Tales from the crypt

No offence to The Darkness, but the first time I heard their ‘Growing On Me’ single I was convinced it was something that’d been done for Comic Relief. Bill & Ted guitars, Animal from The Muppets drums and vocals redolent of Freddie Mercury at his most histrionic. It had to be a parody, right?

It hasn’t happened since March 1980 – I was convinced that it was Sue Ellen who plugged J.R. – but I’m here today to tell you that I was wr, wrrr, wrong! Upon mature reflection, I now realise that the UK hard rockers are on a four-man mission to save us from humourless sods like Radiohead, and return us to a glorious bygone age when amps were stuck on ‘11’, loon pants could be worn without fear of public ridicule and there wasn’t an STD in existence that couldn’t be sandblasted off.

"Absolutely," agrees Darkness axe hero and falsetto owner Justin Hawkins. "The genius of David Lee Roth-era Van Halen must be recognised!"

Before the cry of "boring old fart!" springs from your lips, it’s worth pointing out that Justin was still hairless below the neck when Diamond Dave and the boys were racking up their platinum-sellers.

"Yeah, we’re all in our mid to early 20s which means a lot of the stuff we listen to came out before we were born," he resumes. "Aerosmith, who are big favourites of mine, released their first album in 1973 when I was like minus-five, but fortunately my dad had a really good record collection that my brother and me used to raid on a regular basis."

Egged on by Mr. Hawkins, Justin and his even more guitar obsessed bro Dan – "I’m white hot, but he’s shit hot!" – put their first band together in the late ‘80s.

"Nirvana were the big thing then but I always thought grunge was rather, well, sloppy. They had a few good songs and a lot of emotion, but it didn’t move me in the same way as early Van Halen. Who, I hasten to add, became complete shit when Sammy Hagar joined."

There not being an abundance of ’70s fixated cock rock bands around at the moment, who would The Darkness regard as their musical allies?

"We’re leaders in a field of one," Hawkins reflects, "although you have to admire the likes of The Wildhearts who just don’t give a fuck and Ten Benson who’ve got that ZZ Top thing going on."

I mentioned them earlier as being the anti-Radiohead, but The Darkness are known to belt out a mean cover of ‘Street Spirit’ live.

"Yeah, we’ve made it sound like (Iron Maiden’s) ‘Run To The Hills’. There’s a bit more triumphalism and air punching going on than in the original. Why, when he’s such a good songwriter, does Thom Yorke have to be so miserable? Change the arrangements a bit and I can see Radiohead going down a storm at Ozzfest!"

They’re rock gods now, but how did The Darkness earn a loaf before their deification?

"Ed, our drummer, used to make fences. Some people say that now he builds sheds. Boom boom! Frank, our bassist, has always been a perpetual loser. Dan’s had a million jobs and paid a lot more tax than all of us. And I was a puppeteer for a charity that entertained refugee camp kids in the Balklans. Quite rewarding it was, in a hippy-ish sort of way."

While Justin was pulling strings in Eastern Europe, his perpetual loser bandmate was sampling all that Venezuela had to offer.

"I was there when General Chavez was trying to piss off the Americans, which he obviously succeeded in doing because they helped mount an attempted coup against him," says Frankie Poullain in the thickest Glaswegian accent this side of Bobby Gillespie. "He’s a very charismatic guy who desperately wants to be Castro but looks more like Mussolini – you know, short and stubby. He was popular at first, but then people realised that him and his cronies were siphoning off all the country’s oil money."

If previous interviews are to be believed, Poullain’s father is a modern day Caribbean pirate and his brother a mercenary.

"I’ve only seen my dad two or three times since I was seven but, yeah, he’s a pretty maverick kind of guy who lives in the West Indies and gets up to various colourful things," he expands. "I can’t say too much about my brother except that he’s a free spirit too."

And they say romance in rock ‘n’ roll is dead! This hack was first alerted to The Darkness’ genius by Joe Elliott who got it spot on when he described them as "AC/DC meets Queen fronted by the Sparks singer."

"One of the best gigs we’ve done so far is supporting Def Leppard in Brixton," Frank enthuses. "Dan, who has a Thin Lizzy t-shirt skin grafted on to him, was mortified when he came off stage and didn’t recognise the guy who said, ‘Brilliant, loved it!’ as being Scott Goram. He only found out the next day when Scott rang and offered to come on stage and do a song with us. We haven’t had a chance to take him up on it yet but we will!"

Right now, though, The Darkness have high profile Robbie Williams, Rolling Stones and Metallica supports to worry about.

"This sounds very ungracious but we always knew we’d get to play gigs like that," Poullain concludes. "We’re too good not to be huge."