how to project it, and there’s more in the high.
“She showed me ways to project in the same way that I always did, but without doing it in a throaty way. I haven’t had to cancel any shows or had any problems. The only trouble is when I get ill, but I think that’s the same for every singer, if you find yourself with a head cold or pharyngitis or something, there’s nothing you can do.”
Incredibly, Justin states that he has even more range than he did before, coming back much stronger, and it’s not the first time this has happened, as his piano playing has benefited from a hand injury sustained years earlier.
“It was my right hand,” he says, stretching his fingers out widely. “I had a bad hand injury, got into a bit of a fight just before our big arena tour in 2004 or something like that. Obviously, I was misbehaving in those days, and I got into a situation, and I lost a lot of knuckles there, severed a tendon from one of these fingers, and my hand didn’t move properly.
“I had some emergency surgery, a surgeon called James Youngman, who put it all back together, and luckily, he was a cellist, so he knew what he was doing. They said to me, ‘You probably won’t have as much range of movement in your hand after this operation’, and I actually have more.
“I don’t know what happens to me every time I do something daft, and then I’m The Six Million Dollar Man man or something. I’ve got staples and stuff holding my tendons together, but it works better than the other one, it’s really weird.”
It’s a fascinating theory, injure Justin, and he comes back stronger, but it’s not a road that I want to go down any further, as we really need him in one piece, considering there’s his spoken word tour, Knebworth, and then a huge arena tour coming up in 2026.
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Justin laughs. “I think I’m just lucky. I mean, I’ve had a career in music that’s lasted I don’t know how many years now, and there are millions of people who are more talented than me that don’t get a chance to do what I do. So I’m just lucky.”
Maybe, but anyone who has followed The Darkness knows that luck is only part of the story. It is also the consistently excellent music, the honesty, the humour, the sublime and the ridiculous that keep us coming back.
Whatever the future holds, The Darkness will always be a band worth celebrating.
The Darkness will join Iron Maiden at Knebworth Park on 11 July 2026, bringing their high voltage live show to one of the UK’s most storied rock fields. They will then embark on their largest headline tour in 20 years, a seven date arena trek across the UK in December. Tickets are available from aegpresents.co.uk/event/the-darkness-3.
Justin Hawkins will bring his much loved YouTube show Justin Hawkins Rides Again to stages across the UK in early 2026, with a brand new live outing titled Justin Hawkins Rides Again, Again!! MetalTalk said the 2024 tour was quite probably the most fun you can have sans catsuit. A new show? What’s not to love.
