Saying the members of the Darkness don’t like the spotlight is like saying Howard Stern hates lesbians. The English rockers, who only started out in 2002, have been redefining the word flamboyant in rock and roll, as their glam inklings and glitzy persona falls somewhere between “gimme a break” and “brilliant.” Led by the colorful and wild singer Justin Hawkins, The Darkness put the “front” back in “front-man” and the forgotten worlds ”glam” and “hair metal” back in rock.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em for the Spinal Tap yearnings, The Darkness are indeed real, albeit a throwback. No other band comes to evoke comparisons to Queen, a band cemented in rock and roll lore. No lead singer dare prance around in a flashy one-piece leotard and sing in over the top Freddie Mercury falsetto. But the one question really is, how come no other band ever picked up on this moment in rock and re-ignited that 70’s hard rock/glam torch of yesteryear?
With 2003’s debut Permission to Land, The Darkness proved that something Spinal Tap can indeed work outside the movies. With the hit single, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” The Darkness, like a film score, skyrocketed to fame and fortune faster than you can say “mama mia mama mia.” Along came the bandwagon effect, and the typical rock and roll film score.
Although the band demands they’re no parody, Americans have always been suspicious about their hair metal/glam intentions. Surely, more people were rooting against the band to pull off another blockbuster with their sophomore release One Way Ticket To Hell…and Back. Completed under speculation of exhaustion, fear, pressure and paranoia, The Darkness delivered jig-rock, grand piano, fugelhorn, Moog, orchestra, bagpipe-guitars and sitars. And they went right to the source as they enlisted producer Roy Thomas Baker, the captain of Queen’s classic 70’s albums to drive the ship. Glide spoke with the newest member of the band, bassist Richie Edwards, who surprisingly has no hair, to find out about the second coming of the Darkness.
There is a lot of talk about when you were recording the album, that the band was experiencing a great deal of pressure, exhaustion, fear and paranoia. Where did that all come from, it seems like things couldn’t be better for The Darkness?
I think to be honest, a lot of that has been overplayed really. Aside from the obvious, the personnel change, that part of it wasn’t clearly happening and that probably applied to unnecessary pressure to the recording process really. I think most of the pressure came from within the band really, to make the best album we possibly could and also the record company wants your record out rather quickly, so you have a certain amount of pressure
from that. But the sessions were actually a lot of fun and when I listen to the record I don’t really hear any negativity at all. I don’t listen to it and go “oh shit, remember when we recorded this.” There were so many good times, it was an awful lot of fun really.
Well “One Way Ticket” hints at exhaustion and a sense of negativity with the obvious cocaine references.
Yeah absolutely, that song is just an honest song about drugs really. It’s kind of a weird subject with songs really, because generally when people write about drugs, they say, “these are terrible” or “they are awful things.” Or people talk about the drugs as a third person or an animal and try to be really clever about it, but this is a song that basically acknowledges the fact that there must be a reason why people do drugs. There must be a good side. It’s basically saying there is a good side, which is why people do it, but you’re not realizing that your life is falling apart and you’re becoming a complete fucking asshole, until it’s too late and you should do something about it. But it’s an honest song, it’s not autobiographical by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just dealing with a difficult subject in a very open and honest way.
It’s easy to believe that it would be autobiographical considering the band’s recent rise to success in a short amount of time.
Yeah, we get asked that an awful lot really. It’s something that’s around in the music industry and we are all aware of it. “Note to customs around the world, this is not an autobiographical song.” It’s illegal and it’s frowned up and we don’t want to walk through airports around the world and get stripped to the waist and get butt searched.
The Darkness have proven that pop-metal has roots deeper than the hair metal era. Why do you think bands from the 70’s like Queen and Thin Lizzy don’t get the credit they deserve, but are now getting some recognition alongside The Darkness.
Well, I don’t know, Queen is a weird one, in America they were successful, but they were nowhere near as big as they were in the U.K, where they got the recognition they deserved. I really don’t think we did anything to help that in anyway and there has always been a nod to that type of thing.
It makes you think how going back to simple rock is such a classic but important thing.
Exactly, and that is a testament to the production techniques that Roy Thomas Baker made on the record. It was made as a record should be. Everything was committed to tape, manually, instead of sticking everything in a computer and making a record really. To be honest, that is the biggest difference. We made a record in a way that records should be made, rather than relying on modern technology to create something, that is the biggest difference really.
And you went back to Rockfield Studios where Queen did their records.
Yeah, that was a choice of Roy’s really, because obviously he is familiar with that scene there anyway and there is a room in that studio that will just give you the best drum sound that you can basically want. If you really know what you are doing it just sounds amazing. And it was only used with the backing tracks. We went off to a studio in London to do the guitar overdubs and vocals and that was mixed in L.A..
There was a song that was played on Freddie Mercury’s piano, right?
There was indeed. It wasn’t actually his piano, it was a piano in Rockfield studio that he used on A Night at the Opera and Sheer Heart Attack. It was an actual fact that he didn’t like that piano, it has a very heavy action and for percussive stuff that Justin [Hawkins] would do like in “Country Garden,” it was perfect and very heavy. But Freddie was a very light pianist and didn’t like that piano, but it sounds just awesome. But that was another Rockfield reason, was to get that sound from that piano was just incredible. When Justin was sitting behind it there were no angels singing and Freddie Mercury appearing in a white robe and spring cleaning magic dust on Justin while he was playing it. It’s just a great piano that has a great sound.
Who else did you consider for producers for the album?
Well there was various people suggested. They did a Christmas single a couple years ago and Bob Ezrin produced that, and he was a contender. To be honest, Roy wasn’t employed solely on the strength of his back catalog. The most important thing really was that people get along with people, and upon meeting Roy, it was quite clear that he was the right man for the job because people loved him and he brought laughter to the table. It wasn’t like we were out searching for Queen’s old producer. Luckily it just so happens he is the best in the business.
It seems like he’s been off the radar as of late. I haven’t heard his name float around too much.
Yeah, he’s been stuck in the studio with Axl Rose trying to get The Chinese Democracy off the ground.
Was there any idea that he suggested that you didn’t try in the studio?
No, one of the beauties of Roy really is that he will try anything and any suggestion was tried and if it didn’t work, it didn’t work. And if it did work – great. Even in the mixing process, there was so much stuff in there that didn’t make the final cut, it just didn’t work. There was an awful lot of extra orchestral parts that didn’t end up on it. It was basically, we tried to put as much as we could on it, but absolutely everything that was suggested was tried.
What was the craziest or most outlandish suggestion?
I personally thing the craziest thing was taking a song like “Girlfriend,” which is essentially crying out for a huge shredding guitar solo and turning around and putting a Moog solo in there. On paper, it shouldn’t work, but when you listen to it, I couldn’t imagine anything else on there. And on “One Way Ticket,” again, there is a sitar solo on there where I think most people would have gone with the safer option and stuck an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo in there. Let’s put it this way, the rule book wasn’t so much thrown out the window, it was torn apart.
Did he tell any classic Queen stories?
The best part apart about Roy is that although he can write the book to end all books, his lips are sealed as far as that is concerned. Which is really assuring, because if he was relating stories to us left, right and center than there is a very good chance that the next band that he is working with, he’ll be relating stories about us.
Aside from the obvious ELO, Thin Lizzy and Queen references, are there any other bands that people would be surprised to hear that the Darkness are fans of?
We are all big fans of Metallica actually. We’re just fans of music generally right across the board. It seems most people [have] the misconception that we try to do what we try to do. We don’t pull out classic record collections and say “we must do songs like this.” A big influence is Lindsay Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac, that would surprise people and Kate Bush as well.
How do you see the band’s stage show evolving?
Depending on how well the album does in America, hopefully, it sells very well and we will be able to do arena-size venues so we can bring the full arena production to the U.S. It was worth doing and worth over-doing really. Essentially, expect a big fucking rock show.
With lots of fire and explosions?
Yeah, plenty of pyros, absolutely.
