Dropping a killer Cliff Richard cover to celebrate the blockbuster success of eighth album Dreams On Toast, while preparing to romp back into UK arenas and play main support at Iron Maiden’s 50th anniversary celebrations in the new year, it’s set to be a bumper Christmas for The Darkness. Crackers in hand, we caught up with frontman Justin Hawkins for a rollercoaster 2025 rundown...
“People say that we’re one-hit wonders,” Justin Hawkins cracks a knowing grin, pondering the double-edged ubiquity of The Darkness’ gloriously OTT 2003 mega-hit I Believe In A Thing Called Love. “But then I say, ‘What about our Christmas song? That means that we’ve got at least two...’”
Indeed, Lowestoft’s finest have made themselves part of the Yuletide ritual over the past two decades. The glorious, er, cock-rock of stand-alone seasonal single Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) has been a big part of that. But with one thing leading to another, they’ve also become partial to a tinsel-wrapped end-of-year tour, the next of which will see them storm back into UK arenas through December 2026 for their biggest headline shows in over two decades. And as tickets for those shows go on sale, they’ve bolstered their catalogue with another nailed-on holiday classic in their unexpectedly dreamy cover of Cliff Richard classic Mistletoe And Wine.
Also supporting Iron Maiden at Knebworth, continuing his band’s international expansion and galloping around the UK on a ‘Rides Again’ spoken-word tour in the new year, Justin has plenty to talk about as we join him in his cosy East-Swiss home. So, please, grab an eggnog and join us...
You’ve already got one undeniable Christmas rock anthem. So what possessed you to re-do Mistletoe & Wine with a few defiantly off-brand “sprinkles of shoegaze and drone”?
“Its absolutely not on-brand, that’s true. Our last album Dreams On Toast has been our most successful since [2003 debut] Permission To Land. It’s a very eclectic album where we’ve explored a lot of avenues we normally wouldn’t go down. So when the label asked if we’d do a ‘Christmas Edition’, not only did we not want to do another original song which would cannibalise the perennial impact of our first, we [wanted to do something that fit the rest of the record]. Mistletoe And Wine has always stuck with me. When I was a kid, it felt like Cliff Richard released a new Christmas song every year, but that’s the one my brother and I always sing to each other. It’s catchy and easy to sing along to, but there’s a lot more to it. So rather than doing an obvious AC/DC thing we decided to tap into our abiding love for shoegaze. The Darkness were framed as the antithesis to shoegaze and nu-metal and all that when we first came out but we love those things, too! And could anyone else really have re-done Cliff Richard in that style? Originally, it was only supposed to be a bonus track, then the label said it was a single. That was news to us, but here we are!”
It seemed to go down a treat when you played St. Pancras station on November 25...
“That was maybe the second time I’d sung it! Obviously, the chorus is ingrained on my soul, but when you listen to the verses, there’s some strange stuff in there, like the line where he says, ‘Ours for the taking, just follow the master…’ I wondered what that had to do with Christmas, but then we realised Cliff actually took the song from a musical [called Scraps, which was an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl set in Victorian London] from years ago…”
Old Cliff isn’t as cuddly as he sometimes seems…
“Peel back the layers of his oeuvre, there’s a lot of pricklier stuff than he gets credit for. Sexier, too! Not that I’m suggesting that ‘master’ line has to do with a dominatrix or anything like that!”
Christmas has become a happy hunting time for The Darkness. You’ve just announced a tour of seven arenas in the run up to Christmas 2026. Does that feel like a full-circle moment?
“Yes and no. In terms of ‘the fall’ of the band and our coming back, the most important thing is that we were making good records and the quality of the material has gotten better and better as we’ve rebuilt. The goal has never been about playing arenas or stadiums – it’s to write music that you’re proud of. When we first got back together [in 2011] we were all very conflict-shy, not making the records we should have been. But our last three have been challenging in the right way. We’ve found a way of writing stuff that works live. And when you step back and look at it, we’ve been working on this ‘second phase’ of the band for significantly longer than the first. Rufus [Taylor] is now our longest-serving drummer. We’ve had the same management since the reformation. What started off as a ship-steadying exercise has turned into something with genuine ambition!”
When you were headlining arenas in the mid-2000s, there was a lot of OTT production, with you riding white tigers or on a trapeze out over the audience. Can we expect more of that?
“I’ve been to many arena shows. When they’re production-reliant it becomes more about what’s going on behind the band. That distracts from the core of the experience of seeing them play. What I love is seeing an old-fashioned rock'n'nroll show with the emphasis on the [musicianship], and what’s happening with the human beings onstage. A lot of the time if you stand side-stage at a modern show and all you can hear is the drums because everyone has in-ears and maybe backing tracks. We don’t use any of that stuff. If you stand side-stage at a Darkness show, you get pretty much the same experience that you do out front. Because we’re a real human band and we’re fucking loud! That said, if there is any flying to be done, you know I’m always up for that!”
Any chance of a return for the ‘Boob Chariot’ from the One Way Ticket… shows?
“That’s a swing-seat in my garden now, so you’re not having that! On the first arena tour, I rode a white flying tiger. There are a lot of insurance issues with doing something like that because if something goes wrong over the audience, innocent people could be injured – or killed. On the second tour, I was much, much fatter and the rigging guy looked at me like he didn’t know if the equipment could handle it. But I’m back to first-album skinniness now, so there’ll be less nerves!”
Christmas is a time for reflection, too. You say that March’s Dreams On Toast was your most successful album since Permission To Land. How blown-away were you by that?
“Well, you have to ask what success looks like in the current climate. Actual record sales look nothing like they did when we started out. Like, our second album One Way Ticket… sold a million copies. We’d all give our right arms sell a million copies today. But in terms of chart position, [where One Way Ticket... only got to number 11 in the UK charts] Dreams On Toast made it to number two. We did an amazing Wembley show when Dreams On Toast came out, too, and some great festivals including Download. What was most surprising was in America, where they don’t really go by singles and just choose an album track to put on their radio playlist, we’ve been doing well. One of the Sirius XM stations put Mortal Dread on rotation. That’s not ‘a single’. It’s so simple, not at all what we were trying to put across. It just sounds like us doing AC/DC. But I love that they’ve just organically selected it as their lead track and it’s starting to do really well!”
You turned 50 in March, too. Does it feel like a milestone? Held up against to the ‘coke bloated’ version of Justin from 20 years ago, you look younger now than you did back then...
“My 30s were difficult for me. I’m not sure if it’s a universal male experience, but I hit 30 and disappeared a bit. It didn’t help that I was experiencing that ‘coke bloat’, and then getting sober, but in your 30s, you’re no longer the young, virile, exciting individual you are in your 20s. You’re neither here nor there. Then you hit 40 and re-emerge. My 40s were a decade that will take some beating. I really enjoyed them. But since I’ve hit 50, a weird thing has happened: my muscle to fat ratio has changed so that I’ve always got an eight-pack whether I do exercise or not, and I’ve got loads of energy. It feels like my 40s on steroids at the moment. My voice is still going. I’m still learning stuff about music. And I’m not taking any shit. The day that you turn 50 you realise that life is finite. You become very aware of your own mortality. You don’t have that much time left and you have to make it count. If I have to do stuff I don’t want to, I’m going to moan about it!”
There was a news flurry about your ‘car crash’ BBC news interview recently. Would that have happened 10 years ago?
“That’s a good question. I think I would’ve said a lot of the same stupid stuff. And I might’ve been even more outrageous, really forcing that ‘Knobwerth’ joke over the line. Definitely, if they had asked me back then about Oasis, I would have been a bit more explicit saying, ‘Why the fuck would I want to talk about another band playing when I’m here to promote my own shit?!”
They could at least have kept the focus on the band you’re supporting: Iron Maiden…
“Exactly! Iron Maiden are doing Knebworth. That’s huge news: a British metal institution playing where they have the opportunity to break the attendance record for the whole country forever. Oasis are a crossover band who were in everyone’s consciousness for a half-decade. But Iron Maiden have been putting out great metal music for 50 years. Them playing to an audience they’ve grown by being a genuinely brilliant band is a much bigger story for me than Oasis, who had a couple of hit albums in the '90s, catering to anyone who wants to turn up in their tracksuits and act like a dickhead. Obviously, it’s a joy for us to go to Knebworth again. But Iron Maiden is the story. Since we were at school, my friends and I have been wearing Maiden T-shirts – that made us ‘the grebs’ – but we wore those shirts like suits of armour. And I’m so proud to be supporting them at Knebworth. What defiance. What resilience. What a band.”
Aside from The Darkness, your Justin Hawkins Rides Again YouTube channel has really taken off. Back in the mid-2000s, did you ever imagine you’d have that kind of cult of personality?
“‘No’ is the short answer. I remember when YouTube started up and how it became a news story that all these people are making money by just showing their lives. I was like, ‘So what?’ I didn’t bother looking at it for a long time. But during COVID I couldn’t tour so I started a Patreon. I love my Patreon. There’s a core family there that is a bit like a cult, albeit with nothing negative going on. By doing videos for them I got super-comfortable on camera. Then my manager talked me into a YouTube channel. It’s been evolving but now it’s gotten to a real spikiness. There’s a lot of shit in the world, and I don’t mind saying it. Sometimes I get called an old man shouting at a cloud, or someone chasing relevance, but people who understand me will know that ‘relevance’ is the last thing I care about. I don’t want to be ‘relevant’ in a world of banal, Disneyfied, homogenised bullshit. I want to be irrelevant and irreverent, and the channel gives me a chance to do that.”
Was it surprising to see the reaction for your critique of YUNGBLUD?
“It feels like there are sacred cows that you’re not allowed to criticise. If someone is younger or emerging, you’re not supposed to [be critical]. But that’s bullshit. When I was coming up, God knows people tried to kick the shit out of me. You need to have rhino-skin to operate in this world because everything you do is subject to scrutiny. You’re presenting your music to people who will either like or dislike it. In that instance, I disliked it. I make no apologies for that. I think it’s shit. You come from Disney or musical theatre and expect to be positioned as the future of rock, having already tried to the future of punk, and it just doesn’t wash with me. The ultimate problem is that unless you’ve got good songs that you’ve written yourself, I’m not going to take you seriously. Don’t tell me that you’re the future of rock. Write a good fucking song and show me.”
Which younger rock act most excites you?
“I think it’s difficult to listen to Greta Van Fleet and not feel excited. They’re not really a ‘new’ band any more, and I don’t think they’ve found the songs to really pull it off just yet, but if they fully explored that Led Zeppelin thing, they have the potential to be absolutely incredible.”
Looking further ahead, what’s left to achieve? Yes, you’re helping celebrate 50 years of Iron Maiden, but could we all be celebrating five decades of The Darkness in another 25 years?
“Well, The Darkness is a collective, and one member [bassist Frankie Poullain, 58] is a bit older than the rest of us. So who knows. But whether it’s 25 years, one year, six months or tomorrow, it’s all finite. I’m a father now but the legacy I leave behind that matters the most is my music. So over the next 25 years – or however long I’ve got – the most important thing is still writing great songs!”
And Iron Maiden are a great example for that mentality. Their first time at Knebworth, Sonisphere 2010, most of their setlist was culled from what’s become their second 25 years…
“So what you’re saying is that from here on out, we’re writing our 50th anniversary set to play at Knebworth in 25 years time? (laughs) I’ll never get tired playing our early songs, but I have always wondered what it would be like to play a gig without I Believe In A Thing Called Love. I don’t think we’ve had the balls to do that at any point. Unfortunately, we haven’t had the consistent build and the [broader, beloved] body of work that Iron Maiden have managed to compile. Not to say that Maiden are the teacups, but with the ups and downs The Darkness really has been much more of a rollercoaster ride…”
Mistletoe And Wine is out now. The Darkness will support Iron Maiden at Knebworth on July 11, 2026, and will headline arenas in the UK from December 8 – 16.
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