At the beginning of  Welcome to the Darkness, frontman Justin Hawkins, he of the self-lacerating sharp wit and an equally dazzling trademark unitards, lays out what was allegedly his British rock band’s master plan all along: basically, release a massive debut album, follow it up with a slightly disappointing sophomore record, go on hiatus, and then stage a fabulous return.

He then quips, “The ‘fabulous return’ part hasn’t happened yet.”

The problem is, the Darkness’s documentary ends too prematurely, in 2023 — and during the past few years, the Darkness have indeed made a fabulous return to the mainstream. Hawkins was the breakout star of the Taylor Hawkins (no relation) tribute concert at London’s Wembley Stadium, practically upstaging Wolfgang Van Halen, AC/DC’s Brian Johnston, and even Dave Grohl with his otherworldly five-octave tenor and glass-shattering falsetto. The Darkness’s smash “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” then shot back to No. 1, after a clip of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce belting it at the U.S. Open Women’s Final went viral. Justin’s music-critique podcast and YouTube channel, the aptly titled Justin Hawkins Rides Again, is currently an internet sensation. And this year’s Dreams on Toast, the Darkness’s independently released eighth album (and sixth since returning from a seven-year hiatus in 2012) recently went to No. 2 in the U.K. — making it the band’s highest chart placement since their huge debut, 2003’s Permission to Land.

“Dan [Hawkins, Justin’s bandmate and younger brother] said in the documentary that one of his greatest fears for the band was if we become just a nostalgia-circuit band,” says Justin, speaking from the familiar studio where all his podcast magic happens. He reveals that the Darkness received plenty of lucrative offers to play retro-themed package tours and festivals over the years, and he was asked to be on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! and other British C-list reality shows many times, but even when the band was really struggling, he wasn’t tempted.

“There’s no such thing as easy money. In fact, I’d say the price would come that you would be condemned at that point to just being a heritage act. And there’s no way back from that,” he says. “You’re very, very unlikely to get a second chance. And we’ve actually forced that issue. Our second chance has been through determination and years of work. … You are lucky if you get one chance; I don’t think everybody gets that, to be honest. So yeah, I just think it’s work and belief.”

When the Darkness exploded onto the scene 22 years ago, standing out like a glittering thumb among the nu-metal, indie/garage, and pop acts of the aughts, they had many detractors who dismissed them as some ‘80s-revival novelty act, but also many supporters who declared them the new saviors of rock ‘n’ roll. “Rock is always in peril, in need of saving. It’s always tied to the railway track, isn’t it?” muses Justin. And no band has really come along since, at least not in such a grand and ostentatious fashion, to take up that mantle. But even though the Darkness are making some of their best rock records right now and cracking the U.K top five, he fears that the genre might be beyond “saving” — at least in terms of becoming youth culture’s dominant genre again. And he has a few theories as to why.

“I sound like a really old guy when I say that, because I am a really old guy,” Justin, now age 50, ponders, speaking with the same authority and thoughtfulness that makes Justin Hawkins Rides Again such a much-listen for diehard music fans. “It isn’t going to be the Darkness, I know that much, but whoever it is that saves [rock], that’s great. But rock ‘n’ roll has no chance of bothering the charts in the same way it used to do until there’s a change in attitude and people are more open to the idea of using that sort of soundscape in a different way.

“I think when people are trying to sort of push rock forwards, there’s a resistance among people who like the oldest style, the bawdy lyrics and the things you shouldn’t be able to do and doesn’t fit with our society now. I think rock is really sort of entrenched in, ‘Well, this is what real rock ‘n’ roll sounds like, and anything else doesn’t really count, and I want it to be small and special. I don’t want it to be mainstream.’ … It’s almost like holding onto that core, which is of another time half a century ago, really.

“But it’s not going to be like in the ‘80s, when charts were dominated by people with huge poodle perms and playing guitars. It won’t be like that again, unless instead of singing those sort of aspirational songs about girls, girls, girls and all this sort of stuff, we have some things that apply to the current climate. Unless you make rock music that speaks to the experience of living in the here and now, instead of focusing on the sounds and the attitudes of the ‘80s and ‘70s, it has no chance. It needs to be speaking to the young folk of today.”

That being said, Justin does notice his influence in today’s crop of rock ‘n’ roll newbies, even if some of those younger artists don’t give the Darkness proper credit. “There’s a certain stigma to admitting an influence, outside of the sort of ones that are really obvious. There’s always a reluctance, unless you’ve got the balls to actually be honest. … I see people with the little mullets, their mustaches, wearing their catsuits, and I know they’ve referenced me. I know they have, but they don’t come out and say it,” he says.

When asked if he’s referring to a certain pop star who performed with his idol Brian May at Coachella this year, Justin nods affirmatively. “By the way, I’ve got no issue with [Benson Boone]. But I know that his stylist referenced early the Darkness for that suit. And that’s not me saying that because I can feel it in the universe — it’s because I know [Boone’s] stylist. I know that this is what happened. Yeah, I’d love it if people would go, ‘Yes, it’s because of that guy.’ That’d be nice. … But I think it’s happening a little bit more lately. That’s one of the reasons why I love the Struts. At least they’re prepared to actually admit that they love the Darkness, and I think that’s cool.”

Against all odds, the Darkness have stayed the course and outlasted music trends, even when there were diminishing returns (as Justin snarks on the Dream on Toast anthem “Walking Through Fire,” they “never stopped making hit albums, it’s just that no one buys them anymore”). And they’ve not only survived the ups and down of the fickle music business, but various health issues (like Dan’s battle with testicular cancer at age 31, and Justin’s risky vocal surgery for a polyp he believes he developed while repeatedly straining to sing the 2015 track “Open Fire”). And of course, there have been Justin’s well-documented substance abuse problems, and although he refrains from discussing that much in this interview, instead cheekily referring to “a friend of mine called ‘Jason Hawkwind’ who used to do a lot of drugs years and years ago. … This is not me, obviously, can I just reassert that? Because I’m going to have to come into America at some point!” (The Darkness’s Dreams on Toast U.S. tour launches this week.)

And through it all, the beating rock ‘n’ roll heart of the band, and of their new documentary, has been Justin and Dan’s bond, which is the complete opposite of other famous feuding musical siblings like Oasis’s Liam and Noel Gallagher, the Kinks’Ray and Dave Davies, or the Black Crowes’ Chris and Rich Robinson. “We’re a formidable team. It’s funny now, because those traditional musical or creative brother relationships don’t apply to us,” says Justin. “It’s not like that — we don’t even bicker about who does guitar solos or anything like that.”

In fact, the most poignant scenes in the Welcome to the Darkness are when Dan gets choked up talking about how thrilled and relieved he is to be reunited with Justin (after Justin quit the group in 2007 to battle his addiction and other demons, and the two didn’t even speak for two years), or the moments when Justin expresses his deep regret over disappointing his brother. And the funniest part of the film is most definitely the priceless footage of Justin giving the best-man speech at Dan’s wedding, which demonstrates the dark Darkness humor that has kept the band going since they reconvened for their comeback album Hot Cakes 13 years ago.

Dan had beat testicular cancer a few years prior to getting married and had had one of his testicles removed… so, Justin of course decided to perform at Dan’s wedding accompanied a Jim Henson-style giant puppet testicle. “Towards the end of the speech, I was saying that everybody in the room, we’ve all wondered what happened to the mutated testicle that had to be removed. And then I announced that he was here today, and I had a puppet of a testicle, which sprayed semen out of the top of it from a special device inside,” Justin chuckles. “And the puppet and I sang ‘2 Become 1’ by the Spice Girls. It’s just simple maths, really. And it was beautiful. It really was.”

What didn’t make it into Welcome to the Darkness, Justin reveals, was additional wedding reception footage of “a bit when I’m talking about sibling rivalry, and there’s a photograph of us naked and I’ve used Photoshop to enhance a certain part of my anatomy. And I just leave it out there for ages, with people crying, children crying,” he laughs. “When I had the picture of me with the enormous appendage up on the screen, one of my sister-in-law’s relatives, who was in her advancing years at the time, was asking me if I wanted to sit down and take the weight off.”

Not all families would enjoy such an R-rated tribute, but Justin shrugs, “That’s just who we are, though.” And that humor has always come through in the Darkness’s music, even during their lowest times. “I don’t think we enjoy hearing ourselves whine or moan. There are [artists] who are great at that and I really enjoy listening to stuff that’s just full of despair, but I like it when there’s some sort of twist.”

And the joyful glow-up that Justin has undergone in recent years, which has coincided with the Darkness’s hard-earned renaissance, cannot be ignored. “I eat differently. I exercise. I don’t drink. I gave up smoking as well. My last vice was tobacco,” he says. He’s also now happily partnered up with Belgian-born musician Désirée Mishoe, aka May the Muse<, who he met after he was intrigued by her “really emotive vocal” on the soundtrack for the German series Dark, reached out to work with her, “and then sparks flew and it was magic.” A true story about their morning smooch in a Scottish orchard inspired the ELO-style Dreams on Toast romp “The Longest Kiss,” but even though Justin sings, “I think I found my wife” in that song’s chorus, he clarifies they are not legally wed — so, Dan won’t get the chance to give an R-rated speech at Justin’s own wedding any time soon.

“[Mishoe] is my wife in every respect. Not legally. The government hasn’t got involved yet,” Justin says. “I’ve had a fairly awful experience with actual marriage, but we are just life partners. So, it kind of works in exactly the same way, but without the looming specter. … It’s nice to have that sort of freedom with somebody because you love them, not because you’re obliged to legally.”

And so, with the band in a great place both professionally and personally, they’re going to keep soldiering on, whether or not their genre of choice ever “bothers the charts” again. When the Darkness played a glorious hometown show at London’s Wembley Arena the day after Dreams on Toast came out, they actually rallied the crowd to buy the album in order to block Mumford & Son from going to No. 1 that week (Justin even amusingly led the sold-out crowd in a spirited “Fuck Mumford & Sons!” chant), and while Dreams on Toast ultimately stalled at No. 2, that was still a triumph — considering that at one time Justin says “people thought I’d been dead for a few years, including myself,” and many fairweather fans had written the band off long ago.

“[Charts are] the sort of thing that I usually don’t care about. I wouldn’t even be able to tell you what number the last few albums went in at, because I don’t care,” says Justin. “But suddenly it was something that I wanted, and it was something that seemed like it was in reach. And we didn’t do it on this occasion, but what was it, our eighth studio album? So, yeah, there’s a couple more left in us, I think.”

Give us a D! Give us an Arkness! Yes, British rock titans the Darkness have been saving rock ’n’ roll for nearly 15 years, and now they’re back with a fifth album of guitar-shreddery and Bic-flicking badassery, Pinewood Smile. They also have a new member, and a bona fide member of rock royalty: Rufus Tiger Taylor, son of none other than legendary Queen timekeeper Roger Taylor.

Considering Justin Hawkins and company’s penchant for stacked-to-the-heavens high harmonies, indulgent guitar solos, and Zandra Rhodes-inspired catsuits, it makes sense that when a vacancy opened up on their drummer’s throne, they’d appoint a direct descendant of Queen. (They’d had a bit of a Spinal Tap-esque personnel problem lately, with the exits of both original drummer Ed Graham and Graham’s brief replacement, Emily Dolan Davies.) The Darkness just hoped Rufus wouldn’t freak when he got a look at Hawkins’s left-hand knuckle tattoos, of the iconic Hot Space album-cover likenesses of all four Queen members — including Roger on his ring finger.

Justin Hawkins’s Queen knuckle tattoos. (Photo: Publicity Please)

“I needed to get it out of the way, because I didn’t want it be something that came up later,” laughs Hawkins, recalling their first meeting. “I thought I’d address it head-on. I said, ‘Is it going to be a problem for you that I’ve got your dad’s face tattooed on my hand?’”

“It was one of the first things he said to me, actually,” Taylor tells Yahoo Music. “I said, ‘It’s a little bit weird. But I’m sure we can get past it!’”

Taylor was originally referred to the band by Pete Malandrone, the guitar tech for Queen legend Brian May, right around the time the Darkness hired Davies in 2014. “He said to us, ‘Are you still looking for a drummer?’ We’re like, ‘No, we’ve got somebody now.’ He says, ‘Aw, I should’ve said you could’ve tried Rufus, because he’s young, brilliant, he’s always shagging supermodels, and living the dream — Pete’s words,” says Hawkins. Eventually they followed up on the invitation, and they now say Taylor is a perfect fit.

Hawkins may be an unabashedly inked Queen fan, but he insists that the younger Taylor — who’s also played on the Queen + Adam Lambert tours — “would be the correct choice on merit, just because of the way he plays. I don’t think he sounds like his dad when he’s playing, and he doesn’t sound like his dad when he’s singing, but he’s still a brilliant drummer, and a brilliant singer, in his own right. I think he’s Darkness, 100 percent, top to bottom.”

Hawkins says Taylor, out of all the drummers the Darkness has worked with, is “definitely the most proactive in terms of making contributions to the writing.” It was in fact Taylor who came up with the genius chorus to the Darkness’s latest Pinewood Smile single, “Solid Gold,” which proudly declares: “We’re never gonna stop s***ting out solid gold.” It’s the ultimate battle cry for a band that has always believed in a thing called rock (there’s a reason why their previous album was called Last of Our Kind), their way of promising to stick around with this invigorated lineup.

“We’ve done more albums since we stopped doing albums than we had done before we stopped,” quips Hawkins. (The Darkness broke up after their 2005 sophomore album, One Way Ticket to Hell… and Back, reconvened for 2012’s Hot Cakes, and have released three albums total since their reunion.) “I think it was time to acknowledge that, and say that we aren’t going to do any more stopping!”

Another standout Taylor contribution on Pinewood Smile is the weepy but cheeky soft-rock serenade “Stampede of Love,” a Hawkins-Taylor vocal duet about a romance “between two morbidly obese people who can scarcely leave the house without some sort of industrial machinery to lift them out.” It’s odd subject matter, for sure. (Hawkins is prone to that, having once written a song called “Cupboard Love” about his missing Bengal cat, not to mention Pinewood Smile’s “working-class hero” anthem “Southern Trains,” which viciously bashes Britain’s notoriously unreliable Southern Rail transit system.) But Hawkins insists “Stampede of Love” comes from a positive place, with no fat-shaming intended.

“I don’t think we’re shaming anybody that’s fat. … It’s all about the gluttony and celebrating it. At no point do either of those characters say in the song, ‘I wish I wasn’t like this.’ In fact, it’s talking about love under what are extreme circumstances. I think when you’re at that weight, your life could be a fleeting existence, and if it can be enriched by somebody else, who’s in exactly the same position, then all the better for it. So it’s a love song. A love ballad, sung by two morbidly obese characters.”

Overall, however, Pinewood Smile is light on the balladry, comprising mostly thrillingly hard-charging riff rock — from the speed-metal blitzkriegs “Japanese Prisoner of Love” and “Buccaneers of Hispaniola” to the power-pop fist-pumpers “All the Pretty Girls” and “Happiness” — expertly produced by Adrian Bushby (Muse, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Placebo). “We wanted to have something that sounded super-aggressive, and a bit more now. We’re definitely not an ’80s retrospective group,” Hawkins clarifies.

As for the sound of rock music today — which isn’t exactly super-aggressive — Hawkins has plenty to say.

“Can I tell you what my theory about it is? If you listen to Coldplay or Maroon 5, the first Coldplay album, first Maroon 5 album, the guitars are quite loud. You can hear them. And then as they maintain their success … the guitars are becoming quieter and quieter. It feels like in order to maintain success, you need to turn the guitars down progressively over the course of your career. … There’s less spiky, jarring, human elements to it. I hate that! I really hate it. And I think that eventually, everybody will hate it. Because guitars have been around since the Middle Ages. When it was minstrels traveling around, you didn’t see minstrels traveling around in the Dark Ages with synthesizers.”

The Darkness’s appeal goes beyond diehard rock fans, however. Hawkins sang on De La Soul’s 2016 comeback album, And the Anonymous Nobody; the Darkness toured with Lady Gaga in 2012; and last year, Taylor Swift danced like a wild woman to the group’s poppiest single, the surprise Top 40 crossover smash “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.” (“Our only involvement in [ad placements] like that is they say, ‘Will you allow them to do this for this much money?’ To which we reply, ‘They’ve got more than that, surely!’ And then they go, ‘All right, how about this much money?’ And then we go, “Yeeaaaah, all right,’” says Hawkins with a grin.)

Hawkins has also penned tunes for two American Idols — “Music Again,” the effervescent opening track on Adam Lambert’s debut album, and “As Long as You Love Me,” the underrated coronation song by Season 13 winner Caleb Johnson, which was actually originally intended for Kelly Clarkson. “I think it would have been — dare I say it, should I say it? — more successful [if Clarkson had recorded it],” says Hawkins. “I broke a record, though, with that one. It was the first American Idol coronation song not to chart!”

That being said, Hawkins’s Idol connections, otherworldly voice (“I try and keep my smoking to a minimum of 20 a day,” he jokes when asked about his pro vocal tips), and sarcastic personality would make him a perfect reality show judge. He promises if he ever had that opportunity, he’d “get to the kernel of truth in any performance, and tell [contestants] they’re talentless wastes of skin — or not, perhaps! I think honesty is the best policy, because I respect Simon Cowell. Because a lot of the time, when he says that to them, they can then rebuild their lives and go about their actual calling — which is to garden, or do the bins, or whatever it is they end up doing afterwards. Singing isn’t for everybody. I mean, let’s face it: I think if you’re wasting precious bin-taking-out time and pursuing a singing career that’s never going to happen, somebody like Simon Cowell telling you that it’s never going to happen is probably hard to hear, but sometimes I reckon it’s what you need to hear.”

Clearly rocking out is the Darkness’s calling. And now with Taylor onboard, they’re prepared to follow their rock ’n’ roll destiny on their spring 2018 U.S. trek, “Tour de Prance.” “Every one of us is really enjoying every second of recording, and writing, and especially touring,” says Taylor. “There isn’t ever a dull moment. And I think that’s vital.”

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This article originally ran on Yahoo Music.