Hawkins, Justin

DM) I've been doing my research to understand The Darkness and in all my research, I've come up with the one conclusion that nobody seems to really understand The Darkness. Some people are comparing you to Led Zeppelin; other people are comparing you to Spinal Tap.

JH) I'll tell you what the difference is, particularly, say with Spinal Tap. The only understanding that they have of rock is Spinal Tap and Wayne's World and films like that. I'm talking about retarded, inadequate journalists, who really shouldn't be writing about rock, because they have no understanding of its history. The people who consider us an important are the likes of Brain May from Queen, the guys out of Aerosmith, the guys out of Def Leppard, the guys out of Thin Lizzy. People who know about rock and know what it is. I think that people who only have Spinal Tap and Wayne's World as their points of reference, shouldn't be writing about it.

DM) Does that upset you when you get those other comparisons?

JH) No, because it usually comes from people who work for the NME, which is a sh*$ rag that I wouldn't wipe my a&$ with. We're a rock band and to be considered anything else is insulting. If I was a plumber and somebody said my work is a joke, I would tear their fu*&ing head off. It's my career that they're screwing with. There's a band, called Stained; now, I like them. I like all one-dimensional bands, but I think there's room for what we do, which is big, arena, versatile rock, and there's room for that, but, when they go into a radio station and try to have us taken off the play list, I think, "Screw you, I'm going to %^&* the piss out of you from now on." To level that sort of criticism at someone, you can't expect them to be anything other than insulted. Novelty bands don't sell as many records as we do, they don't win the sort of awards that we do.

DM) Is it possible to do rock and be taken seriously?

JH) Why don't you ask Angus Young who dresses as a school boy, has done for the past 30 years, and is in the fourth biggest selling rock band in America. Why don't you ever ask Freddie Mercury. He's a man who injected humor into his work and he's one of the most infinitely successful and most loved rock star who was ever born.

DM) It doesn't seem that there has been anyone like me in 10 or 20 years.

JH) I think because people are afraid to be like me because they're too concerned with being cool. I think cool is a really damaging word when it comes to being creative. If everyone was going to be cool then nothing would develop, and I think rock hasn't developed in a constructive way since grunge. I suppose it is in being a fusion with other sorts of music like rap or hip-hop or whatever, but I don't think it's constructive to look around you and do just that for fear of being ridiculed or ignored. If there hasn't been any valuable or thought-provoking artists for some time now and that's a shame.

DM) Were you always the type who walked to the beat of a different drummer?

JH) Yes, very contrarian. That's right down to everything. I like to shoot myself in the foot because it makes the victories sweeter.

DM) Did it make it a harder road then?

JH) Yeah, when we started the band, nobody wanted to know about us, except for those who saw us live and thought it was completely different from anything else. We played around the country with no tour support and a government who thinks that being a musician is not a proper job and encourages us to do something else. They seem to forget that music is Britain's second biggest export, after steel. The odds were really stacked against us from the beginning. I've done music for television and film, in the past. I paid for the album and because of the live following that developed, we started to sell records. Our last independent release went to Number 11 and it went into a bidding war. It all worked out for the best. I don't think we would have been so successful if we had done what everybody else is doing. I do believe we would have done it better, but we wouldn't have been as good looking and we wouldn't have been as happy.