The Darkness Showed Up in Catsuits and Saved Rock and Roll

The year 2003 was not supposed to produce a rock band that mattered. British guitar music had spent five years retreating into laptop electronica and post-Radiohead miserablism. The American mainstream was dominated by nu-metal bands tuning to drop B and rapping about childhood trauma. The idea that a band from Lowestoft, Suffolk — a seaside town best known for a fish processing plant — could release a debut album featuring falsetto harmonies, twin Gibson Les Paul Customs, cranked Marshall Plexis, and a man in a catsuit doing the splits mid-solo — and have it debut at number one in the UK — was absurd. It happened anyway.

Permission to Land sold four million copies. The Darkness won Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album at the 2004 BRIT Awards. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" became inescapable. And for a brief, glorious window, hard rock was the biggest thing in Britain again — not despite the catsuits and the falsetto and the guitar heroics, but because of them.

The Joke Nobody Got

The critical establishment made a mistake with The Darkness that took years to correct. They assumed the band was a joke. The catsuits, the falsetto, the Spinal Tap comparisons — it was all too easy to file under parody and move on. What the critics missed was that The Darkness were not making fun of hard rock. They were making hard rock with the self-awareness that comes from growing up after it had already been declared dead. Justin Hawkins knew exactly how ridiculous a man in a unitard doing a five-octave falsetto wail looked in 2003. He did it anyway, because the music demanded it.

The songs on Permission to Land are not parodies. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" is a genuine pop-rock masterpiece — a song built on a riff that Queen would have been proud of, with a vocal performance that sits somewhere between Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant. "Growing on Me" is an arena rock ballad with a hook that lodges in your skull for days. "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" is a two-minute burst of pure AC/DC fury. These are not novelty songs. They are exceptionally well-written rock songs performed by people who can actually play.

Two Brothers, Two Les Pauls, Two Very Different Tones

The engine of The Darkness's sound is the interplay between Justin and Dan Hawkins's guitars. Both play Gibson Les Pauls through Marshall amplifiers. Both refuse to use more than one or two effects pedals. The similarity ends there.

Justin plays a white 2001 Gibson Les Paul Custom — completely stock, with the original humbuckers. He strikes the strings near the neck with a hard plectrum, producing what Dan has described as a "luxurious" tone: warm, thick, and full of harmonic overtones. The Custom's ebony fretboard and multi-layered binding give it a slightly different resonance than a Standard — brighter in the upper harmonics, smoother in the midrange. Justin has multiple identical white Customs that he swaps between songs requiring alternate tunings.

Dan plays a 2000 Gibson Les Paul Standard in honeyburst that he calls "Dune" — given to him by Justin when the band formed, and his number one ever since. He left the stock 498T humbuckers in because he likes their aggressive, high-output bite. His only modification was a TonePros bridge and tailpiece for better intonation. Dan plays with a soft plectrum near the bridge, producing what he describes as a "barking" tone — tighter, more aggressive, and more percussive than Justin's sound.

The difference is essential. When Justin plays a soaring lead over Dan's rhythm, the two guitars occupy completely different frequency ranges despite being the same basic instrument through the same basic amplifier. This is the lesson most two-guitar bands never learn: differentiation comes from technique and setup, not from playing different instruments.

The Amp: Marshall Plexi, No Excuses

During the Permission to Land era, both Hawkins brothers ran Marshall 1959 Super Lead Plexi heads through Marshall 4x12 cabinets loaded with Celestion Greenback speakers. The Plexi is the same amplifier that Hendrix, AC/DC, and Slash built their sounds on — 100 watts, no master volume, four EL34 power tubes, and a tone that only comes alive when the volume is past the point of reason.

Justin's approach to the Plexi is the most traditional possible: Les Paul Custom into a cranked Marshall, guitar volume rolled back for clean passages and rolled up for crunch. No boost pedal. No overdrive stack. The only dirt pedal in his chain during this era was a vintage whiteface ProCo RAT — the pre-1988 version with the LM308 op-amp chip — used sparingly for solos when he needed an extra push beyond what the cranked Plexi could provide on its own.

In more recent years, Justin has moved to a Laney JH3000 — his signature amplifier, a 120-watt all-tube head based on the Ironheart platform with custom modifications and a front grille that glows red. He arrived at Laney after years of cycling through EVH, Wizard, Marshall, Friedman, and Cornford heads. "An amp that hits you in the guts AND in the face, at the same time," is how he described it.

Permission to Land: The Recording

Permission to Land was recorded at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in Oxfordshire with producer Pedro Ferreira. The studio — a converted Victorian schoolhouse — had been used by Radiohead, Duran Duran, and the Pet Shop Boys, but The Darkness sessions were considerably louder than anything the neighbors had experienced. Ferreira captured the brothers' guitars with minimal studio processing: Les Pauls into cranked Plexis, close-miked with Shure SM57s, and tracked largely live to capture the harmonic richness of two Les Pauls at full volume in a room together.

The vocal tracking was even more remarkable. Justin Hawkins's five-octave range — from baritone growl to a falsetto that could shatter crystal — was captured on a Neumann U87 condenser microphone, often in single takes. The multi-part harmonies on "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" and "Love Is Only a Feeling" were stacked by Justin alone, layering his own voice four and five times to create a wall of vocal harmony that owed as much to Queen's layering technique as to any contemporary production approach.

The album's production is deliberately unfashionable. In 2003, rock production meant scooped midrange, triggered drums, and Pro Tools editing on every track. Permission to Land sounds like a band playing in a room — because it largely was. The guitars are raw and present, the drums are natural and roomy, and the vocals sit on top without the compression and Auto-Tune processing that had become standard. It sounds more like 1977 than 2003, and that was entirely the point.

The Split, the Comeback, and Justin Hawkins Rides Again

The second album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005), was produced by Roy Thomas Baker — the man who produced Queen's A Night at the Opera. It debuted at number one. Then the wheels came off. Justin's cocaine and alcohol addiction led to a stint in rehab and his departure from the band in 2006. The Darkness split. Dan briefly continued with a project called Stone Gods. Justin competed in a celebrity ski jumping reality show. It looked like that was the end.

It was not the end. The Darkness reunited in 2011, and since then have released six more studio albums — Hot Cakes (2012), Last of Our Kind (2015), Pinewood Smile (2017), Easter Is Cancelled (2019), Motorheart (2021), and Dreams on Toast (2025). The later albums never matched Permission to Land's commercial peak, but the songwriting and performances have remained consistently strong. Their live shows — in which Justin still wears catsuits, still does the splits, still hits the falsetto, and still solos like his life depends on it — are widely regarded as among the best in rock.

In 2021, Justin launched the YouTube channel Justin Hawkins Rides Again, which has become one of the most entertaining and insightful music analysis channels online. His combination of genuine musical expertise, self-deprecating humor, and willingness to give honest opinions on everything from Taylor Swift to Metallica has earned him a second career as a commentator and critic. The channel has over a million subscribers and has introduced The Darkness to an entirely new audience who discovered the band through Justin's solo content.

Why It Mattered

The Darkness did not save rock and roll permanently. Nobody does. But in 2003 they proved something that the music industry had forgotten: that rock music is allowed to be fun. That guitar solos are not embarrassing. That a band can be technically excellent and entertaining at the same time. That a man in a catsuit hitting a high C over a twin-guitar harmony through two cranked Plexis is not a joke — it is what rock and roll is supposed to look and sound like.

The gear is simple. Two Gibson Les Pauls and two Marshall Plexis. A RAT pedal for solos. That is the entire rig. Everything else — the falsetto, the showmanship, the songwriting, the joy — comes from the people holding the guitars. The Darkness understood that the best gear in the world is worthless without the conviction to play it like you mean it.

Permission to Land is twenty-two years old. It still sounds like the most fun anyone has ever had making a rock record.

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