If ever a band were born to banish the lockdown blues, it’s The Darkness. Back in 2003, with debut album Permission To Land, Lowestoft’s finest export arrived in the charts like they’d been fired from a glitter cannon: ’70s rock disciples trading in undeniable songs and flash-bastard musicianship, whose tours were a travelling circus of man-made fibres and airborne white tigers.
If we needed The Darkness then, we need them even more now. In November, frontman Justin Hawkins, guitarist Dan Hawkins, bassist Frankie Poullain and drummer Rufus Tiger Taylor lead the nation out of lockdown with a 22-date UK tour that plunders new album Motorheart, cherrypicks the best of their catalogue – and invites Steve Harris’s British Lion along for the ride.
As the band ready themselves for the road, we asked them about tourbus rules, onstage mishaps – and why they still believe in a thing called live.
Watch the exclusive video interview above.
Motorheart is released October 15th via Cooking Vinyl
Motorheart UK Tour Dates 2021
November
17th – Brighton Dome, Brighton
19th – Winter Gardens, Margate
20th – O2 Academy, Bournemouth
21st – Cliffs Pavillion, Southend
23rd – UEA, Norwich
24th – Corn Exchange, Cambridge
26th – The Hexagon, Reading
27th – The Great Hall, Cardiff
29th – The Great Hall, Exeter
30th - G Live, Guilford
December
2nd – O2 Academy, Liverpool
3rd – Academy, Manchester
4th – Bonus Arena, Hull
6th – The Victoria, Stoke-on-Trent
7th – O2 Academy, Bristol
9th – Barrowlands, Glasgow
10th – O2 Academy, Newcastle
11th – O2 Academy, Leeds
13th – Rock City, Nottingham
14th – O2 Academy, Birmingham
16th – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London
17th – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London.