One Hit Wondering – The Darkness

One Hit Wondering is a series of columns where I listen to the album of a one hit wonder, and find three songs, other than the hit, that people should hear. 

When The Darkness released “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” in the fall of 2003 a lot of people initially wondered if it was an unknown classic rock song that had suddenly been unearthed, and thrown into rotation.

Sounding like it was from anywhere from the mid ‘70s to the late ‘80s, and with frontman Justin Hawkins having an incredible five octave voice that sounds like it isn’t of this planet – the wonderfully bizarre music video for the song adding to that notion – “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” rocketed The Darkness to fame.

Poetically, over the past two decades it’s become what so many first thought it was – a fantastic classic rock song.

Despite it now being considered a classic, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” never cracked the Billboard Hot 100. It did, however, reach #23 on the rock chart, and #9 on the alternative chart. The fact of the matter is, unlike most of the songs that were ahead of it on those charts, it was simply so good it stood the test of time.

A huge win for the England-based foursome originally consisting of brothers Justin Hawkins (vox, keys, guitar), and Dan Hawkins (guitar), as well as Frankie Poullain (bass), and Ed Graham (drums), “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” was the third single from their 2003 debut album, Permission to Land.

To say the song had legs would be an understatement, as it had originally been issued on a 3-track EP in August of 2002, but since the EP was not mass produced it was also included on their debut LP.

What people may not realize is we know about this amazing song thanks to, in part, a Swedish furniture chain, and a swarm of bees.

Really. I’m not kidding.

The Darkness formed in 2000 from the ashes of a previous band named Empire. As the story goes, after Empire was no more, Frankie Poullain spent a considerable amount of time in Venezuela, becoming a tour guide there. In what was almost a “he died doing what he loved” incident, it was while in Venezuela that he was attacked by a nest of brown bees in the Orinoco Delta jungle.

Justin, meanwhile, was writing advertising jingles for major companies, both during his time with Empire, and after the band broke up.

After learning of Poullain’s battle with the bees he called him up, and asked him to come back to London to play bass for his new project, The Darkness. Unlike with Empire, which featured Poullain as the frontman, and Justin on keys, Justin would be the vocalist for this band.

Poullain was in, and Justin used his earnings from a jingle he wrote for IKEA to fund the band’s first recordings.

Rocking just as hard as anyone, and with Justin playing with the concept of sexuality in a way that was reminiscent of David Bowie, The Darkness became known for their live shows, packing venues before ever having a record deal.

Oddly, despite the band selling out venues, they weren’t generating any label interest. The prevailing thought among A&Rs was that The Darkness weren’t cool, and were more of a joke than a real band (which just goes to show how much some A&R people know).

Eventually Atlantic Records was smart enough to sign the band, but that didn’t mean the path to notoriety would be easy.

The Darkness would open for Disturbed in December of 2002 at Brixton Academy, and the behavior of the Disturbed fans was ... well .. disturbing. Justin remembers The Darkness having all sorts of things thrown at them, from bottles, to trash, to shoes (side note – how dumb, or drunk do you have to be to throw one of your shoes???).

Undeterred, the band readied Permission to Land, which was released on July 7th, 2003, debuting at #2 on the UK Albums Chart before ascending to the top spot, where it stayed for four weeks.

In the U.S. the album peaked at #36 on the Billboard 200, but has been certified gold with sales of over 500k stateside, while in the UK it’s sold over 1.4 million copies.

2003 would prove to be a huge year for the band, as in addition to the success of “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” and Permission to Land, they toured with Metallica, and took home BRIT Awards, and Kerrang! awards.

They even released a Christmas song to close out the year.

Unfortunately, when the calendar turned to 2004 the new year brought about new issues for the band.

The constant media coverage – including Justin being ranked at #35 on Spin’s list of the greatest frontmen of all-time just one album into his career – led to a public backlash against the band (if there’s anything the public loves more than building a star, it’s tearing one down). The foursome were also getting tired of all their media appearances. Justin even walked off an episode of the radio show Loveline in April of 2004.

The following year Poullain left band, and was replaced by Richie Edwards, and in November of ‘05 they released their second album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back. Even that, however, involved its share of unexpected drama.

The month before the album was due out Justin saw an advanced copy of it on eBay. Creating the username turbogunhawk, he “won” the album for £350 in an effort to track down the seller.

In 2006, after a stint in rehab for alcohol and cocaine, Justin left The Darkness, and Atlantic dropped the band.

Within half an hour of the news of Justin’s departure, his brother contacted Edwards to see if he’d be interested in taking up lead vocals in a new band with the remaining members. That band became Stone Gods.

Justin, meanwhile, created his own project named Hot Leg.

Both bands did their thing for a few years, and then right around the same time in 2010 they each announced they’d be going on hiatus. This led to The Darkness having a reunion in 2011 with all four founding members, and they’ve been going strong ever since (with just a few changes behind the drums, going from Graham, to Emily Dolan Davies, to current drummer Rufus Tiger Taylor, who is the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor).

From 2012 to the present The Darkness has released five studio albums, one live album, and a second Christmas song. In 2023 they opened for Lady Gaga, and released a documentary film titled Welcome To The Darkness.

In 2021, Justin launched a YouTube channel entitled Justin Hawkins Rides Again, where he talks about all things music related. The channel currently has over 500k subscribers (of which I am now one), with his videos racking up a cumulative total of nearly 100 million views.

Musically, he’s worked with everyone from Saving Aimee, to Steel Panther, to Adam Lambert, to Meat Loaf.

While The Darkness hasn’t had any more hits in America, they’re crushing it in their native UK, with their eighth studio album, Dreams on Toast, due out in March, the first single off of which is “I Hate Myself.”

It could be argued The Darkness helped give birth to a bevy of retro rock bands, like Foxy Shazam (formed in 2004), and Greta Van Fleet (formed in 2012). With that in mind, and with the band still being very active, I gave my copy of Permission to Land a spin, and found three songs, other than “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” that you should hear.

“Love on the Rocks with No Ice”

 

A mixture of hard rock, and classic rock, with a blues influence weaved into the backbone of the song, “Love on the Rocks with No Ice” would’ve been the perfect follow up to “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.”

I understand that going from believing in love, to having love fall apart, would be a huge shift emotionally, but U.S. audiences would’ve loved this one, and it’s another song where Justin shows off his incredible vocal range.  

“Growing On Me”

 

Technically “Growing on Me” came before “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” as it was the second single from Permission to Land, but once The Darkness had their mega hit, this one should’ve been re-released, because it’s just similar enough without being the exact same thing. It’s the kind of song that would’ve reminded people how much they loved “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” and started the process of moving listeners from being fans of a song to being fans of the band.

“Love Is Only A Feeling”

 

I have a t-shirt that says “I Brake For Power Ballads,” and when I heard “Love Is Only A Feeling” it immediately made me want to put on the shirt, and put the song on repeat.

The fifth single off Permission to Land, “Love Is Only A Feeling” has everything you need in a power ballad – longing vocals, a killer chorus with just the right amount of harmonizing, and a kick ass guitar solo.

The fact that this song is from 2003, and not the mid ‘80s, is WILD.

Until next time, here’s to discovering more great music from one hit wonders!