When the rollercoaster ride that was The Darkness came to an abrupt and messy end with the departure of Justin Hawkins, the remaining members of the band were staring premature retirement in the face. But when rock ‘n’ roll courses through your veins, surrender is never an option, and so less than an hour after their erstwhile singer jumped ship, plans were already afoot to get the show back on the road.
“The whole thing had fallen apart,” says former bassist and Stone Gods’ singer/guitarist Richie Edwards. “I got the phone call from Justin and I thought ‘that’s it’, but half an hour later Dan rang me and said, ‘Rich, do you fancy doing a bit of singing?’ We got together and started writing and it’s snowballed from there.”
An entirely tougher, edgier and heavier beast than their former band, the arrival of Stone Gods represents a scintillating new dawn for British rock music. Fronted by Richie Edwards, whose powerful voice resonates with four decades of classic rock gusto, and with Dan Hawkins assuming lead guitar duties, former Graham Coxon alumnus Toby MacFarlaine on bass guitar and Ed Graham hammering the skins, these road-ravaged pros have spent the last year slaving away over hot guitars, carefully crafting the songs that will comprise their forthcoming debut album titled “Silver spoons and broken bones”. A dazzling and diverse mixture of crunching heavy metal anthems, irresistible radio-rock and sumptuous, ballsy ballads; it’s a glorious celebration of everything that makes loud, blaring rock ‘n’ roll so reliably exhilarating.
“If your favourite song of all time was ‘Friday Night’ then you’ll hear ‘Burn The Witch’ and you probably won’t like it,” states Dan, “But that’s cool. In a way, that’s exactly what we want! We don’t want people shouting for Darkness songs.”
Having already sold out their first limited ep release “Burn the Witch” the next phase kicks off with an iTunes exclusive release , due out May 25th, accompanied by an intimate club headlining tour, supported by a single release of “Knight of the living dead”.Festival appearances at Download and The Isle of Wight are confirmed and the debut album (Recorded at Dan Hawkins’ own studio and engineered/co-produced with Dan by Nick Brine, mixed by the highly acclaimed Mike Fraser and mastered by Grammy Award winning Adam Ayan) will follow on July 7th 2008.
“I just can’t fuckin’ wait to get out there and play these songs to people!” enthuses Richie. “We’re all very confident,” adds Dan. “We’ve taken control of our ambitions and no one’s power hungry or fame mad. We won’t repeat any mistakes from the past. We’ve got a really punk rock attitude. I don’t have to play the game anymore. I’m not in a pop band. I don’t want to be a celebrity. I’m not interested in any of that shit. I’m just so happy to be in this band. The music is the only thing that matters.”
