This Isn't
Spinal Tap Justin
Hawkins takes a drag on his cigarette and lightly scratches the part of his chest
left bare by a pinkish top split low in the middle. An orange flame tattoo rides
dangerously up from his pelvic area. His hair is classic rock glam — long,
scraggly, slightly oily, shouting for shampoo and a pair of unforgiving scissors. Go ahead, have a laugh, Mr. Hawkins dares his audience — at him, at the wailing (but masterfully played) guitars and at the theatrics of it all. After struggling for three years, the band is selling millions of records and is in the middle of an American tour, at mostly mid-size concert halls, that quickly sold out and had its tickets pop up on eBay. (The tour ends on April 18 in Los Angeles.) "I think we lost a lot of the glamour when it all came down to the boy next door moaning about this, that and the other," Mr. Hawkins said during an interview at Warner Music in London. "When it's all about catharsis and getting things off your chest, people don't want to be in bands anymore. It's not that attractive. It's just sort of standing around and whining all the time. "If you're going to do that, you might as well sit in your bedroom." Early on, the Darkness faced considerable criticism in Britain from a plethora of agents, producers, reviewers, all of whom called the band too declasse, too flashy, too metal, too derivative. One critic likened the band to the one in "Spinal Tap," the 1984 heavy metal mockumentary that featured a British group pathetically and hilariously past its prime. Another basically wished death upon Mr. Hawkins. But the Darkness, pitching itself as a purveyor of anti-introspection, sneered at its critics and dug in, refusing to tone down its stage act, to pop-ify its metal sound and to swap its name for something catchier and less clichéd. The band — Mr. Hawkins, 29; his brother, Dan, 27, on guitar; Frankie Poullain, 32, on bass; and Ed Graham, 27, on drums — persevered, mainly by putting on live shows, and as of this week it had sold 2.6 million copies of its debut album, "Permission to Land," worldwide, more than half of them in Britain. It also picked up three prestigious Brit Awards this year, including one for best album. MTV plays the hit single, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," repeatedly, and made it the most-played single the first week of February. In January, the band appeared on "Late Show With David Letterman." Meanwhile, "Permission to Land" has climbed the Billboard album chart, reaching No. 42 last week, defying predictions that a hard-rock band from Britain couldn't make a dent in American pop music. Viewed as so last century, the kind of rock that today's parents listened to as teenagers in hazy stadiums, the Darkness and its music hark back to the glory days of overbites and air guitar: Queen, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Aerosmith, and a bit more recently, Def Leppard and Guns 'n' Roses. The guitars are the band's driving force, delivering the kind of charged-up riffs that have made critics and rock 'n' roll fans take notice. And while Mr. Hawkins's falsetto is easily mocked, he has a strong voice with great range. His eagle-jumps, sweaty hair, brashness and rapid outfit changes add to the sense of levity on stage. The band's wacky B-movie-like videos have also attracted a following, with the sort of low-budget images that popped up on MTV in the early years. One video features a pterodactyl having sex with a space ship. Another shows Mr. Hawkins in a bathtub, adoring himself and the camera. The Darkness's songs offer simple, rock 'n' roll lyrics, laced with expletives, about love and life gone wrong, including genital warts ("you're part of me now and I only have myself to blame"), masturbation ("I'm holding my own no matter what I put myself through") and heroin ("gimme, gimme, gimme that smack"). For
a first album, done on a shoestring budget and recorded in two weeks, the music
is surprisingly tight and amusing. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love"
is melodic and catchy, atypical of most hard rock. Few people were willing to take a chance on retro-rock of this sort. Mike Peer, music director for K-Rock (WXRK 92.3-FM in New York City), said when his station began playing the band's music last August, it was the first in America to do so. He said that he had initially dismissed the Darkness. The first time he heard the album, he thought it was "bad." The second time, he thought it was bad, but "a lot of fun." Then he saw the video and "literally laughed out loud." He said many listeners also came around, saying in particular that they liked the band's blend of metal with levity. The music has been especially fresh to listeners under 21, he said. "When we put them on the radio, people looked at us crosseyed and said: `What are you doing? This is the cheesiest thing we've ever heard,' " Mr. Peer said. "The reason we were so gung-ho about the band is because it was something different and it would make people talk, whether they loved it or hated it. And at first they hated it." Jay Harren, the music director for 99X (WNNX 99.7-FM) in Atlanta, which is sponsoring a Darkness concert there on Thursday, said the 650 seats sold out in five minutes. The station moved it to a 2,500-seat theater. That sold out in nine minutes. "The music is kitschy and campy," Mr. Harren said. "But if you strip away what they do live and take away the catsuits, in the end, they write really good, catchy pop songs." Craig Kallman, president of Atlantic Records, which signed the band, said people were pining for 1970's-style, over-the-top rock stars, because many performers in the last decade have toned down considerably on stage, presenting themselves as earnest ensembles rather than traveling road shows. Mr. Hawkins appears to fit the bill. "He is something people can latch on to," Mr. Kallman said. "There aren't that many rock stars left." Justin and Dan Hawkins grew up thumping out metal songs in their blue-collar home in Lowestoft, a depressed fishing town on England's east coast. Their parents eventually bought an old hulk of a pub, long out of use, and turned it into a soundproof space for their sons. Mr. Poullain, who is Scottish, came to music later in life, "which is probably why I'm playing the bass," he said. The brothers formed a band called Empire in the 1990's, which got nowhere. The group scattered, finding work as session musicians and, in Justin Hawkins's case, writing jingles for commercials. On Millenium Eve, 1999, the brothers were drinking at the Hawkins's aunt's pub and talking about giving it another go. Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" crackled through the speakers, and Mr. Hawkins, who typically played synthesizer, got up and danced and pranced around the pub. The band knew it had found its singer, and Mr. Hawkins was ready to commit. "I anticipated that if I was going to be a singer," Mr. Hawkins said, "I was going to be a very, very successful singer. That is how I approach everything. I won't do anything unless I think I am the very best at it. I don't think I was ready to take on that responsibility before." What changed his mind? "Auditioning about 200 singers and thinking that guy is not as good as me — every time." For three years, the group played in musty pubs and clubs, where the ale was the draw. Every major record label took a pass. But one independent company, Must Destroy Records, took a chance and released "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (2,000 copies) more than a year ago. Then Korda Marshall of East West Records in London — tipped off by his teenage daughter, who blasted the music from the family car — got interested. An American sister label, Atlantic Records, released the album in July; it has sold 420,000 copies in this country. "I
call it post-ironic irony," Mr. Marshall said. "They were so uncool,
they became cool." From:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/arts/music |
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