The Darkness: In Your Face with Style

In troubled times, why not escape a bit through music? That's the philosophy of the Brit-based glam rock band "The Darkness". They are flashy throwbacks to the heavy metal era. The band's debut album "Permission to Land" was a mega-hit. Their shows are high energy, pyro blinking, jumping-all-over-the-stage, extravaganzas that some call over the top, others call just a really good time!

These guys were always bigger than life, putting on big stage show theatrics even in small London pubs where they got their start. The guys once had huge credit card debt and were on the unemployment rolls but they didn't give up. They kept playing and sticking to their wild style. At first, no record company would touch them, then, finally, everything turned to gold when they started filling auditoriums and the music business moguls had to take notice and wise up.

Darkness dudes Justin Hawkins (vocals, guitar and synth), his brother Dan Hawkins (guitar), Frankie Poullain (bass) and Ed Graham (drums), don't wear uniforms or even dress vaguely alike. Wild frontman Justin wears super tight catsuits while hottie drummer Ed is the cute, dark-haired, leather-jacket-wearing type. The guys are on an American tour and we caught up with Ed while they were on their tour bus travelling, apparently through tunnels since his borrowed cell phone kept shorting out. The guys were then on the way to Philadelphia and Ed was determined to keep talking until we got an unbroken conversation going. Here is the result. Picture his luvly London pub boy accent.

TeenMusic: How are you like heavy metal bands and how do you feel that you're different? Is it the music without the old lifestyle?

Ed: We don't talk about the lifestyle. It's more about the music. Even thought we all have some fun, we still take the music seriously.

TeenMusic: Were your first fans older heavy metal fans or kids?

Ed: When we first started out in the U.K., it was a lot of musicians in their 20's, and then later on the older and the younger ones came.

TeenMusic: Are you worried at all that people are going to pay too much attention to the show and not give the songs and the songwriting a fair shake?

Ed: Some people do that but then, on further inspection, they usually change their minds. They can be like that if they've just seen one video or they just see a picture of us in a magazine and they make an opinion but after listening to the whole record, they usually change their mind.

TeenMusic: You were a school friend of Dan's. How did you guys get together?

Ed: Well we went to school together when we were 14 years old and then we were in a band together but then did other things for years and then finally came back together again in London when we were older.

TeenMusic: You joined another band though before coming back together, right?

Ed: We were all in bands. We lived in a really small town and I left for London later than all the rest. I was doing other things for years and then we finally came together after we'd each done our own thing for years.

TeenMusic: How do you guys settle band arguments?

Ed: We just argue it out until someone wins it. We change our minds quite a lot. If it's some issue that someone will be totally definite about, and someone is able to convince him, then people change their minds. We usually argue it out and think about all the possibilities. We finally come to a consensus of what is the right thing to do.

TeenMusic: What do you do to kick back while on tour.

Ed: We don't have much time off usually. Today is a travelling day on the bus so we'll watch some DVDs and eat a lot of crisps or chips as you call them.

TeenMusic: Who is the jokester in the group and who is the peacemaker or disciplinarian?

Ed: Justin's always been the joker and is funny. Dan would be the disciplinarian. He goes on about things. Telling us to shape up.

TeenMusic: Are you guys worried about the pyro in your shows since that tragic Great White club fire last year?

Ed: When something like that happens, it effects everyone. People across the world are more careful about that kind of thing but we've got good pyro men.

TeenMusic: What kind of music did you play when you were young?

Ed: When I was about sixteen, I loved The Cult. We used to play covers of "She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult. And I'd listen to Jimi Hendrix records; all kinds of music really. I used to be into a lot of different guitar music. We did used to jam together as kids.

TeenMusic: The video for "Love is Only a Feeling" is beautiful. Where was that shot?

Ed: That's the Blue Mountains in Australia and in January of this year we were in Australia doing the a big festival that travels from city to city. Funnily enough we had to make the video there because we had to make a video before the end of January and we were in Australia. It was kind of by chance. It was hard to get out to the locations. The cliff, you can drive up to it and the cave is a big tourist attraction.

TeenMusic: How do you decide which songs are going to be on your album. Do you just vote? Does the record company have a say?

Ed: When we recorded our album, we didn't have a record company so no one told us what to do in any way. We went into the studio and recorded more songs than we needed and we just picked the ones that came out best. We wrote down a list of everything we'd ever written in the past three years of the band and picked the ones to actually record and then out of those, pick the ones that turned out best to be on the record. It was entirely our decision.

TeenMusic: Does everybody do some songwriting?

Ed: Yeah. Justin works on the words and Dan writes a lot of the music so they do most of it but Frank contributes a lot and I do a little bit as well so we all have our share in it but they do most of it.

TeenMusic: What is their process? Music or lyrics first?

Ed: Often, Dan will come up with a piece of music and then Justin will think up some words for it. Or Justin will have a concept of something he wants to sing about and then they'll try it on different bits of music.

TeenMusic: What was your darkest period before hitting it big? Did you almost give up?

Ed: There was a period when it got quite bleak. We weren't getting paid and we were doing the band full time. There wasn't any time to work really so we were really poor. It's hard when you make a tiny bit of money and you have to spend it on rehearsing. But, luckily it started to work out.

TeenMusic: What was the big break?

Ed: There's not really one break. No one would give us a record deal in the U.K. We did some independent records. A couple of D.J.'s got behind us and we were played on the radio. In the U.K. it's different than the states because here there are so many different radio stations in every different town and state. In the U.K. Radio One covers the whole of Britain so if you're played on Radio One that's a really good thing. We started getting play on the radio a bit and got some reviews and there was some interest in us but we still didn't have a record deal. We had to keep the thing moving ourselves borrowing money to pay for recording and things like that.

TeenMusic: Are you okay with the internet download situation?

Ed: I don't think it's effected us very badly (Ed's borrowed phone starts playing a tune) How do you turn off this thing? Anyway, I'm not sure. A lot of teens use the internet all the time and if it's a band they really like, I think they'll still buy the CD. If it's a band they don't like quite as much, they download it. If it's an album they really like then they want the CD and the booklet (liner notes).

TeenMusic: Weird fan encounters?

Ed: Oh yes. A couple of days ago in Detroit, we'd been signing the fans' records in stores and a guy brought along his grandmother's stuffed dog for us to sign.

TeenMusic: You mean like a stuffed toy dog?

Ed: No. A little tiny dog, one of those small dogs. It was his grandmother's and it died. A real dog for us to sign. I hated this dog. When it died she had it stuffed. He wanted us all to sign it so we did.

TeenMusic: (after a big "ewwwwww") What qualities do you look for in a girl to date?

Ed: Nice, likes partying, being fun, interesting, probably with dark hair for me. (at this point, Ed's phone shorts out and The Darkness drives off into.....the darkness.)

Check out The Darkness online at www.TheDarknessRocks.com

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.