DAN HAWKINS of THE DARKNESS: One Ripped Jesus & Roast Potatoes.
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Seventeen years have passed since the release of their debut album Permission to Land that saw The Darkness spring forth as the personification of rock n roll itself. Loud and unapologetic they were like a shot of adrenaline straight to the jugular.
Now with their sixth album Easter is Cancelled, The Darkness are challenging all that rock n roll is held up to be. Wishing to break away from the conformity that so many fellow bands are subscribing to, their album cover is a metaphor for smashing the mould, killing off what is current and through death letting it be reborn into something else quite altogether.
With the album containing everything from distinctively strong hooks, cracking riffs, fast-paced chugs and even vocal stylings that give a nod to the likes of Marilyn Manson, Easter is cancelled is an album fans will be embracing like the second-coming!
Soon to appear in Auckland at the beloved Powerstation as part of their Easter is Cancelled tour, I caught up with Dan Hawkins to have a chat about… well everything really; Hawkins a man who often has more than one train of thought careening through his neural tracks…
Latest album Easter is Cancelled, does raise the question; will the Easter Bunny now be joining the unemployment line?
[laughs] “You know, I wonder where the Easter Bunny actually came from? Has anyone actually looked into that? All he does is just hide stuff. I mean, you know. Maybe he deserves to lose his job”
Awww. Might be a bit hard on him!
“Oh, that’s a bit mean isn’t it.. [laughs] We like bunnies really don’t we?
The concept is about the life, death and rebirth of rock n roll, and the cover is my brother as a buff Jesus on the cross. And basically, he is totally ripped, and he’s breaking away from the cross, he’s just like ‘Nah, I’m not having this, this crucifixion is not going to happen’ and we sort of played with the idea of what would have happened if Jesus had actually physically lived and was still literally, walking amongst us.
Would the rise of populism and the far-right be happening, would we have the leaders that we have et cetera, et cetera. Anyways, it’s all very high-brow…
As a concept album it has allowed us to really disappear up our own behinds musically, so it’s been brilliant.”
I have seen the cover art and it is quite provocative in many ways.
“Well, it is, and it isn’t. I mean it’s definitely got a bit of Monty Python about it, which I’m quite proud of…”
Love Monty Python…
“Yeah, so I think you know, it’s not taking itself entirely seriously which means you can kind of get away with more can’t you really?”
Well I like on your website too that it says that ‘A bunny is for life, not just for Easter’.
[laughs] “There you go! It’s very, very true”
Is it animal advocacy?
“Are we talking about toys or real rabbits though, that’s the thing isn’t it?”
[mutual laughter]
This will be your sixth studio album; so have you topped ‘Pinewood Smile’ because The Darkness as a whole were pretty proud of that record and even you yourself said it was ‘your best yet’!
[laughs] “We’re paid by the label to say that every album that we make is the best yet. We’re literally paid; every time we say that they directly wire five pounds into our bank account…”
Excellent!
“I mean there are some interviews where that’s literally all they’ll say. And then go out for a nice meal at the end. [chuckles] So in answer to your question, it’s the best yet, the best yet, the best yet, the best yet [laughs] Look at that, I just made twenty quid!”
I was just gonna say, is that enough to take you, the wife and the kids out?
[mutual laughter]
“To McDonalds yeah. Aww, I wouldn’t take my kids there…”
“So yeah, this album, I engineered and produced it and I didn’t on the last one. I actually really enjoyed just playing guitar on the last one but this one… When an album is finished, and you have invested the amount of time in it that I have, then if it comes out being even barely listenable, it’s a really big deal.
And I actually think, it’s not just listenable, for me personally; it’s an amazing sounding record, so I’m very, very proud of this one.”
Yes, because you’re a person that likes spending time in the studio, aren’t you? Because you did a lot of work for children’s shows composing music as well.
“Yeah, the BBC do a lot of great stuff, they have their own children’s channel [CBeebies] which is just a different program every twenty minutes, it’s a huge thing. I’ve just finished the second series actually.
The first one was called ‘Catie’s Amazing Machine’ and there was some contractual stuff that didn’t work out so, Catie went and the new one is Grace. So, I am going to have to change the theme tune [chuckles] from Catie to Grace. But it’s all really good stuff!
The whole concept of it is – it’s like Top Gear for kids! They have some really amazing machines on it. It’s one of those things that as a parent of three, if I was sitting down with my kids, because they wanted to watch some tv or whatever, I would be desperately wanting to watch that.”
You certainly keep yourself busy, because if you are not on tour you’re running around recording things in the studio.
“I’ve always been obsessed with the studio really, when I left school actually that is what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a sound engineer, and then things kinda of got a bit skewed really. [laughs]
So yeah, it’s always been there, it’s always run in tandem with being a musician for me. Here’s the way to describe it really; when I enter a studio, I think of it like a blank canvas, same feeling I think an artist has when they approach a blank canvas. I always find it really exciting, because you don’t really know what it’s going to look like at the end. It’s a journey.”
Another statement around the album was talking about ‘the power drunk clowns who cast a shadow of despair’ – I wanted to ask if this was specifically in relation to your own government, the orange goblin that runs America or just all the power drunk people in general across the world?
[laughs] “The orange goblin! There is a band called Orange Goblin and they’re actually really good!”
Yes! And one of them got denied trying to get into America!
“… You’re joking?”
No, no it was all over the news, it actually screwed up their tour, because the States stuffed around with his Visa, to the point it just became too late, so he can’t actually travel. So the band was forced to use a substitute – respectfully they are still going to split the earnings with him, but ridiculous considering they have toured the States before!
[Drummer Chris Turner was denied entry despite having been issued six previous working visas, as well as a US social security number]
“Is that because they are called Orange Goblin though?”
[laughter] To be perfectly fair it probably is because Trump is a fragile egomaniac who thinks everything is a personal affront to him.
“Gosh. You know, it’s one of those things, my brother could go on til the cows come home about that side of things, and he helped write the bio for that section. For me I think it’s nice to play with the politics of the concept which is what if?
Reminding people that things could be different, they could be handled a different way…”
Now this album is quite a big record track wise as well, there is fourteen tracks I believe.
“Uh… yes!”
[laughs] Yes, we’ll go with that!
“We’ll go with that, I think that’s how many is on there! Like basically we make an album to vinyl them, which is ideally around the thirty-nine-minute mark, which sounds good on vinyl. If you put too many tracks on, obviously the grooves have to be smaller and you lose depth etc, so that’s why there aren’t that many tracks on a vinyl record.
We also work towards the first ten being the album, nine or ten and then you get bonus tracks on the CD so that the label can make more money out of people I suppose. But we decided – quite early on – that we weren’t going to do that thing where the songs that didn’t make the album end up being the bonus tracks, because everyone assumes that the bonus tracks are part of the album anyway.
Historically we have always put the stuff that didn’t make the album as the bonus tracks. So this time we didn’t do that, the vetting process for the bonus tracks was just as harsh as the vetting process for the songs on the album. And we really wanted to make a concerted effort to have the bonus tracks sounding really different to the album so that it didn’t feel like they were the ones that didn’t make it you know?
So yeah, we spent a lot of time on those bonus tracks.”
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[chuckles] Obviously with the release of the album The Darkness will be touring, and you are coming back down to Australasia, almost three years to the date from when you were last here. Looking forward to coming back to New Zealand?
“I can’t wait yeah. I just hope we get to spend a bit longer there this time; it’s like – not that it’s a terrible life – but the curse of the musician is that you tend to be in places for twenty-four hours and then you are off again. So you never really get a chance to see what’s going on.
[chuckles] People think ‘You must see so much, you’ve toured the world!’ and it’s like ‘Well I haven’t!’ I’ve been in the back of a bus and an aeroplane and then whatever pub is open after the gig’s finished. And then you’re off sort of thing.
So, I really hope that I get to spend a bit more time there.”
We had Cradle of Filth here last year for their first ever New Zealand show, and they managed to spend about five days running around the country. So there are now copious photos of Dani Filth in Hobbiton – which is hilarious as he has always referred to himself as one anyways, and he fit all the Hobbit houses perfectly!
So you really do need to have a word with your tour manager, as they were deliriously happy after having a few days off here [chuckles]
[laughs] “Wow, I bet they were! Although I’m not sure if they have a giant town there? Because we are all about six foot four!”
[laughs]
“One of our claims to fame is that we are one of the tallest bands in rock [laughs] not necessarily the best; but definitely the tallest.
It’s quite good – some people think it’s unfortunate being this tall – but when it comes to saving money, by not needing stages, it’s brilliant you know?”
[raucous laughter]
“We can just turn up to a village fete, and we’ll just say ‘No, no there is no need for a stage. Just move the display of vegetables to one side and we’ll crack on luv’.”
[laughs] Fantastic! Also, when you are over here you will have to try some of our IPA’s as I know you have quite the liking for beer…
[raucous laughter] “I mean that’s poppycock but I’m liking it, where have you heard that I’ve got quite a liking for beer? I’m curious, it’s really funny!”
Oh I know a few things – I also know you have a liking for roast potatoes too, and that one time that went very wrong… [chuckles]
[laughs] “I like roast potatoes?”
A couple of years ago apparently you tried to cook roast potatoes, and it took about three hours and it went horribly wrong…
“Oh. [laughs] Sounds like another really insightful interview from me. Just going back to the potato thing – I’ve got a new method!
Basically, I’m just sticking them into the oven, but I’m now using one of these things called Bake-O-Glide; it basically stops whatever you’re roasting from catching on the tray at the bottom. And the added bonus is, it cooks more easily, doesn’t burn and there is less washing up at the end of the day. So yeah, that’s today’s cooking tip.”
[laughs] We’ll add it to the list…
“Also if you ever get the chance to invest in an AGA or a Rayburn, one of those kind of like stove cookers, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Because what happens is, I put stuff in the oven and I’m from the Keith Lloyd school of cooking which is basically I cook because it is an excuse to drink wine.
So quite often [chuckles] I will just get hammered and forget what I have put in the oven. But these AGA’s they contain, all of the moisture from the food within the oven, it doesn’t get fanned out! Fan ovens just take moisture out, so you’re much more likely to burn stuff. So I haven’t burnt a potato since I had this AGA installed, so there you go!” [laughs]
That’s excellent news [laughs] I’m very pleased to hear that!
“I’m sure that the Cradle of Filth fans will be sleeping well tonight, safe in that knowledge.”
[mutual laughter]
Now these upcoming shows, the press release has promised that they are going to be quite spectacular, can you possibly hint at why they are deemed to be so?
Besides the fact that you guys are enormously tall and will tower over us all…
“Yes, well, we’ve all had height reductions. Now I wouldn’t say we are dwarf size – although I wouldn’t mind that, because you know it’s nice to see the world from a different angle – but we’ve basically come down about two inches, some of us two and a half.
So it means for the first time the audience are going to see the back-drop and the drummer!”
[laughs] For a change…
“Yeah! And maybe some of the lights. Normally the audience are just in shadow, now we’ll be able to see each other…”
Alright! That would indeed be spectacular! So any message for your New Zealand fans who are all looking forward to seeing The Darkness return?
“Oof. I was trying to think of more cooking-based stuff but… Yeah, no messages [raucous laughter] My message is, I have no messages. Don’t check your inboxes. Or your mind box. There is no message.”
Well I have to say you personally have a very nice answer machine message, very polite and professional.
[laughs] “Well you know. I spent ages on that message actually. I really did!”
I can tell…
“I would like to think that there might be a career in radio for me one day. Do you know why? Did you hear how musical that was? If you actually listen to the tune of what I said it went… [sings tunes]
Yeah, I like to think that I have a career in radio sometime, I think I’ve got that melodic bounce that you need.”
The Darkness are about to embark on their “Easter Is Cancelled” Australasian tour, kicking off tomorrow night in Fremantle, Australia, before winding up in Auckland, New Zealand on the 20th March 2020. Tickets are still available from SBM Presents but get in quick as it will sell out!
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