Ten years on from the debut album that made them Britain’s biggest band, The Darkness say they are now in a “perfect place”.
The four-piece released Permission to Land in 2003, which quickly went five-times platinum, won them three Brit awards and propelled them from pubs to sold-out arenas.
The phenomenal success was also to prove their undoing and they split a few years later.
But after a reunion two years ago and a Top 5 comeback album, the band is back on tour in some lesser-visited UK towns performing Permission to Land in its entirety.
Guitarist Dan Hawkins who, along with brother Justin, Ed Graham and Scots-born Frankie Poullain makes up the band says they now have what they always wanted.
“When we started the band our aim was just to get a big enough fanbase that we could make a living from this,” he said. “Big venues for us were 2,000-capacity and anything over that was a bonus.
“I’m really happy where we are now. We don’t have the pressure of the record label breathing down our necks and the public watching our every move.
“I’m making a good living from what I want to do. We’re in the perfect place.”
The band’s early success is a bit of a haze for Dan. “When we started it just went off like a rocket,” he says.
“I was going through my shed the other day and I found lots of press from when it was all kicking off. It’s a blur, to be honest.
“In one sense it feels like yesterday and in another way it doesn’t even feel like it happened to us.
“We were just having a laugh and it was all about how much we could get away with.
“Some of the outfits were borderline fancy dress I remember Justin had a catsuit made from donkey hair!
“I didn’t want us to split up but when we did, I really thought that was it. Justin says he always knew we would get back together and that he was just taking a break but he never told me that.”
Their 25-date tour takes them to places far off the usual touring schedule, such as Kilmarnock.
“We felt we should be reaching out to the fans, rather than asking them to travel hundreds of miles to see us,” says Dan.
“We toured the big places last year with Lady Gaga and on our last tour we only did the five major cities right down the middle of the UK, so this was something we really wanted to do.”
The Darkness play Kilmarnock Grand Hall, Inverness Ironworks on November 20 and 21 and Middlesbrough Empire on November 27.
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