Back in 1998, Justin Hawkins had no idea that his soon-to-be band The Darkness would be the first new group to grace our front cover. With their 2003 debut Permission To – and a generous supply of cat suits – they brought classic rock to mainstream audiences in a way that almost no one else has done since. Their wild days of the early 2000s are in the past, but the band haven’t stopped creating nuggets of rock perfection, most recently with But will they help make Hawkins’s dreams of becoming king of his own castle come true?
