Said clown was Dan’s older brother, Justin Hawkins, who was immediately recruited as the bands singer and rhythm guitarist.īy 2000, the band was set, and they started performing live everywhere that would have them. He nailed every tricky octave leap and star-jumped like a maniac when the riff kicked in, all without missing a note. They found a drummer in Dan’s old school friend Ed Graham, but a singer wouldn’t be found until millennium eve, when Dan watched, stunned, as some clown at a karaoke contest completely aced Bohemian Rhapsody. The duo promptly moved in together and started looking for other instrumentalists to form a band with. The band began four years before all that, beginning in 1999 when struggling guitarist Dan Hawkins met bass player Frankie Poullain. With the film and the band’s debut album working in tandem with each other, 2003 was the year of the riff, and a good year it was too. 2003 was the year that the Jack Black classic rock comedy School Of Rock was released and, by some possibly divine act of harmony, it was also the year that absolutely everyone in the country fell in love with The Darkness. You can tell them to their face that they’re either highly mistaken or filthy liars. Some people might try to tell you that in 2003 the entire country was listening to The Strokes, Dizzee Rascal, The White Stripes or something other “cool” act.

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