Heaven Can Wait

BACK IN THE early 2000s, as nu-metal seethed and hip-hop and dance music burgeoned, rock fans and the media which covered the genre were desperate to find a new gang of long-haired riff slingers to champion. And for a minute, at least, that band was the Les Paul–wielding, unitard-wearing, Queen-and-Thin-Lizzy–worshipping U.K. act known as the Darkness.

“When we came out in 2003 with our debut, Permission to Land, all the press was like, ‘This is the band that’s going to save rock and roll,’” recalls singer and guitarist Justin Hawkins. “And to me it was like, ‘Well, what kind of peril is rock and roll actually in? Is it teetering on the edge of a volcano, or is it just that nobody’s done anything exciting with it for a while?’ And so people got excited about a new vessel, at least initially.”

Today, Hawkins acknowledges, that same “death of rock and roll”