Pod Insights 60 Songs That Explain the '90s The Darkness — “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” About this episode There is a select handful of people who were never meant to step foot into an office due to their proclivity to screw around. Just like we sent Rob packing to Ohio to bother no one but himself, Lowestoft, England shipped us The Darkness. During the post-grunge era when rock was murkily defined, we were gifted front man and lead singer Justin Hawkins on a silver platter (his manager’s shoulders) to give us crude operatic hair metal ballads. This week, Rob discusses, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” a song that proves if you dive head first into cheesiness, it becomes ironic and cool. Later, he is joined by Jill Hopkins who talks about the experience of watching The Darkness live and then comparing that to the people who feel confident enough to sing The Darkness at karaoke.
Host: Rob Harvilla
Producers: Justin Sayles and Olivia Crerie
Additional Video Editing: Kevin Pooler
Guest: Jill Hopkins
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Transcript 14,162 words · 9 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.
0:25 Speaker 01 Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.
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0:57 Speaker 01 Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.
1:24 Speaker 02 Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.
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2:21 Speaker 04 I have not worked in an office in 13 years. I work exclusively at home, in near-total isolation and in sweatpants, mumbling to myself and enjoying very little in-person social contact outside of my immediate family, and that's all very much for the best. I am isolated for my own protection and for the protection of others. "Why did I stop working in an office?" you ask? Oh, various reasons. Various noble and ignoble reasons. One ignoble reason I started working exclusively at home is that one time at my last office
3:04 Speaker 04 job, I was reprimanded by HR for emailing everyone in our office the YouTube link to an Aerosmith video. Let me answer your first question.
3:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, whatever Aerosmith video you were thinking of, I didn't send that one. Wasn't "Love in an Elevator," or "Crazy," or "Pink," or "Dude Looks Like a Lady"? No, I emailed all my coworkers the video for "Angel," an electrifying power ballad off the 1987 Aerosmith comeback album Permanent Vacation. "Angel," a relatively wholesome, chaste, soaring, transcendent, majestic, piano-driven power ballad. "Frontman Steven Tyler is not actually singing while stranded on the surface of the moon." That is a state-of-the-art in 1987 special effect.
4:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's 2012 or so and I'm wearing jeans and working in the San Francisco office of a music streaming service that got totally obliterated by the existence of Spotify. It's a tough break. I was the managing editor, which is not a real job title at a technology company. Or anyway, it's not a job title my coworkers are obligated to respect. Managing editor. Can't even manage not to get yelled at by HR. So I'm sitting in the office one day and I'm trying to give away two tickets to see Aerosmith live at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. And so I fire up a jaunty little email and
5:04 Speaker 04 I CC everybody and I'm like, hey, who wants to go see Aerosmith? I got two tickets to paradise. Maybe they'll play the greatest power ballad in rock and roll history. And I throw in the YouTube link to Angel because this song whips ass.
5:31 Speaker 04 I didn't say it whips ass in the email. That would be unprofessional. I'm not an idiot, but I love Angel very much. The incendiary guitar action, punctuating every word right there. I want your love. I do believe Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry is windmilling those righteous power chords while standing in the middle of a real life desert highway. I believe that part of the Angel video was filmed on location. Don't make it tough. I throw away my pride. The yearning, virile, super 80s grandeur of this pre-chorus, man.
6:15 Speaker 04 I caught Angel at random on MTV when I was nine years old and it was the best song I'd ever heard in my life. And it felt like MTV would never play Angel again. This is a deep cut relatively. They kept playing dude parentheses, looks like a lady close parentheses instead. And so I sat there every day with our VCR turned on and a blank VHS tape queued up so I could tape the Angel video if it ever came on again. And the day I got it... The day Angel came back on MTV and I leapt off my couch and I hurdled our coffee table and I mashed the record button like five seconds into the video, that was the
6:59 Speaker 04 greatest day of my life up to that point. It's like I won the Super Bowl. Enough's enough, I've suffered and I've seen the light. Can you blame me, really, for wanting to share some modest portion of my joy with my coworkers at this doomed streaming service? No, you can't blame me. Chorus.
7:37 Speaker 04 Fun fact, five years later, in 1992, the Angel in the Angel video played the Ghost of Christmas Past in the Muppet Christmas Carol. That's not true. Unbelievable song, fantastic song. So I CC the whole office and I say, "How do you do fellow important coworkers? Who wants to go see Aerosmith? Check out this rad video. I have a real job." And I get pretty much no reply for several hours. And then I get an email from HR. And I don't remember exactly what the email said, but it was words to the effect of "knock it off," right? Right. I might have actually gotten an email from our lawyer, who like all my coworkers, had way better things to do. And she's very polite and diplomatic,
8:22 Speaker 04 but she's like, "Please don't email everyone here anything like that ever again." And I'm like, "Oh, shit." And I go back and I re-watch the whole Angel video at my desk at work. And now I'm worried that there's an orgy in it or something, but there isn't. The spiciest moment I can find in this video is honestly a quite tasteful silhouette of a foxy lady undulating behind a large billowing sheet. The foxy lady is maybe, probably, mostly naked. And Steven Tyler's on the street in a trench coat. And okay, I see the problem now.
9:12 Speaker 04 All right, that's my bad dudes. I'm sorry I emailed that to everyone. That's not how a managing editor should behave. I maybe shouldn't work in an office anymore. I should probably move back to Ohio and never go anywhere or talk to anyone again, pretty much. Look, I'm not at my best in 2012. You know when I'm at my best? Back in the 80s, when I just sat around all day watching rad hair metal videos on MTV.
9:59 Speaker 04 I am confident that you can hear this guy's mullet, even if you are not partaking in the video version of this podcast. Business up front, party in the back does not suffice to describe the gargantuan voluminousness of this guy's mullet. A Fortune 500 company in the front, Jay Gatsby party in the back. No, that's dumb. This man's hair is large, biblically large. Now it is 1988 and I am 10 years old and I have just seen the face and the hair of God in a Striper video. Striper, the venerated Southern California Christian
10:41 Speaker 04 metal band. This song is called "I Believe in You" and it is an even more wholesome, chaste, soaring, transcendent, majestic, piano-driven 80s hair metal power ballad.
11:04 Speaker 04 The way Striper frontman Michael Sweet points emphatically when he hits that last note, "In my heart you'll stay," that's how you know this chorus is gonna biblically whip ass. From their 1988 album, "In God We Trust," this is "I Believe in You." Striper is a literally biblical name.
11:24 Speaker 04 Isaiah Chapter 53, Verse 5, King James Version, "But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." End quote. Striper with a Y. S.T.R.Y.P.E.R. It's Cooler with a Y. Get a load of these drums.
12:03 Speaker 04 That's Michael Sweet's brother, Robert Sweetz, on drums. Metal bands are cooler if there's brothers in them. I saw the "I Believe in You" video on MTV when I was 10 years old, and I was mesmerized. I am mesmerized by those righteous power chords. I am mesmerized by Robert Sweetz's drum kit with all the cymbals hung from chains overhead. I don't know if that sounds good from a drum tech perspective, but it looks cool as hell. I'm mesmerized by the string section of tastefully dressed foxy ladies playing see-through violins and whatnot. And I'm mesmerized as Michael Sweet keeps hitting notes higher than the
12:47 Speaker 04 towering peaks of Mount Sinai.
13:10 Speaker 04 Striper's famous black and yellow color scheme, also extremely cool, extremely metal. Would it shock you to learn that this song, "I Believe in You," has a key change? Would it shock you to learn that this song peaks with Michael Sweet hitting an even higher note? I suspect this does not shock you at all.
13:45 Speaker 04 The striper awesome mullet guy is singing way too hard to point this time. It's not a true classic hair metal song if it doesn't have at least one note that would physically kill you if you attempted to sing it. But what's that? Oh, you don't like piano-driven hair metal power ballads? Okay, that's fine. I respect that. Let me ask you something. Do you know a second song by the rock band Europe?
14:24 Speaker 04 You 100% know at least one song by the rock band Europe. They're from Sweden. You know "The Final Countdown," right?
14:37 Speaker 04 That one.
14:40 Speaker 04 Sorry, I had to do the whole thing. It felt rude not to do the whole thing. But do you know another Europe song? Because I know three. I know "The Final Countdown." I know "Let the Good Times Rock." And I know this one. I know "Open Your Heart" from the 1984 Europe album Wings of Tomorrow. "Open Your Heart" is a power ballad, and Europe's keyboard player is prominently involved. But this tune is not piano-driven per se. Instead, it's driven by the part where the guitar player physically throws his acoustic guitar off-screen and switches to electric guitar and starts whipping ass.
15:31 Speaker 04 I don't think I gotta tell you how psyched I was sitting on my couch the first time I watched Europe's guitar player go thup and then go brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr. I picked up our coffee table and I threw it at the ceiling. MTV used to play this stuff all the time. MTV used to be all hair metal all the time. All majestic power ballads all the time. All mullets all the time. Now, that's not true technically, factually, but that's what it felt like to me. It was all mullets to me emotionally. When I was 10 years old, MTV was the whole world to me. And to me, this was MTV's whole world.
16:15 Speaker 04 Righteous power chords, glass pianos, spandex, medium to severe lewdness and magnificent plumage. You wouldn't call this sort of thing critically acclaimed or even especially cool. But by the mid 80s, hair metal was ridiculously huge. And yeah, never mind, it was incredibly cool. And it did indisputably define the first decade plus of my life. I'll put it to you like this. I heard Black Flag, the Kings X song, way before I ever heard Black Flag, the punk rock band.
17:02 Speaker 04 Yes, in high school, in the mid 90s, the first several times somebody cool mentioned Black Flag, the band, I just naturally assumed they were referring to Black Flag, the song by Kings X, a hair metal adjacent trio from Springfield, Missouri. Holy crap, I had no idea these dudes lived in Missouri. I thought all the cool metal bands lived in California or Europe. I lived in Missouri for most of the first decade of my life. I lived in Eureka, Missouri, near Six Flags and also near a Superfund site. And no offense, but I can assure you Missouri was not this cool. And yet here is Kings X. Here is Kings X frontman Doug Pinnick, the coolest guy named Doug who ever lived.
17:46 Speaker 04 Doug is rocking a more Mohawk-based sort of Magnificence plumage. And Doug is starring in a weird, cool, unsettling rock video that features awesome state-of-the-art and 1992 special effects. The "Black Flag" video walked so the "Black Hole Sun" video could run. Meanwhile, Doug is hitting a climactic high note that would kill me if I attempted it.
18:26 Speaker 04 Yes, I said 1992. You heard me correctly. "Black Flag" by Kings X came out in 1992 and got played a lot on MTV in 1992. Now, you may have also heard me say dozens, if not hundreds, of times that hair metal did not exist in 1992. What's that dumb, ahistorical, wildly exaggerated, cliched statement I'm always making? Ah, yes, grunge killed hair metal. That's what I always say. In September 1991, the very first time Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video appears on MTV, within five seconds, "Burn on her, tch, tch, tch, burn on her," hair metal is dead.
19:10 Speaker 04 Five seconds, the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video premieres, and hair metal spontaneously combusts. Hair metal chokes on someone else's vomit. Hair metal dies in a bizarre gardening accident. But that's not true. And that's giving grunge way too much credit for existing, and I'm giving hair metal nowhere near enough credit for surviving. Yes, in the early 90s and beyond, the likes of Poison and Whitesnake and Cinderella and Warrant and Winger and whatnot enjoyed markedly less commercial success and media attention and critical acclaim compared to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and so forth.
19:53 Speaker 04 But plenty of early 90s hard rock did not qualify as alternative rock at all.
20:13 Speaker 04 You know what video played on MTV constantly in 1992? "Everything About You" by Ugly Kid Joe. Ugly Kid Joe are from Sweden. That's not true. They're from Southern California. The "Everything About You" video takes place on the beach. The lush cinematography, the righteous headbanging, the disconcertingly handsome lead singer. Think of this as the Temple of the Dog Hunger Strike video for dickheads. I don't even mean that ugly. Dickheads complimentary. Dickheads is the Ugly Kid Joe vibe on purpose. These dudes had another big hit in 92 with a weirdly awesome, dead-serious cover of "Cats in the Cradle",
20:57 Speaker 04 the 1974 Harry Chapin weepy folk lousy father anthem, "Cats in the Cradle". "My boy was just like me", but like, listen to "Everything About You" again sometime. It's got rude, scrappy, punk-adjacent energy. It's got a grunge crunch to it. It's got a disquieting, red-hot Chili Peppers-style funk metal breakdown. Well, I know, you know, everybody know. You can talk yourself into Ugly Kid Joe as Lollapalooza material. Yes, they maybe are alternative. Yes, but no. "Everything About You" is a hair metal song in sound and vision and temperament. For one thing, in the video,
21:40 Speaker 04 they're flying what appears to be a sex doll kite on the beach. That is hair metal ass behavior. For another thing, Ugly Kid Joe's frontman sounds an awful lot like David Lee Roth, also on purpose.
21:58 Speaker 04 That "hate everything about" is primo David Lee Roth. That's primo classic Van Halen. Shout out Van Halen. Metal bands are cooler with brothers in them. The early 90s was not all Nirvana all the time. Alternative rock was not the only kind of rock. All sorts of additional, non-alternative flavors of rock back then. Plenty of impressively coiffed and manscaped dudes, bellowing, chaste, soaring, transcendent, majestic, acoustic guitar-driven, hair metal power ballads.
22:42 Speaker 04 And if you don't believe me, then "Love is on the Way" is on the way.
23:01 Speaker 04 From their 1992 album, "The Lizard", here we have "Saigon Kick", with "Love is on the Way". I feel bad for Saigon Kick's drummer, because his band's biggest hit has basically no drums in it, so in the video, they just hand him mallets and one drum, so we can go "brrr brrr" periodically. Here, play with this. Saigon Kick. Aha, they must be from Florida. Saigon Kick are from Coral Springs, Florida. Please don't tell me why they named themselves that. No, thank you. Also, the Japanese version of this album, "The Lizard", includes Saigon Kick's cover of "Dear Prudence", by The Beatles. Also, no thank you. Moving on to 1993.
23:45 Speaker 04 Oh, look who it is.
23:59 Speaker 04 Yes, it's Aerosmith with "Livin' on the Edge", the lead single off their 1993 album, "Get a Grip". If you saw a brief shot of Steven Tyler writhing around with half his body painted black, just forget you saw that. Also, you can't tell in that clip, but he's naked. Just forget I told you that. It's not safe for work. "Get a Grip" is the Aerosmith album with "Cryin' Amazing and Crazy" on it, the Alicia Silverstone video trilogy, the Godfather trilogy of its time. Aerosmith are absolutely nobody's idea of an alternative rock band, and yet Aerosmith are absolutely thriving on 90s MTV. Does the name Budnik mean anything to you?
24:43 Speaker 04 Bobby Budnik, the dickhead bully from the early 90s Nickelodeon summer camp sitcom, "Salute Your Shorts", the redhead mullet kid who was also in Terminator 2? He looked like Muppet Babies' Axl Rose. This actor's name is Danny Cooksey. Did you know that Danny was also the frontman for a rough, tough, mean hair metal band called Bad for Good?
25:22 Speaker 04 I overused the Muppet Babies as a reference point, but this kid really does look like Muppet Babies' Axl Rose. He looks like Super Mario Kart Axl Rose. That's Bad for Good, bad numeral four, good, all one word. And I personally am totally convinced that Budnik is rough, tough, mean, bad, and 19. I believe at least 20% of those things. That's rude. I'm sorry. I really like this song. "19" is a cover of a Phil Lynott song, the great Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy, coolest guy named Phil ever. And look, given the choice between a hair metal song about how the singer is 19... In a hair metal song about how the singer's girlfriend is 17,
26:07 Speaker 04 I will always enthusiastically take this. Yes, incredibly, Budnik is my second favorite member of Bad for Good, whose lead guitarist is named Thomas McRocklin.
26:34 Speaker 04 Thomas McRocklin. Not Tommy McRocklin, not even Tom McRocklin. I am smitten by both the formality and the flagrant informality of Thomas McRocklin. Oh, he must be Irish. All of these songs I got from this incredible 2013 Spin magazine list called No Alternative. 40 hard rock songs that Nirvana couldn't kill. I was working at Spin at the time. I worked there for like 10 minutes total. It's not my fault. Not an office job and not my fault. But I got to write a few blurbs for this phenomenal list of non-alternative early 90s rock songs that my brilliant coworkers put together.
27:19 Speaker 04 Chuck Eddy, the amazing rock critic and editor and author of Stairway to Hell, the 500 best heavy metal albums in the universe. Chuck was a driving force on this list and I was delighted just to be along for the ride. This list is not really online. The slideshow doesn't work now. It's not my fault. But I emailed my old Spin colleague, Christopher R. Weingarten, and I'm like, "Do you remember this 90s hard rock song list we did? Do you have it saved anywhere?" And Chris writes back immediately and he says, "Yeah, I found it by searching my email for Jackal."
28:06 Speaker 04 For you audio-only consumers, your ears do not deceive you. That was a Chainsaw Solo. That was a Chainsaw Chorus, actually, to a 1992 hit song called "The Lumberjack." Jackal Hale from the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Jackal are on Geffen Records, which means Jackal and Nirvana are label mates. Sure, that's Jackal with a Y. J-A-C-K-Y-L. It's way cooler with a Y. As Striper taught us, any hair metal band name is cooler with a Y. Let me break this down for you. You know what's not cool? A hair metal band named Dentist. What? Dentist? No, I don't want to listen to that.
28:51 Speaker 04 Those guys sound terrible. You know what's cool? A hair metal band named Dentist. D-E-N-T-Y-S-T. Ooh. They replaced the I with a Y. That's super tough. I'm intrigued. You know what's incredibly cool? A hair metal band named Dentist. D-Y-N-T-Y-S-T. Oh, shit. They replaced both the E and the I with Y's. That is rough and tough and metal as hell. I loved that spin list so much. Forty hard rock songs that Nirvana couldn't kill. The alternative to the alternative.
29:29 Speaker 04 Rad songs by Warrent, Slaughter, ACDC, Motorhead, Extreme, Def Leppard, Queensryche, etc. That's Queensryche with a Y. And there's an umlaut over the Y. Holy shit. The list was ranked, I believe. And so, you know, the number one, the very best early 90s hard rock song Nirvana couldn't kill? That would be "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses, led by Axl Rose. Real life, full-size, non-Super Mario Kart. Axl Rose, yes. "November Rain" is the correct choice for the number one non-Nirvana early 90s rock song. Yes, of course. However...
30:15 Speaker 04 I was there. I was there, sitting in a sold-out movie theater in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday, February 14th, 1992, Valentine's Day. I might have actually been on a junior high date, scare quotes, with a young lady who, as it turns out, was just not that into me. Good for her. It's a good call. I was there for opening night of the best movie I'd ever seen in my life, and I found out that the best non-Nirvana hard rock song of the early 90s might have actually come out in 1975.
30:53 Speaker 00 I think we'll go with a little Bohemian Rhapsody, gentlemen.
30:56 Speaker 05 Good call.
31:05 Speaker 04 The Wayne's World movie. Directed by Penelope Spheres, Penelope is the best. Wayne's World. Opening night, the Bohemian Rhapsody scene. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, yes. Wayne's World is set in present-day Aurora, Illinois, and a subtle joke amid all the phenomenal unsubtle jokes here is that early 90s cable-access TV era Aurora, Illinois looks like and is basically still fully living in the 70s. The second-best song in this movie is Wayne's girlfriend's band's cover of Ballroom Blitz, a song originally released by the glam rock band Sweet in 1974.
31:50 Speaker 04 Great song, great cover in this movie. Shout-out Tia Carrera. Shout-out Crucial Taunt. Wayne's about to swing by a rock club where Meatloaf, the 70s and 90s rock star Meatloaf, he plays the bouncer. Who's playing? The shitty Beatles. Are they any good? They suck. I love every last second of the Wayne's World movie so much in all this movie's super 70s glory. No stairway, denied, but nothing compares to the Bohemian Rhapsody scene.
32:39 Speaker 04 It's the dudes in the backseat. Wayne's best friend Garth is driving, Wayne's riding shotgun, it's their movie. But this scene's not the same without the two long-haired, burnt-out dumbasses in the backseat. In all their 90s via 70s hair metal glory. The guy in the back on the left is about to operatically raise both his hands and roll his eyes skyward as he sings "Mama mia, let me go." And I will never forget the glorious, joyful, goofy look on this dude's face for as long as I live.
33:32 Speaker 04 There's another guy in the backseat now, the drunk guy in the middle, who's singing along, but he's also maybe gonna hurl. "Absolute bedlam in my movie theater in suburban Cleveland on Valentine's Day 1992, when the Bohemian Rhapsody scene hit. Screaming laughter, total chaos, unremitting joy. It was the Minecraft movie of its day. This is unequivocally my all-time greatest movie theater memory. This scene, we come to this place for magic, etc. And to this day, I'm curious. This is 1992, we are 90s teenagers.
34:15 Speaker 04 To be clear, Queen are eternally cool, Queen are eternally huge, Queen do not require redemption or rediscovery. Bohemian Rhapsody is not a deep cut that this movie is shrewdly excavating. But Bohemian Rhapsody blaring in a roomful of 90s teenagers? This is not our song, this is not our time, this is not our generation, this is not alternative rock." This song is pure, uncut 1975. This song is "Our Parents" in song form. And here on Valentine's Day 1992, we love this scene. Immediately and permanently.
34:57 Speaker 04 And "Bohemian Rhapsody" is suddenly present tense again. In 1976, the song peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. After the Wayne's World movie, "Bohemian Rhapsody" re-entered the charts and now it peaks at number two, beaten out only by "Jump Jump" by Criss Cross. I'll allow it. The Wayne's World bump. It's delightful. Did you know that the sequel, Wayne's World 2, came out just a year and a half later? In late 1993? That's efficiency. You know what happens at the end of Wayne's World 2? An Aerosmith concert. Look who it is. But yeah, to this day, I'm curious.
35:41 Speaker 04 Thinking about that packed, joyful theater full of 90s teenagers. How well did we know "Queen" and know "Bohemian Rhapsody" before Wayne's World? How well did I know this song? Is it "Bohemian Rhapsody", specifically and exclusively, that has this timeless teenager delighting time warp ability? Or does all ridiculous operatic 70s glam rock carry this potential? Because I feel like all my life, long before Wayne's World and long after, ostensibly new rock bands have been actively trying to teleport us all back to the 70s. And the farther away we all got from the actual 70s,
36:24 Speaker 04 the harder those bands tried. And look, nothing else is "Bohemian Rhapsody", nobody else is "Queen", except no substitutes. However...
36:51 Speaker 04 The little guitar shutter there, the vibrato, the dur dur, whir dur dur dur. Within six seconds, this song is an all-timer. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 35th episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, Cole and the 2000s. And this week, we are discussing, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," by The Darkness, from their 2003 debut album called Permission to Land. Also, Darkness' frontman, Justin Hawkins, is naked as this video begins, and I think his nudity is somehow audible. I gotta do an ad break now, or HR is gonna yell at me again.
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38:58 Speaker 04 All right. Fantastic. Grunge did not kill hair metal. Rock and roll is not a monolith. As a naive, impressionable, Wayne's World-loving teenager, I struggled to wrap my head around this. The media attention, the critical attention, the hype, at any given time, led me to the conclusion that there was only one type of rock music happening at that particular time. But just as Queen was not the only type of rock music happening in 1975, grunge was not the only type of rock music in the early 90s. Pop punk, Green Day, The Offspring, etc., was not the only type of rock music in the mid 90s. New metal,
39:40 Speaker 04 with the turntables and the rapping and whatnot, Limp Bizkit and various other dickheads. New metal was not the only type of rock music in the late 90s. And the super cool garage-adjacent "Rock is Back" crew, The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, etc., that was not the only type of rock music in the early 2000s. Anywhere in that span, anywhere in the span of human history, you can also find an anachronistic, rowdy, sleazy, heavily tattooed, so uncool they're kinda cool, "Meat and Potatoes" all caps rock and roll band singing about how much they love cocaine. Sometimes those bands could be hard to spot, though.
40:37 Speaker 04 Not this time. Here we have the Anaheim, California, rock band Buck Cherry, one word, and their hit 1999 debut single, "Lit Up", "Mama Can You Wait", I forgot about that part. Referring to an attractive lady as mama is an Aerosmith-coded move for me. I realize Aerosmith did not invent that, but I always think of Aerosmith. Anyway. The shirtless, gyrating, super-tattooed cocaine-loving gentleman in the "Lit Up" video is, of course, Buck Cherry frontman Josh Todd, who has two first names. Josh is always talking to the press about how rock and roll is trying so hard to be cool that it's not actually cool anymore.
41:19 Speaker 04 Talking to Rolling Stone Australia in 2016 about why he wrote a song called Tight Pants, Josh says, quote, "Because a woman's arse is fantastic." And he laughs and he says, quote, "Let me tell you what's missing in rock and roll. You used to be able to dance to it. There was also a lot of sexual innuendo. It was fun. It was a party. It was a really good time. You can't find that anymore unless you go to pop music. People aren't singing about stuff that's sexy and fun. Plus, there's not a lot of great frontmen. The ones I love are those that the guys want to be and the girls want to fuck.
42:03 Speaker 04 We also need more guitar heroes. We need more great frontmen. With both of those in place, there'd be a really good movement again." End quote. That is Josh's legitimately thoughtful response to the question, "Why did you write a song called Tight Pants?" Verbatim, the question is, quote, "Why write a song, parentheses, Tight Pants, close parentheses, about a woman's arse?" End quote. That's a great question. Buck Cherry did not sound very much like 1999 in 1999, but that was the point. That was Buck Cherry's value proposition.
42:45 Speaker 04 Every era of rock and roll needs "Let me tell you what's missing in rock and roll" type bands. Buck Cherry were your favorite rock band in 1999 if you thought most other rock bands in 1999 sucked. And these fellas have put out 11 albums and prospered and persevered and only grown more sophisticated. For example, in 2014, Buck Cherry released an EP called Fuck. Six songs total on the Fuck EP. Track one, Somebody Fucked With Me. Track two, Say Fuck It. Track three, "The Motherfucker." Uh, track four, "I Don't Give a Fuck." Track five, "It's a Fucking Disaster."
43:30 Speaker 04 And finally, track six, "Fist Fuck." I wish that one weren't last. I will say that. I would have preferred to say one of those other song titles last, but I was trying to respect Buck Cherry's intent. I should have just made up my own track listing. Nobody would have checked that. Also, Buck Cherry released their Fuck EP on their very own record label, which they named F-Bomb Records. F hyphen bomb. Would I respect Buck Cherry just a tiny bit more? If they'd summoned the necessary courage to name their label Fuck Records? Yes. Yes, I would respect them a tiny bit more. Are we doing this, or are we doing this? F-Bomb Records.
44:15 Speaker 04 Now is not the time for half-measures, Buck Cherry. Let me refer you to track two on your own Fuck EP, which, if you'll recall, is called "Say Fuck It."
44:36 Speaker 04 Hey, guess what? It turns out that "Say Fuck It" by Buck Cherry is a cover of "I Love It," the 2012 smash hit I-love-the-cokeine-pop song by Akana Pop and Charli XCX, with the line "I love it" replaced by "Say fuck it." It's a great idea. Meanwhile, by 2003, the rock and roll landscape has gotten even more chaotic and confusing in that it's increasingly hard to tell the old bands from the new bands and to tell the cool bands from the so-uncool-they're-almost-cool bands. Sincere question, how cool or not cool is this precisely?
45:29 Speaker 04 Here we have Jet from Melbourne, Australia, with their blockbuster 2003 debut hit single, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?", no question mark. And by one way of thinking, this is peak 2003. It's scruffy, Strokes-adjacent garage rock. It's soundtracking a viral iPod ad. It is absolutely loaded with 70s signifiers in an emphatically 21st century sort of way. The black and white video, the guitarist's AC/DC t-shirt, the tambourine, the quasi-Motown bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, ba-da-da, bounce that sounds like Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life", even if Jet insists they weren't trying to rip off "Lust for Life".
46:14 Speaker 04 Does all of that make this song cool? Or hopelessly uncool? Jet frontman Nick Sester talks a lot about how he wrote a lot of the first Jet album while sitting on the toilet. That also could go either way, coolness-wise. Yes?
46:38 Speaker 04 The singer's prodigious mutton chops are quite 2000s via 1970s as well. That's Jet frontman Nick Sester's brother, Chris Sester, on drums, by the way. Rock bands are cooler if there's brothers in them. Talking to Ticketmaster in 2024, that's cool. Nick says, quote, "The whole premise of Jet was to write straight-up rock and roll. We grew up listening to our parents' rock and roll records. So what was interesting to us was rock and roll that had swagger and was sexy, and you could dance to it", end quote. That's buck cherry talk, though. That doesn't sound like a guy trying to be cool or current. That sounds like a guy trying to start the band you loved in 2003
47:23 Speaker 04 if you thought all other 2003 rock bands sucked. And that attitude, of course, leads to cool people thinking that Jet sucks. Jet's second album, released in 2006 and called "Shine On", that's the album that Pitchfork famously reviews by simply posting a GIF of a monkey peeing in its own mouth. We're a video podcast now. We can show that GIF? There it is. No, it isn't. That's the IKEA monkey. That's my mistake. That's the monkey that they found swaggering through an IKEA in Toronto in 2012. Jet's cool with me, but nobody in Jet is pulling off that coat. I'll tell you that much. I love the IKEA monkey.
48:08 Speaker 04 And if we're talking viral monkeys, I vastly prefer the IKEA monkey to the Jet pitchfork peeing monkey. Just a personal preference. For a band that sounds an awful lot like The Strokes, I have never personally equated Jet with The Strokes, because The Strokes are cool and Jet are not. Rock and roll is very confusing to me in the early 2000s. You can't tell the cool bands from the uncool bands. You can't tell the old bands from the new bands. Oh, you say you want fun party music, but rock and roll doesn't do that anymore? Try finding anybody partying harder than this guy.
49:03 Speaker 04 Andrew W.K. "Party Hard." 2001. Andrew is returning rock and roll to first principles, specifically the principle of partying hard. And the "Party Hard" video is just robust sweaty dudes thrashing around buck cherry style. But "Party Hard," the song, sounds like you're getting beaten to death by a giant sentient iPod. Is this man from the future? Is this man from the distant past? Is this man serious? Maybe that's the confusion of early 2000s rock music. "Are you serious?" was a question I was constantly asking back then as a confused 20-something. Are these people serious?
49:48 Speaker 04 Are the critics who love these people serious?
50:05 Speaker 04 The Donnas. Take it off. 2002. The Donnas are from Palo Alto, California. The key to a high school talent show themed video is to have a few scruffy, burnt out kids in the audience who really dig your band, but not too many people, because too many people digging your band isn't cool. Do you know Dazed and Confused, the great Richard Linklater movie from 1993, about 70s high school kids, Matthew McConaughey going, "All right, all right, all right," and so forth? A question for you. Do you remember Dazed and Confused now as a 90s movie or a 70s movie? Or specifically as a 90s doing
50:46 Speaker 04 the 70s movie? I am similarly pleasantly temporally vexed by The Donnas, who debuted in 1998 with an album called American Teenage Rock and Roll Machine, and put out an album called The Donnas Turn 21 in 2001, and yet every word of every Donna's song sounds like it was scratched with a butterfly knife into a high school desk in 1976. They sound a little bit like The Runaways and a lot like Kiss, and they're very clearly, very serious about sounding like a 21st century American young adult rock and roll machine. But they
51:28 Speaker 04 also look and sound and act like their geometry teacher put them in detention for 25 years. Same with the band Drunk Horse. Do you know Drunk Horse? That's a great band name. Drunk Horse are from Oakland, California. I love Oakland. In 2003, Drunk Horse put out an album called Adult Situations. It's a great title. With an album cover I would characterize as tastelessly censored. And this song is called National Lust. It's a great title. And National Lust was one of my favorite rock and roll songs of 2003, in part because even now, every few months, a line from this song pops into my head and instantly I'm
52:13 Speaker 04 in a fantastic mood. The line is...
52:17 Speaker 04 Tight pants make it hard not to think about sexual intercourse.
52:33 Speaker 04 I think we've established that this is a fantastic premise for a rock and roll song. It is 2003 and with lots of rock bands, we're dancing, we're having fun, we're having a party, we're pissing off our parents, but also directly emulating the music of our parents. And as requested, we're indulging in lots of sexual innuendo. But this word, innuendo, it implies a sneakiness, a caginess, a plausible deniability, double entendres and that sort of thing. Whereas we're looking for single entendres. And we'd like our new stuck in detention rock stars to be as direct as possible.
53:24 Speaker 04 They are called The Darkness. It's a great band name. It's pretty dark. They are from Lowstoft, East Suffolk, England. I have never been there, but it sounds lovely. And they first break out via a ridiculous operatic 70s glam rock anthem called Get Your Hands Off My Woman. The Darkness consist of Justin Hawkins on lead vocals and guitar, his big brother, Dan Hawkins, also on guitar, rock bands are cooler if there's brothers in them, Frankie Pellain on bass, and Ed Graham on drums. Unfortunately, even when you're staring right at them, it's easy to forget there's three other guys in this band when you got
54:06 Speaker 04 frontman Justin Hawkins prancing around in a bare-chested zebra striped catsuit like he's porno Beetlejuice. Did you know that the first line of this song is, "You are drunk and you are surly"? I didn't.
54:35 Speaker 04 I really dig Justin Hawkins singing that line like he's auditioning for the Barber of Seville. All these concert-based rock videos spanning 30 years now, they all look remarkably alike, don't they? You got four or five hairy, grimy, surly dudes rocking out on stage. There is a comforting similarity. But falsetto porno Beetlejuice, this guy's a little bit out of the ordinary. Yes, the silliness, the Freddie Mercury swagger, the uncouth language, the flagrant "what's wrong with being sexiness." Justin Hawkins is really going for it. In an early 2000s rock and roll culture where most frontmen aren't really
55:19 Speaker 04 going for it. You don't see a lot of zebra striped catsuits in 2003. This song, "Get Your Hands Off My Woman," is about some motherfucker who won't get his hands off Justin's woman. In the pre-chorus, Justin valiantly acknowledges his woman's bodily autonomy. "Oh, I've got no right to lay claim to her frame. She's not my possession." And then he calls the motherfucker another 5,000-pound swear word.
55:59 Speaker 04 The way that Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins points emphatically when he hits that last note, that's how you know this chorus is gonna biblically whip ass. Are these people serious? What does being serious mean in this context? To put it in the crudest, laziest rock critic terms, the formula here is AC/DC plus queen plus irony, equals the darkness. The AC/DC part, the exquisite knucklehead, chunky guitar riff part, you get that immediately on this first Darkness album, on the opening track, which is called "Black Shuck," and is about a dog that doesn't give a fuck.
57:01 Speaker 04 Black Shuck, in fact, is about a dog that doesn't give a fuck and mauled two churchgoers in the year 1577 in Bleithburg, a small English town south of Lowstoft. As the darkness guitarist Dan Hawkins told the magazine Total Guitar in 2011, quote, "You wouldn't exactly hear Bon Jovi writing a song about a church in Bleithburg, would you?" end quote. The Darkness are extremely, proudly, relentlessly English. They will take great pains throughout their tumultuous but improbably lengthy career to remind you that they are English. And we start right here on
57:44 Speaker 04 track one, album one. Talking to the website Music Radar about Lowstoft in 2023, Justin Hawkins says, quote, "I've definitely found there's a lot of truth in that expression. Never forget where you come from. What set us apart was that town. For us, it is really a geographical foundation. And if you don't have that framework, then you've lost it and you're just trying to be global. That was really important lyrically with stuff like Black Shuck." end quote. This song also gives Justin the chance to operatically sing the word parishioners.
58:39 Speaker 04 I had to get the "in his eyes" in there. "The Darkness are not screwing around." Or "The Darkness are blatantly screwing around." The sound of this Permission to Land record is gloriously anachronistic. The sound is 70s glam rock multiplied by 80s hair metal. But in 2003, we're used to new bands sounding like old bands. But now the style and the attitude is also anachronistic. Vocally and visually, Justin Hawkins is proudly channeling Freddie Mercury. He's channeling David Lee Roth. He's preening. He's mugging. He's porno clowning around. He's got armadillos in his trousers, or his catsuits, whatever. He is preposterous.
59:23 Speaker 04 And "The Darkness are funny." But just because you're funny, that doesn't mean you're joking. Right? Talking to the English journalist James Gill in 2002, before "The Darkness" even got a record deal, Justin Hawkins says, quote, "Rock is funny by definition. AC/DC had a dude in school uniform for no reason, and they've done it ever since. Now there is a culture of 'that can't be real.' Rock is about the suspension of belief. It's like, that's not acceptable anymore. Just be moved by the music. Where's the problem?" End quote. This song is called "Growing on Me." One potential problem is that it's kind of gross.
1:00:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, this song is about having a sexually transmitted disease. Technically, "Growing on Me" qualifies as a double entendre, as innuendo, but only technically. "I can't get you out of my head." That's gross, man. "That can't be real." Man, Justin Hawkins is frequently nude in this video as well, but at least he's tastefully pixelated.
1:01:02 Speaker 04 And when he's not nude in this video, Justin is often dressed in a sparkly white jumpsuit, just in case you are tempted to forget that he is the frontman. The chorus call and response there of "You're really growing on me, or am I growing on you?" It's quite profound. Profound and also gross. Just because you got jokes doesn't mean you're a joke band. Yes? In 2005, the Sony A&R man Nick Rafael did an interview with the website HitQuarters, and he talked about trying and failing to sign The Darkness. Nick says, quote, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them. The business as a whole thought they were uncool.
1:01:47 Speaker 04 In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real. Now, 3.5 million records later, they're one of the greatest of all bands in the world, and that's because what they did was real. They weren't copying anyone. If they were copying, then they were copying someone from 20 years ago, and no one else was doing that." End quote. Well said. Here's a Darkness song called "Friday Night." I just love the way Justin Hawkins sings the word "badminton."
1:02:35 Speaker 04 They're even playing badminton and ping pong in the video. That's dedication. Hey, here's another super fun, upbeat, chunky, AC/DC riff-type, delightfully jaunty song called "Given Up."
1:03:02 Speaker 04 Oof, except "my mama" here actually refers to the singer's mother. And lyrically, this is a super gnarly song about being addicted to heroin. Dan Hawkins, the guitarist, has helpfully clarified that his little brother, Justin, has never actually tried heroin in his life. But nonetheless, drugs are a significant part of the equation with the darkness. And there is legit darkness amid the jauntiness. Though sometimes you do just want a soaring, transcendent, majestic power ballad. Don't you?
1:03:48 Speaker 04 This song's called "Holding My Own." I love this one. The incendiary guitar action, punctuating every word right there.
1:03:58 Speaker 04 That's a double entendre, by the way, that phrase. I'll leave you to explore this song lyrically in private. This is a phenomenal debut rock and roll album, Permission to Land. And it is consistently phenomenal. And I say that even though one phenomenal song immediately eclipsed all the other ones.
1:04:31 Speaker 04 This dude really is naked and pixelated a lot. The first remarkable aspect of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," to me, is that the central guitar riff here is so fantastic,
1:04:45 Speaker 04 that it doesn't matter that the lyrics are pretty dumb. Endearingly so. The lyrics are stupider than they are clever. "My heart's in overdrive and you're behind the steering wheel." That winsome clunkiness only underscores how in love Justin Hawkins is. He's so in love that his powers of wordplay have severely diminished.
1:05:22 Speaker 04 Indeed, the pre-chorus is just Justin Hawkins singing, "Touching you, touching me, touching you, yeah, you're touching me", whilst wearing, yet again, a bare-chested catsuit and reclining on a giant pillow in a purple spaceship decorated with a statue of cavorting naked ladies. This dude takes great pains to remind you that he is the lead singer. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" is a song about believing in a thing called love. Talking to Songwriting Magazine in 2018, Justin says, "I had this thing in my head that if we had songs with love in the title, we'd be successful. There were a lot of bands that were trying not to write about love,
1:06:07 Speaker 04 or they were writing about love but without saying the word, like they were too cool to say it. I thought, fuck that. Think about some of the greatest songs of all time. They have love in the title. It's there for a reason, because it's something we can all feel and understand what it means. To feel embarrassed by it is a bit immature, really." End quote. And the Darkness certainly don't want to seem immature. Chorus.
1:06:51 Speaker 04 It's the chorus to "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" that makes this the Darkness song to rule them all. Yes, the ludicrous, ultra falsetto karaoke heat check of this chorus. You're at karaoke, you've had 3.5 alcoholic beverages, and you stumble across "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" in the songbook, and you think, "I can do this." You can't. Every note of this chorus will physically kill you if you attempt to sing it. That's what makes this song great. That's what makes this song rock and roll. You know what's also super rock and roll? The lead singer yelling "Guitar!" before the guitar solo. Outro.
1:07:44 Speaker 04 At this point in the video, a giant space octopus, or something, is attacking the band's Lord Helmet spaceship. I don't think you really want me trying to assess these videos on like a plot level. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" is the song that lands the darkness on the cover of Spin Magazine. Well, it lands Justin Hawkins on the cover of Spin Magazine. Well, it lands Justin Hawkins on the cover of Spin with three other people, under the headline "The Next Big Things." This is February 2004, and if anybody knows what's going on rock and roll-wise, it's Spin Magazine. And yet, with this cover, Spin Magazine is clearly saying, "nobody knows what's going
1:08:29 Speaker 04 on rock and roll-wise." Left or right on this cover, we got Paul Banks of Interpol, dapper, gloomy New Yorkers, emulating the 70s in a different way. We got Brody Doll. She is the lead singer of the great LA super grimy punk band, The Distillers. We got Justin Hawkins, wearing a giant white coat and pink and white striped pants, making angel wings with his hands and his legs spread as wide as possible. And finally, we got Jeff Rickley of the New Jersey post-hardcore band, Thursday. Thursday are fantastic, and they can be quite bombastic, and yet nary a jumpsuit in Jeff's closet, I imagine.
1:09:11 Speaker 04 This magazine cover, these are four very distinct ideas of what the term "rock star" means. And rest assured, only Justin Hawkins is channeling rock stardom in the 70s glam rock and 80s hair metal sense. In this article, Spin asks all four of these people what band they most admire. Whose career they most admire. And Justin Hawkins says, quote, "In terms of experiencing lineup changes and still maintaining credibility when you hit back, it's Aerosmith. They all had their differences. One of the best things about the Stephen Davis Aerosmith biography, it's called Walk This Way, is that there is no happy ending.
1:09:55 Speaker 04 They're all still bitter and they've still got issues with each other, but they're still working it. And it's still a valiant, enviable position to be in, to be a member of Aerosmith." End quote. Look who it is. The second Darkness album is released in 2005 and is called "One Way Ticket to Hell..." and back. Wordplay. Two observations. This song's guitar riff is nearly identical to the outro of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love." And also, this song is about cocaine.
1:10:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, in the "One Way Ticket" video, hell has frozen over with snow and the Darkness are stuck in a giant snow globe and then they have to climb a giant mountain of snow. Also, this song starts with the sound of someone sniffing cocaine. Justin Hawkins has said in interviews that at his peak, or his rock bottom, I suppose, he spent 150,000 pounds a year on cocaine. I don't know what that translates to in American dollars, but I imagine it's a lot. This song is dumb and repetitive and I love it. I can imagine Wayne and Garth and the other guys in that blue car in the Wayne's World movie singing this. The second Darkness album.
1:11:29 Speaker 04 Okay, there's a song on this record called "English Country Garden." There's a song on this record called "Knockers." The full spectrum of the human experience. I picked up my 14-year-old son from middle school the other day and I was listening to this album and I failed to anticipate the inevitable.
1:11:50 Speaker 04 Right? So I'm driving and my son's riding shotgun and "Knockers" comes on and it says that right on the little screen and my son looks at the screen, looks out the window.
1:12:04 Speaker 04 Doesn't say anything, doesn't acknowledge it. Just silent, palpable shame. Everyone in my family knows better than to engage with me at this point. I'm a liability. I've gone from unfit to work in an office to unfit to work in my own house. I'm gonna end up doing this show alone in a storage unit, or perhaps a sewer. From here, the Darkness run into some drug-related issues, some extended hiatuses, et cetera. Let's not get into it. Here's what you need to know, and Buck Cherry know this also. You can't be the "I love the cocaine band" for 25 years. You physically can't.
1:12:46 Speaker 04 You can be the "I loved the cocaine band", but that is different. In 2012, seven years later, the Darkness released their third album called Hot Cakes.
1:13:04 Speaker 04 I have been preparing myself to say that out loud for several weeks. Oh, wow, look at this cover. For you audio-only folks, this cover, it's a tasteful illustration of three foxy, scantily clad ladies reclining on a bed of pancakes. Also, they are covered in what appears to be maple syrup. The pancakes are covered in maple syrup. And also the women. This cover is so incredible that I'm afraid to listen to the actual album, lest it not live up to the cover. You feel me? Same deal, actually, with the sixth album by the Darkness,
1:13:45 Speaker 04 which is released in 2019 and is called "Easter is Canceled." Holy shit. Get a load of this cover. Look at Super Buff Jesus smiling on the cross. What on earth is going on here? If I'm reading this image correctly, and I'd like to believe that I am, I believe the Darkness are triumphantly disrupting and thus preventing the crucifixion of Jesus, which would mean that technically Good Friday is canceled, but never mind, let them cook. That cover is amazing. I am amazed. I'm afraid to listen to this album also out of profound respect,
1:14:28 Speaker 04 but I will love this band forever and I will love both of these albums forever, even if I never hear them. And I encourage you all to share these albums with your friends and your family. Just maybe don't talk about this band with your coworkers at work.
1:14:48 Speaker 04 We are delighted to be joined once again by Jill Hopkins, journalist and podcast superstar and Chicago institution. She is the Civic Events Producer at Metro Chicago and G-Man Tavern. She hosts myriad live events. She is very busy and she is very tired. Jill, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
1:15:09 Speaker 07 Thank you, Rob. I am out of bed. I am drinking a non-sleepy time tea for a change. And I am so excited. Thank you for having me back.
1:15:20 Speaker 04 Of course, we are grateful to have you. You mentioned to me that you saw The Darkness, I think in 2003, at the Double Door in Chicago. You also mentioned that that was your wedding venue.
1:15:33 Speaker 07 True.
1:15:33 Speaker 04 The Double Door. And so what was the better show?
1:15:37 Speaker 07 So, okay, so my wedding, the greatest day of my life. Listen.
1:15:44 Speaker 04 Sure.
1:15:44 Speaker 07 I don't, I don't have children, so that was the greatest day of my life. Not the day my kids were born, which I imagine were your best days. But um, The Darkness put on a hell of a show.
1:15:59 Speaker 07 They were so good.
1:16:01 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:16:01 Speaker 07 They're one of those bands that even without knowing what they look like or having seen a video, you hear the album or whatever and you're like, I bet these guys really turn it out. Like, you can just tell. Yeah. So they were great. And it's the Double Door, and this was like in its heyday. And I miss that venue so much. It was my favorite place to see shows. But it was a, it's a small room. I don't remember what the capacity was, but I can't imagine it was more than like 400. And just on a single level, like not really a balcony situation.
1:16:41 Speaker 07 Um, and those dudes just, they did not come to play. They were, they were taking over and so say all of us. Let's tap into America.
1:16:56 Speaker 04 It is, there is so much, I try to resist it, but there is just so much spinal tap. In this entire situation, I just, I want to just quote the entire movie to myself and to others. The entire time I'm listening to this.
1:17:09 Speaker 07 But I don't mean that as a slight, I meant.
1:17:11 Speaker 04 Of course not.
1:17:12 Speaker 07 Hugely complimentary, like they, they knew what we needed as a society.
1:17:22 Speaker 07 In two thousand and three, which at the time felt, you know, as an American woman. Felt like kind of drudgery, it was the Bush administration. You know, we're going to like, you know, the protests and stuff, yeah. And we're like, I can't imagine it could get any worse than this.
1:17:44 Speaker 04 Yes, yes.
1:17:45 Speaker 07 And here we are.
1:17:47 Speaker 04 And here we are.
1:17:49 Speaker 04 I know it was twenty plus years ago, but like, I imagine the crowd, like when I saw the darkness, what I responded to was the joy, like the elation, like we're enjoying being a rock band. And you are enjoying watching this rock band, which is not a vibe as much as I love like Interpol, for example, like that joy is not the transmitted emotion there. Like, do the darkness like summon up sort of a joyful elation that not many rock bands in two thousand and three were, were trying to create?
1:18:19 Speaker 07 Oh yeah, it was a very, it felt like nationally, internationally, Chicago's rock bands were all about the fun and the vibes and the joy. We had a great scene in two thousand and three, still do. But like in two thousand and three, there were bands, uh, like Bible of the Devil and Las Vegas and, uh, just, you know, really great, swaggy, tongue in cheek people who got it. Uh, and then nationally, we're, we're, we're dealing with like the Strokes and Interpol. And I've seen Interpol live and I've seen Interpol live at like a house of vans in Brooklyn.
1:19:02 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:19:02 Speaker 07 There are people on skateboards while Interpol is playing and it was still not a joyful experience.
1:19:11 Speaker 04 They were skateboarding sullenly and within themselves.
1:19:15 Speaker 07 Yeah, it was, it was only, and I do, I do, I love Interpol, I love Paul Banks. I, I think his album with, was it the RZA or the JZA, one of the, the two?
1:19:26 Speaker 04 He had a rap album, he sure did.
1:19:29 Speaker 07 And it was great. I played the heck out of it on my radio show. Um, I think he's a great songwriter, but there needed to be some,
1:19:41 Speaker 07 you know, smiles at the show. There needed to be dancing on the dance floor. There needed to be girls in the front row. Like, there needed to be this kind of attitude that I don't think we had seen since the late eighties and early nineties that they really captured. And they were so much fun. I, shout out to my friend Hobbs, who gave me his extra ticket so we could go to this show. And yeah, I mean, it was, it was packed in, it was sold out. Um, and folks were just beaming ear to ear. Just every, like, little element that they brought to the stage brought more, you know, people looking at each other, just
1:20:26 Speaker 07 like, what is, what is happening? At some point, so there's a, it was a flat floor with a staircase right in the middle that went down into the basement that had like another bar and like a closed circuit TV so you could see what was going on upstairs if you wanted to do that. And it's, and from the stage, there was a stairwell that went down into the basement so you could get to the green room. So at some point, Justin Hawkins leaves through the stairwell on the, the stage. Uh, you know, the rest of the, the band is vamping or whatever. And he comes back up through the stairwell in the middle
1:21:07 Speaker 07 of the floor, on the shoulders of his tour manager, in a different jumpsuit than he was wearing when he left the stage.
1:21:15 Speaker 04 A costume change.
1:21:17 Speaker 07 A costume change. And everybody lost their minds. It was what I think people think Kiss must have been like.
1:21:31 Speaker 07 But I've also seen Kiss live and it, I can't imagine that it was that much fun in the seventies. I mean, there was just, it was just, it was just fun. It was just the embodiment of a fun show. And there's not enough of that anymore, or just in general, not even anymore.
1:21:47 Speaker 04 In general.
1:21:47 Speaker 07 Just in general. We're not having the times that we should be having at the shows.
1:21:54 Speaker 04 Well, I was gonna ask, I know you to be a big Pearl Jam person and I was, you know, what you were interested in rock wise in the two thousands. We go from like peak grunge and alternative rock and later in the nineties that sort of fizzles out. Maybe you're into pop punk. Maybe you're into new metal. But like, what was your sense of what rock and roll was like in the early two thousands, in two thousand and three? And did the darkness like make sense in that context? Or was the whole point of the darkness, how anomalous they were, what a blast from the past, or just a breath of fresh air they were at that time?
1:22:27 Speaker 07 Like, this is a podcast and people can't see the face that I made when you said pop punk or new metal and it was.
1:22:36 Speaker 04 Okay. I sensed that. I did, I did sense that. Yes.
1:22:41 Speaker 07 But like, you know, like the early two thousands, when things were looking kind of dire there after the pop punk and, you know, no, there's, I've seen Fall Out Boy, much love to those, those local boys. There's, you know, Chicago's also a great pop punk city. But it was bleak. I don't know how else to say it. And then like around twenty twenty-two, when like the White Stripes and the, the Strokes and even like, even hip hop needed a little something and like N E R D was, was, was out and about.
1:23:23 Speaker 07 And there was the, the, the hives and the vines. Oh my God. What a, what a, what an embarrassment of riches that came out around then. There was a, a, an ethos and a sound that came out that hadn't existed in a few years that I was so grateful, so grateful for. And then I was at a party for a bunch of dudes.
1:23:49 Speaker 07 On Estrus Records, like that was a great record label. So we had like, um, yeah, just a, it was a really good, look it up. Hey, who's listening? Look up Estrus Records. Try to get them to come back. Um, but so there was a party, like a house party. And, um, they were playing, uh, Queens of the Stone Age Rated R, like the full album at this party. And I had not heard it before. And when I tell you that it, my ears perked up. I was like, what is this? And not even the Feel Good Hit of the Summer, cause that kind of blended into the background, mostly because we were all also doing drugs.
1:24:27 Speaker 04 Drugs, yes. It just made, it felt like he was just narrating your experience in real time. Yes.
1:24:32 Speaker 07 All of those things, I'll take two.
1:24:36 Speaker 07 So like, there was this, that kind of focused me. There was this great, uh, website called Stonerock.com. That was this like one stop shop for that kind of music, the Desert Sessions, Kias, Fu Manchu. Uh, you know, all that kind of stuff. And that's where I was in the early 2000s. And despite all of that, I never had bad feelings for, um, uh, like glam metal, the LA Sunset Strip kind of thing.
1:25:15 Speaker 04 Poison, et cetera.
1:25:17 Speaker 07 Um, I think I'm in like that exact right age where I was like, yeah, Unskinny Bop is not offensive to me. I, I'm a 12 year old girl. This is great.
1:25:31 Speaker 04 The ideal age to be for Unskinny Bop.
1:25:34 Speaker 07 It was, I mean, honestly, who else was unskinny bopping? It was just the tweens. We were having a good time. So I didn't have like any ill will towards that kind of thing. So when the darkness came around, they felt like the exact right meld of this, this early 2000s rock sensibility. And the showmanship of a late eighties Sunset Strip band.
1:26:03 Speaker 07 I loved it.
1:26:04 Speaker 04 I love that. That's a great, that's a great framing for that. That makes a lot of sense to me because I love Queens of the Stone Age too. And like, they're not, they are laugh out loud funny. Like Feel Good Hit of the Summer is a laugh out loud funny song. Like, I, there's a lot of, I see a lot of connection between the darkness and the Queens, just like the flamboyance and just the silliness, almost, but like rocking silliness. Like, is that element important to you in a rock band? You love Pearl Jam, who are not the funniest band who ever lived. But ideally, is there some sense of humor about your ideal rock band?
1:26:39 Speaker 07 Oh, my gosh, yes. I mean, I saw Spinal Tap 2 in a theater. I spent money just a few months ago to just reclaim that emotion. I think a tongue in cheek attitude can really elevate a band. If you take yourself a little too seriously, then like, I don't need to take you seriously. You've taken yourself seriously enough for all of us. And there's, you know, there's bands like, especially like, in the seventies, Velvet Underground, I feel like they took themselves pretty seriously.
1:27:16 Speaker 04 Pretty serious, yeah.
1:27:17 Speaker 07 I, I feel like early U2 did not take themselves seriously, but modern day U2 totally takes themselves seriously. Um, I think that R E M wanted to make you think that they were taking themselves seriously, but honestly, they were just a bunch of silly geese in a band from the South. Um, and I, I do, I very much appreciate a sense of humor in a band.
1:27:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:27:45 Speaker 07 In the same way that I take it seriously in a romantic partner. Like, you know how you go out with somebody and you think they're hot or whatever, they're really good looking, and then you find out that they suck as a sense of humor person? Like, you can't, you can't tell a joke, they can't tell a joke. And you're just like, oh, my God, what a fucking disappointment.
1:28:13 Speaker 07 You're not gonna marry someone who can't make you laugh. And I feel that way about bands. And the entire Permission to Land album is a laugh riot. They know what they're doing.
1:28:25 Speaker 04 They do, they do. It's also extremely English, which I think is important. Like, this band is like, very, very English. And I do think that that works for them. Like, does that work for you? Like, is there an exotic quality? Or is there, like, the silliness of singing about, like, you know, churches in the 1500s or whatever's going on on that record? Is the Englishness important to the joy that you get from this band?
1:28:53 Speaker 07 Just this morning, so we're listening to Permission to Land on the big TV in the bedroom as I'm getting my life together. And I'm looking at the lyrics and my husband's looking over my shoulder. And there was a phrase there, I think it was the Alco Straits or something, in some song at the top of the album. And he's like, oh, those lyrics are clearly AI. What is that? That's not a thing. And so I just looked it up and I was like, it's a highway in like a town. And he's like, okay. I mean, it's so, some of the references are so niche. And I don't know if English shit is exotic, but...
1:29:35 Speaker 04 That's the wrong word.
1:29:36 Speaker 07 It's whiteness in a different font. It's whiteness in...
1:29:41 Speaker 04 More serifs. Yes, yes, yes.
1:29:43 Speaker 07 It's an old English, old English font. But I do think that their regional pride, I don't know what else to put it, does make a difference. I like it when bands are just like, hey, we're from here and we're gonna write this into it. Some people, there's, you know, there's a conversation about like, what's the greatest American rock band? And the answer is R.E.M. But there is a lot of talk about, you know...
1:30:21 Speaker 07 Bruce Springsteen in the East Street Band, or, you know, peak Aerosmith, or whatever. And those, I think the thing about those groups is that they are very much from where they're from. Like, they don't try to be like, just a generic thing. They are talking about the stuff that's going on where they are. And Chicago has a lot of civic pride, and I love that. Even when, like, they, people move away. There's still just a Chicagoanist about them. And there's, there's very, very, very Anglo things going on with the darkness.
1:31:06 Speaker 07 While also not having the thing that sometimes, you know, when bands are British and they, they don't sing in their accents. I don't know how, what the word is for that. And there's not like, they're not like, oh, mate, we're, we're, I'm so bad at impressions.
1:31:22 Speaker 04 That was great. That was fantastic. That was a perfect, pitch perfect.
1:31:30 Speaker 07 The end of that. But they're, they're very British, uh, down to the teeth. They got British ass teeth.
1:31:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's true. It would be a great quiz. Go ahead.
1:31:44 Speaker 07 Just like, you can't tell a band from, from just this. I, I have British teeth and I'm from the south side of Chicago. I don't know. But there is, there is something very quintessentially British about them that I think is endearing. And it does make them more likeable, I think.
1:32:02 Speaker 04 It would be a great quiz, like, English or AI, like lyrically. It's one, it's, it's tough. It's, it's gonna be harder than you think. You're not gonna get a hundred percent on that.
1:32:12 Speaker 07 I think this is how you become a millionaire, Robbie. You make that, and then you sell it to the N Y T games.
1:32:18 Speaker 04 Yeah, right next to Wordle. Totally.
1:32:21 Speaker 07 Connections, Wordle, whatever you call this.
1:32:25 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:32:27 Speaker 07 It'll be less frustrating than Connections.
1:32:31 Speaker 04 My kids don't like connections either. They get very angry at the purple clue.
1:32:35 Speaker 07 Because why are they just gaslighting us, Rob?
1:32:38 Speaker 04 It is. It's obnoxious. It's designed. It's designed to annoy you. It's that's the most annoying thing about the New York Times in 2026 by far.
1:32:45 Speaker 07 That's easily, you know.
1:32:47 Speaker 04 That's that's that's our biggest problem. I'm very jealous that you got two catsuits at the Darkness show, that you got like a costume change, right? Because I do think Justin Hawkins looks, acts and dresses like a rock star in a way that I don't remember very many, if any, other people dressing in 2003. It's like looking the part, another key component of this band playing the part.
1:33:16 Speaker 07 Yeah. And as like I said, this is a podcast where people won't see, but you can see behind me, there's a poster of Prince, there's a poster of David Lee Roth era Van Halen. So I'm obviously a fan of a of showmanship in a lead in a front person. And Justin Hawkins is all of those things rolled into one. Same with The Hypes. Those that was another band that I was like, what else are these dudes gonna do for a living? Sell cars? Like, they're not gonna like, this is, this is their calling, obviously. Like, he, he couldn't have done
1:34:00 Speaker 07 another job for work. Genetically blessed with that voice, but also with the kind of waifish male body that allows a a women's extra small catsuit.
1:34:16 Speaker 04 Very, very lit frame. Yes.
1:34:20 Speaker 07 Yeah. And like, not everyone can just be carried around by their tour manager. You have to be. You'd have to be built a certain way. Um, I am not a easily liftable person myself.
1:34:32 Speaker 04 Nor I.
1:34:33 Speaker 07 People don't realize how much boobs and ass weigh and they think that they can just get me up there like Baby Howser at the end of Dirty Dancing, but no, I'm very dense as a human being. Justin Hawkins, uh, I, if he told me that he could fly, I would believe him.
1:34:51 Speaker 04 Totally.
1:34:52 Speaker 07 Like he would take to the wind like a leaf in a breeze.
1:34:55 Speaker 04 That's right, a flying squirrel, Evel Knievel sort of vibe. Totally, totally.
1:35:01 Speaker 07 And he's got that, that range, the vocal range that's great. And, you know, just the, like a curled lip kind of eye contact situation. There's a little bit of Elvis in there. There's a lot of David Lee Roth. There's a lot of Freddie Mercury in there. There's, uh, and the, and also his own thing. His own thing. And like the fact that he and his brother are in the band together. They must have been a menace at home. I don't know what their parents.
1:35:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, their parents are still recovering.
1:35:41 Speaker 07 I know. I hope they bought them a house or something.
1:35:44 Speaker 04 Passed out on the couch or something, or an RV at least. I don't know if that's an English conception, but yeah.
1:35:49 Speaker 07 The caravan.
1:35:51 Speaker 04 The caravan. There we go. Yeah.
1:35:54 Speaker 07 But I mean, there's, there's nothing that that guy could have done other than be the lead singer in a very flamboyant rock band. Like if, if he, if he just decided to do like a, you know, a Woody Guthrie thing, people would be like, no.
1:36:12 Speaker 04 I don't.
1:36:12 Speaker 07 Get out of here. Get.
1:36:14 Speaker 04 I don't want to hear about the Dust Bowl, Justin. Thank you. We're all set. Yeah.
1:36:19 Speaker 07 We've got enough songs about the troubles or whatever it is.
1:36:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:36:25 Speaker 07 He's British, he's always singing about the troubles.
1:36:28 Speaker 04 That's true. Yes.
1:36:31 Speaker 04 Let's not even speculate.
1:36:33 Speaker 07 No, I won't.
1:36:34 Speaker 04 About the folk rock career of Justin Hawkins that could not possibly exist. Yes.
1:36:41 Speaker 07 He's just so good at it. He's so good. They're still putting out albums. He's a good twenty plus years older and he's still just like.
1:36:48 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:36:49 Speaker 07 Doing it. Good for him. I don't have that kind of energy anymore.
1:36:52 Speaker 04 No, no. I wouldn't wear a catsuit back then, but I would certainly would not wear a catsuit now. Yes.
1:36:59 Speaker 07 I mean, if somebody wants to pay me enough, I would probably.
1:37:04 Speaker 04 Speaking.
1:37:05 Speaker 07 Yeah, I'm just putting that out there on your very popular podcast.
1:37:08 Speaker 04 That's right. Yeah. DM Joe Hopkins at your social media site and just negotiate. Yeah. Work that out.
1:37:14 Speaker 07 I mean, I, I own.
1:37:17 Speaker 04 Take a seat.
1:37:22 Speaker 07 Looking for an excuse.
1:37:25 Speaker 04 Do you, do, are you pro or anti guitar solo? Do we have too many guitar solos or not enough guitar solos in rock and roll, Joe?
1:37:33 Speaker 07 Pro guitar solo, pro bass solo, pro drum solo, pro vocal solo, not enough dance.
1:37:44 Speaker 04 That's right. Not enough scatting. Sure.
1:37:48 Speaker 07 I'm just saying that these people, professional musicians.
1:37:54 Speaker 07 Have practiced and worked hard their whole lives.
1:37:58 Speaker 04 It's true.
1:37:58 Speaker 07 And they deserve a little moment in the sun. Also, I deserve to go to the restaurant.
1:38:06 Speaker 04 Yes, yes.
1:38:11 Speaker 04 I see it. I'll be right. Yes, totally, totally. You get your moment in the spotlight. I just don't have to be physically present to witness it.
1:38:20 Speaker 07 Exactly. But I can still hear it.
1:38:23 Speaker 04 That's true.
1:38:24 Speaker 07 From the ladies room. And I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be hovering over a seat and I'm just gonna be like, damn, this guy is fucking rocking out.
1:38:33 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:38:34 Speaker 07 But I mean, honestly, if you're good enough that the rest of the people in your band have allowed you to have a solo.
1:38:44 Speaker 04 Grudgingly, probably.
1:38:46 Speaker 07 Especially if those people are still on stage while you have a solo, they haven't fucked off to the bathroom.
1:38:51 Speaker 04 Just like watching, yeah, yeah.
1:38:53 Speaker 07 I have seen Alex Manhalen do magic for four minutes in a row.
1:39:04 Speaker 04 That's a long time.
1:39:06 Speaker 07 That's a long time. I've seen Prince play
1:39:09 Speaker 04 Of course.
1:39:10 Speaker 07 a guitar for as long, I don't even know how long, as long, in Prince time, 12 days.
1:39:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, yes. A fortnight of Prince guitar soloing, yes, totally.
1:39:22 Speaker 07 I have been witness to some of the greatest musicians that have ever existed exhibiting their talent at, you know, at the highest level, and I think that should be acknowledged and rewarded. If you don't like a guitar solo, I'm sorry that you don't appreciate joy.
1:39:42 Speaker 04 Well said, absolutely. Just to wrap up, you mentioned to me, it was very funny the way you put it, you, you, you host live band karaoke, or you used to host live band karaoke, and you said that around when the darkness hit, when I Believe in a Thing Called Love hit, you said like, the white boys discovered their falsettos, I believe, was roughly paraphrased, the way, yes.
1:40:09 Speaker 04 How, what was that experience like? And have you ever heard anyone competently sing, I Believe in a Thing Called Love, in a karaoke setting?
1:40:21 Speaker 07 I will say that that was one of the best jobs I've ever had.
1:40:25 Speaker 04 It sounds like it.
1:40:26 Speaker 07 It was really fun and it and it honestly prepared me for so many other things that I've done in my life. Cause you have to be prepared for anything. You're working with musicians who have to recall music on the on a dime in seconds, honestly. And sometimes there's songs where as the host who, you know, you try to have as much knowledge of the song list as you can, sometimes you're just gonna be on stage to rescue somebody if they
1:41:01 Speaker 04 Oh, that's tough.
1:41:02 Speaker 07 If they need it. Yeah. You you you would be surprised at how many people over the years were like, I want to sing Baby Got Back. And then you give them the lyrics and it just is like a Santa Claus scroll that keeps going. There's so many words and they're like, oh no.
1:41:21 Speaker 04 Fifteen seconds saying it's like, I've made a terrible mistake. You just you want the you want the hook. You want the actual, you want to be removed from the stage physically. So do you have to like go in like you're like a permanent understudy? For whoever's on stage and you have to rap the rest of Baby Got Back?
1:41:39 Speaker 07 Not the rest, but sometimes you just need to just like give them the cue. You have to just be like
1:41:45 Speaker 04 I like them.
1:41:47 Speaker 07 Yeah, exactly. If there's sometimes people get all the way through verse, verse, chorus, verse, and then the bridge comes and they have no idea what's going on.
1:42:00 Speaker 04 The bridge has tripped up many.
1:42:03 Speaker 07 So many people fail at the bridge, but there's this this song. I've seen several incredibly great versions of these dudes. I don't know what is happening in their homes or their cars or their showers, but they figured out that they can hit these notes and they want everyone to fucking know about it. And I am, I was always so here for it. There is, there was, you know, an eye contact that you make with the people in the band. You're just like, okay. Oh, Chad's got it.
1:42:42 Speaker 04 It's always Chad. It's Chad or Kevin or Gary 100% of the time.
1:42:48 Speaker 07 Oh, my goodness. James III is up here just getting it. Okay, Jimbo. And like you are always, I'm, I feel so proud. I feel like, I'm up. I'm just like, they come off the stage. I'm just like, bring it in. Give it, get in. And then, you know, you get a, you get a hug from a busty black woman. I've made their week.
1:43:13 Speaker 07 They're just gonna ride on that cloud.
1:43:15 Speaker 04 Still telling that story in 2026, just as you are. There we go. What a beautiful thing. What a beautiful thing rock and roll is.
1:43:23 Speaker 07 What a beautiful thing rock and roll is. It's the, it's one of my favorite beautiful things. I am, I am just so jazzed about the darkness. Did you know that their current drummer is Roger Taylor from Queen's son?
1:43:43 Speaker 04 I did not know that, and yet I did. Nothing makes more sense to me. Yeah, I knew that in my heart.
1:43:50 Speaker 07 I, I mean, it, it does make all the sense in the world because also this kid's name, a kid. He's probably a 40.
1:43:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, he's in his thirties.
1:43:59 Speaker 07 His name is Rufus Tiger Taylor. And I was like, there's no way that he did not give himself the name Tiger. And then I looked into it and he was given the middle name Tiger by Freddie Mercury.
1:44:16 Speaker 04 No better distor of middle names.
1:44:20 Speaker 07 It was, oh, Roger.
1:44:24 Speaker 07 What if we named him Tiger? He smells cocaine in it. I don't know.
1:44:28 Speaker 04 It's getting better. The accent is, I don't know how it's possible, but your English accent is getting better.
1:44:34 Speaker 07 If anybody wants to hire me for that.
1:44:37 Speaker 04 That's right.
1:44:37 Speaker 07 On your vastly popular podcast, I'm just saying, they can, I'm here. I'm sag.
1:44:47 Speaker 04 Joe, it is wonderful talking to you. This has been fantastic and I'm so grateful for your time. Thank you.
1:44:53 Speaker 07 I've missed us, Rob. I miss us.
1:44:54 Speaker 04 I have. And you're going to be back soon. So don't worry about that.
1:44:59 Speaker 07 I hope so. I'll see you in Ohio.
1:45:15 Speaker 03 This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. And as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teas, lasages and supplements? Make sure you look for sales throughout the month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market.
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