The Darkness used to have an assistant “deploy two ice cubes directly into their eyes” before gigs because “we were so f**king hungover”
The Darkness’s Dan Hawkins has opened up about the band’s notoriously chaotic early days and the bizarre pre-show rituals they resorted to just to make it on stage.
Fresh off arena dates in support of their eighth studio album Dreams On Toast, The Darkness are now gearing up for a North American tour later this year. But as Hawkins makes clear in an interview with the Daily Star, those nights on the road are a far cry from the mayhem – and debauchery – of their early years.
READ MORE: Justin Hawkins: “Rock is a middle-aged guy in a world full of people who are just generation ‘Whatever the f**k it is now’”
“Back in the day, it was just complete and utter carnage,” the guitarist explains. “We had a wardrobe assistant and one of his jobs was to deploy two ice cubes directly into the eyes, closed I might say, about half an hour before the gig to try and jumpstart our being able to actually play the gig because we were so fucking hungover.”
“Maybe it’s the fight or flight thing,” he adds. “It sort of makes your brain send emergency signals. It was just a cycle of that. You basically play where you are just about able to stumble on stage from the night before, do the gig and then you come off like and the whole thing would start again.”
That lifestyle eventually caught up with the band. After a brief split, The Darkness reformed in 2011, armed with sobriety and a newfound purpose .
“The objective, right from the word go, was to headline Wembley Arena,” says Hawkins. “We knew that is where we should be really. There’s a few arenas on this run and that’s something we’ve worked very hard towards since we got back together in 2010. I think we’re actually quite young so if we keep fit and healthy, which we all do religiously, there’s no reason why we can’t just keep building and be the ones carrying the torch for classic rock in 10, 15 years time.”
Still, don’t expect The Darkness to be pulling a Rolling Stones and touring into their 80s.
Asked where The Darkness will be at that age, frontman Justin Hawkins jokes: “One of our members is already approaching that age [bassist Frankie Poullain, 57]!”
Dan also chimes in with a memory of opening for the Stones in London twenty years ago “at noon, in the blazing sun”.
“We played for half an hour, and I thought Ed [Graham], our old drummer, was going to burn up – it was so hot,” he says. “Then the Stones came on. Mick started running around and dancing like a chicken for two and a half hours. I thought, ‘Holy shit, how does he do it?’ If the touring life suits him, why stop? For him, it’s like doing aerobics for a few hours a day. I’m not sure we’d be in the same shape at 80!”
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