Transcript of an interview I recorded with Dan Hawkins of THE DARKNESS - 6/09/19. Full article here. MAL-
On the line, Dan Hawkins from THE DARKNESS Dan, thanks for joining me. DAN- Guten tag. MAL- Gotta tell you the first exposure I had to THE DARKNESS was 'Growing On Me'. Now, was that really 16 years ago? DAN- Oh my god. Wow. Was it really? God, that makes me feel so old. MAL- It does, doesn't it? Where have our lives gone? DAN- To be honest, I feel old. MAL- What's your memories of those days? DAN- Whoa, well that decade's pretty hazy, to be fair. I'm still getting flashbacks on a daily basis, you know, it was kind of kind of crazy. I mean, we went from being, you know, just playing in pubs and whatnot to like headlining festivals, in the space about three years, so it was just kind of like, holding onto a bunch of balloons, I guess MAL- I suppose you have already answered this question, but did it all just seem to happen too quick? Did you get time to smell the roses along the way? Or did you just wake up one day and think ******* hell, look at this? DAN- Yeah, it was a bit like that. Really? I mean, when we, when we started the band, I mean, okay, well, I moved to London when I was 17. And I first made a penny from music when I was 27. So that's 10 years, being on the dole for, you know, working crap jobs, like cleaning toilets, driving bands, doing removals, all the time, you know, the backdrop being, you know, I'm in a band, trying to make it, and then the band doesn't make it, realize it's crap. ditch it, start a new one, to 10, after 10 years I basically, I gave, you know, I gave up and, and I said, I'm just sick of it, none, none of these bands are gonna, gonna make it, I'm always chasing something that basically by time I get it, I realize I'm a (?) impersonator of such and such. And so I said to my brother, why don't we just start a band for a laugh and do it for fun, for the love of the music that we that we genuinely love, even though it's completely out of step with everything that was trendy at a time. And that was THE DARKNESS. And then, and it just blew up. So. So my point is that, you know, I was 27, and thought that I'd missed the boat, we both did really, and we've just, we just started a band, because we wanted to do something that we love, you know, rather than trying to be successful and that, and ironically, that's when it all happened. So to say that we couldn't believe our luck, it would be the understatement of the century, when the album, you know, went to number one, and stuff is like, holy shit. MAL- Let's skip ahead a little bit. Justin leaving and his rehab. Now, as a brother. That must have been heartbreaking to watch. Can you fill us in on that? DAN- Yeah, I mean, it was it to be fair, though, I didn't really understand. I wasn't sympathetic to him going in and doing that. Because I was probably on the verge of needing to go in myself. So I thought he was being selfish and splitting the band up to do that, to focus on him. And I didn't understand it. I couldn't understand it. But what he had to do was distance himself from really from people like me, and all the people we were around. So it was heartbreaking. In the sense that I thought he was trying to split the band up, I didn't realize he was trying to save his life. But luckily, I mean, when when he went in I, I had a period of about a year where I stopped smoking and stopped drinking. And then after about a year, I started to come around. And because it was just it was just full on, it was just one massive party, non stop and no time to adjust to anything. And, you know, it can get the better of anyone really. If you've got those demons inside you, they're sure as hell going to surface and get the better of you if you're in the position that we were in. So I'm just I just feel blessed, blessed oh I hate that word, I feel very thankful that that we ah.. MAL- ..came out the other side. DAN- Yes. See the light now, because a lot of people don't you know, MAL- Tell us about the reunion? How did that come about? Was it something that just sort of fell into place or.. how did it come about? DAN- You know, my brother is like, you know, closer to my brother than anyone else always have been. And, and it was just weird, you know, having that that feeling of not not really knowing each other. And, you know, having had that massive fallout over the split of the band stuff. And, and I think after a while it just these things they thaw don't they? You start to see things for what they actually are and, and I remember I was living in Brighton at the time, and he was playing one of his solo shows his band hot cake, HOT LEGS. And then I just thought, well, he's in Brighton. I don't care, I don't care anymore. You know, be good to see him. So I reached out and said, I might come down to see you play. And he's like, Yeah, come down see us. And then. And then he came to see my band, STONE GODS, play. And then after that, we were like, I was in London for a meeting or whatever. I thought it's weird that I'm in London, and I'm not going to go see my brother. So I just phoned him up, said what are you up to? And he said, nothing much. So we went around and played computer games. And then and then we did what we always did play computer games, piss about had a laugh and before you know it, we were writing music together, like on that very day, because that's what we did. You know, it's like, you know, that's what we do for entertainment. It's what we've done since we were six years old, so and then it was like it was obvious, but you know, and like to be fair like THE DARKNESS is the first band I've been in I've just really loved and felt completely natural doing what I do. MAL- New album coming out. 'Easter is canceled'. Tell me about this. I've had the opportunity to listen to it once. And I got to tell you, with the exception of maybe a couple of songs. Any song on there could be a single really. DAN- Oh, wow. Thanks a lot. Cheers. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think you could say the for the better albums that we've made in the past, really, because we all you know, we're not we never go out of our way to make it come with an album track. Because we've always, Justin and I've always were brought up melodically with people like ABBA and THE BEATLES, for instance, you know, like, from a very young age, you know, so you know, it's that whole thing, it's like, if the melody is no good, then then the thing won't ever take off. You know, we won't get past the rehearsal or or the work certainly won't make it into the studio. So melodies really important to us. And that's why I think, on our better albums, most of the songs sound like singles, because that means we've done our job properly. And it needs to be memorable, melodies need to be remembered. That's what that's what melody is. MAL- Tell me about the song 'Choke on it'. Was that written with someone in mind? Are you allowed to say, DAN- I wouldn't like to infer anything at all really on that? Let's just say that's a that's coming from, from I think everyone can relate to that feeling of in a when you when you when the relationship hadn't gone well, and it's ended and the bitterness that surrounds the breakup. Of course, we can all relate to that. MAL- Yeah, unfortunately, we can. Who's writing all the songs? DAN- We all are. No, yeah, I mean, but basically, largely, I write the music, my brother writes the lyrics, but that does change on a song song basis. You know, there's various, like Frankie and Rufus have a huge interest on this album than, the way that we did this album in particular. And as producer, the thing I wanted to kind of, like, do differently on this one was, rather than write and then demo, and then record as quickly as possible, we were like, soon as we had something on acoustic that had a body to it, I, verse and a chorus and, and a meaning and a purpose, we would go straight into the studio, and then start recording it, you know, and arranging it in the studio. So I mean, we're talking like eight months of 16 hour days, you know, halfway through this album I deeply regretted this approach. By the end of it I just wanted, I wanted to sell everything and never go into studio ever again. MAL- Who's fucking stupid idea was is Oh, that's right. It was mine. DAN- Yeah, exactly. Well, that's the thing when it when is your idea? You can't say this isn't working. You have to see it through. So you know, but in the end, it is it is what it is. I mean, it's been a huge learning curve for me as an engineer, more more than producer but it's been a journey. MAL- Right. The album comes out here on the sixth of October, according to my notes, and you're touring Australia in March of 2020. The tour is obviously planned by someone who doesn't have a map because you're crisscrossing the country, every which way. So that will be good. Looking forward to that? DAN- Can't wait for that. Yeah. It's um, it's a real shame about that. It's also the last time we were in Australia, it was brilliant because we had something like three days off in in Brisbane and about four days off in Melbourne. It was awesome. MAL- You have got a few days off, so that's good, at least. DAN- Yeah. Yeah. MAL- Hey, Dan Hawkins from THE DARKNESS. Absolutely fantastic talking to you. Best of luck with the new album, which I really liked, by the way, and we'll look forward to seeing you down here in Australia in March of next year. Thanks for talking to me. DAN- Awesome. Thanks a lot. See you in the spring. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |