Retro band the Darkness wants to be nobody's fool

Singer Justin Hawkins says he doesn't want the band compared to '90s bands.
By JIM ABBOTT
ORLANDO SENTINEL
With his feathered cat-suits, over-the-top falsetto and the defiantly retro arena-rock of his band the Darkness, singer Justin Hawkins invites parody.
Just be careful with the comparisons: AC/DC and Queen are fine enough, but Spinal Tap raises the singer's hackles -- even if the band's amplifiers sound like they go to 11.
"That comes only from journalists who don't know anything about rock, someone who has only watched 'Spinal Tap' and 'Bill & amp; Ted's Excellent Adventure' and starts writing for an indie paper," Hawkins says by phone from London. "Anybody who says we can't write songs is, frankly, lying."
More than image, the secret to the Darkness is the unexpected quality of its "Permission to Land" debut. Two weeks ago, the band followed the validation of selling 2.6 million copies worldwide by taking Britain's Ivor Award for the year's best songwriting.
"I can't get that miserable about things when there are people in certain corridors that appreciate what we do," Hawkins says, using a very nasty word to dismiss those who don't respect the band's talent.
"They still need a piece of us to sell their magazines," he sniffs, then stops to reconsider. "Does that sound arrogant? Ah well, there's nothing worse than false modesty."
It certainly doesn't become a rock star whose band has sparked followers ranging from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to comedian Jack Black. The latter, who embraces rock's broad comedic possibilities in cult favorite Tenacious D, has described the Darkness as a welcome throwback.
"A delicious fresh breeze in an otherwise stale rock landscape," Black told Entertainment Weekly.
Struggle gives hope
Not everyone has been so supportive. The band never even considered Hawkins as lead vocalist until his rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" at a Millennium Eve karaoke contest opened the eyes of his guitarist brother Dan Hawkins. Early British club shows inspired record company scouts to head for the exits.
Another band might have been devastated, but Hawkins was energized.
"It was encouraging because it's always the bands that struggle that have enduring longevity," he says. "Cream, Aerosmith, bands like that."
While he doesn't dismiss every band that follows a trend, Hawkins didn't want the baggage that came with being part of a hot new sound. He envisioned the Darkness as something different, even if it sounded like band members had raided their parents' 1970s and '80s vinyl collection.
"I'd rather be compared to 1970s and '80s bands than any 1990s bands because there's no one in the 1990s that we'd aspire to be like," Hawkins says. That ego resurfaces in his assessment of the band's impact in its native Great Britain.
"I think it's akin to Nirvana. When Nirvana came along, everything that came along next sounded like a watered-down version. Every now and then, there's a band that ... shows that music doesn't have to be formulaic."
Or at least can revive a different formula. Besides, if the soaring vocals and monster guitars on the MTV-driven "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" or "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" are derivative, they also happen to be genuinely memorable.
And, for all his bluster, Hawkins is surprisingly magnanimous about the angst-ridden emo bands and earnest, shoe-gazing indie-rockers that contrast so starkly with the overt showmanship of the Darkness. He loves Radiohead.
"Jeff Buckley was good, wasn't he? There's good and bad in just about any kind of music, but I'd say with the words 'earnest' and 'entertainment,' it's hard to get both in the same sentence really.
"Still, I would never say that I hate any band," he says. "There's people I hate, but there is room for everybody."