"It's all very well Eminem going on about Detroit. You have to be a bit braver to go round singing the praises of Lowestoft. "
"There�s an old title that keeps on asserting itself, and that�s, three words, �Short Fat Cock�. As we don�t know the length of the album yet we may have to just sit on that one. Not sit on it literally, of course�.that could be quite painful."
What's the best way to trash a backstage area?
"I'm not particularly good at that. The first night of our support tour with Def Leppard, I kicked a chair that was heavier than I thought and broke my toe. I had to get injections every night to get through the shows ."
"One time I was sitting on someone's shoulders, and I almost popped a ball on the back of someone's neck. Squash! Once, I tried to do a headstand and incorporate the splits, and one of my balls popped out right in front of Ed and he totally fell out of time. I like to show him my balls now and then, but not in that context. "
What song should be played at your funeral?
"The theme song from Blazing Saddles, played on a tuba [laughs]. The roof of the church will hydraulically open up, and I'll be lowered on a crane, preserved in formaldehyde while riding a white tiger."
"It's a great honour to have a baby giraffe named after me and it's wonderful that Suffolk Wildlife Park is prepared to stick its neck out like that."
"Leather leather whatever the weather"
"we must remember that it's far too early to start sucking each other's cocks"
''Think of the world as a forest,'' 'There's redwoods, shrubs, and the U.K. is perhaps a conifer. And we've pissed on that stump and left our scent, so now we've got to battle a lot of other dogs and much bigger trees. It's one tree at a time,really. We're not bionic -- we've only got one set of genitalia each -- so it's going to take a while.''
"Yesterday i bought a microphone costume. You wear it and sing through the mesh at the front. It's got a bow tie.
That just speaks for itself, doesn't it?" He hoots with laughter. "I had to have it cos I'm the singer, aren't i? Class."
On Germany changing the album cover:
"They put on more actually, It's called permission to f*cking land there. With an umlaut."
"We've reclaimed "silly" in the way lesbians have re-claimed dyke".
"We're basically a rock 'n' roll laxative. And as someone once said, there's nothing so underated as a great sh*t!"
I'm going to have an arse-revealing catsuit made, which will show Kylie what a REAL peach bottom should look like"
" What about bands like The Strokes? They're shit, I like virtuoso guiter solos and screaming front men.........and Neil Diamond!!!"
"That's rock 'n' roll! laughs Justin, pointing at their drummer, who's slumped against a nest of pillows. Ed's f*cking alseep!"
"On the next album. "The next one's gonna be called Bad Diet. In 20 years we'll be like Meatloaf."
"No", chuckles a now wide awake Ed, ruefully: "It'll be Attempting Re-entry."
The next album will be more of the same and we'll try not to climb up our own arses until album three or four."
"Not Lemmy, he doesn't like us, apparantly, but I don't lke him, so I don't give a frogs fat arse. When was the last
time Lemmy was number one in the album charts? He can f*ck right off, warty c*nt!".
On the Xmas video:
"We thought about getting some elves but we couldn't get any real ones, so we were offered a load of midgets who would have worn big ears."
On spendin his money:
"I think I'll spend some money on patenting a Darkness whelk-clam trident. I want to rush that idea through and get them on the merchandise stall as soon as possible.I want to get a little workshop somwhere and start churning them out. I'm going to buy a shark too.I'll get an enormous tank built for it and just sit there watching it, smoking."
On previous titles for their debut album:
"There were some serious heavy-duty titles suggested, "Bad Penis" was one of them. "Thank You, That Will Suffice
For Me, Now If You Please Some Sex For My Friends" was another one. That actually came as close to winning as anything else we had. We also had "Canary Dwarf" Dan's contender was "Spaceship". He woke up one morning going "Eureka!" over that idea, for some reason."
(other rejected titles were "Rock Bottom", "The Long Mince Home", "Short Fat Cock".)
"I particularly like the last two lines of Friday Night. they still move me a lot."
"There's the people who were like, 'Oh, I could have signed them years ago.' We're like, 'No you couldn't have.
You're a c*nt and we've always thought you were a c*nt."
"This little zip-up number in orange leather and gold dots is worth around �3,000."I reckon we could auction it off for more than that because we could add a stupidity tax on top."
" Everyone has an inner knobend that needs to get out occasionally"
"I got 20,000 pounds from Ikea. It paid for Permission to Land- In a way, it's a flat pack album"
"I think that we realised that Dan and I could be a winning combination. A driven, serious person and a total twat."
"If you don't like music, f*ck off and go and drive a bus. This is the entertainment trade and you need to be entertaining people. If you're not doing that, f*ck off and work in a library, you twat!"
"I just can't wait to do the Meat loaf tour, I think it's going to be triumphant. We would do anything to rock with
Meat Loaf, including that. I'm going to leg it onto that stage like a bat out of hell!"
"But we'll be gone when the morning comes", adds Frankie.
"Give me a 'D'! Give me an 'Arkness"
"Never let it be said I didn't go commando at Knebworth!"
"The costumes have to be chisselled on rather than sewn. They'll be really spectacular, because I've got to change quickly, I'll be going commando. It's a case of greasing round the scrotum with swarfega and shaving my buttocks so nothing catches on the fabric."
Kerrang: Hello and how are you today?
Justin: "Today of all days, I am slightly tired, but feeling healthy. Which is like a conundrum locked up in a riddle.
I'll start peeking up a bit soon."
" The Darkness is like a sweet lady woman. You will never fully fathom it, and after a while you will stop trying
because you love no other woman."
"The unveiling of The Darkness ASCAR was an emotional moment � 4 wheels of fury, primed to race that baby
in a one-way journey to hell and back. Orange flames lick provocatively around the Hammerite black panels of despair as I salivate with anticipation. Also, the number 69 holds special significance. Back that car for us � it's a winner!"
"Our gigs give people a excuse to behave like tits. It's the rave mentatility. But unlike raves, you don't wake up with eyes like saucers and shit all up the back of your trousers!"
About his white catsuit: "The white one? I'm not wearing that one anymore. I tried to do the splits in it but the arse
split and one of my balls fell out on a TV show. it's irreparable now."
Have you got a thought for the day?
"You can't polish a turd. Ed's just saying 'we've all got to duck when the sh*t hits the fan' but I reckon we should go with 'you can't polish a turd'."
"We don't assume that having played with these people we're instantly innovated to their status.
The minute you start getting arrogant about that, is when you stop making friends. We can't afford to do that just yet. When we headline, then we'll become real arseholes!"
"Extra curricular activities. yeah that sort of works, rolls off the tongue"!
On wearing tight fitting catsuits:
"The thing is you have to go commando in those things. It's a question of how you avoid looking like you've just pulled your haemorrhoids forward, or when you get a stray testicle that wanders off to the right. Their a nuisance those things"
"I wanted to be like Steve Tyler or Bon Scott and then realised I was actually closer to Meatloaf, which is the wrong
end of rock,"
something falls off from underneath the van, and the next stop reveals that everything that can leak underneath
a VW camper is. "When this happens," explains Justin, "the best thing to do is drive on before something else falls off."
At an early show with only 5 people in the audience:
"I dedicate this next song to you five," shouts Justin, "you know who you are."
How do you guys keep your hair so well groomed? Nicola, Portsmouth.
"It's a combination of carpet tape and a lot of hope!"
"A lot of these things backfire on us quite badly. We trashed a dressing room at the Sheffield Arena and the
next day they put us in an electrical cupboard."
on groupies - "It's good to have that level of organisation. You can't legislate for these wildcards sitting around with shotguns in their underwear - screw that, get it organised and get them registered. Get them tested!"
On nick names - "My Mum used to call me Bugsy, everyone else used to call me Wanker!"
"Quim!" shouts Justin, to uproarious laughter. "I like quim," - Justin insists.
"It's written on a passport - "yeah, if you look closely you can see the word quim. And then you open it up and there's
a picture of me in it, which is ideal, really."
"We play space lords of the manor in this video. The space ship bit is my favourite. Obviously, the pterodactyl
rape scene won't feature heavily on 'CD:UK', but it works!"
'It's going to be a bit like having sex in front of your parents - you know, that moment when you're a teenager and you've been having a wank with your eyes closed in your bedroom and you wake up and there's suddenly a steaming mug of tea next to you?'
Dan
"We even register our stalkers, that way it doesn't get scary. We know where they are at all times."
"The roof could cave in on a venue, and we'd still be playing. Ed fell off the back of the stage once and we kept playing."
"We've given ourselves the biggest handicap ever and we've just got a hole in one."
"I wanna f*ck the world, up it's own arse"
"Well when the fuck are we playing Wembley?"
"We're shooting the videos this week, I've just jumped in a swamp having been chased by spear-throwing natives and have been attacked by a crocodile. This combined with jet-lag and a slight hangover is just a great combination."
"If you have a star as a frontman that simply doesn't give a flying fuck and you never know what he's going to get up to onstage every night, that takes the pressure off."
"Our tour manager was offered four hundred dollars from a fan to get into the New York gig and he didn't take it.
I almost fired him when I found out - that's almost one hundred dollars each."
"People say we'll be gone in 6 months, but well be conquering Andorra by then."
On "Growing on me" being released in the UK:
"Number 11 was great, it's like having 2 no 1's. Plus it's one louder than 10!"
Nancy a cheerful old hippy who worked in theatrical costume for years, saw the darkness as her bus pass into styling rock n roll bands.
"When we met her it was unbelievable," remembers Dan. "We were all totally sucked into her world. She claimed
to have styled the royal family of Luxembourg." "We knew it wasn't right at the time, but then none of us said anything," says Ed. "She said she saw me as a wizard, Justin as the Beast Master, Frank as a dandy and Ed as..."
"It might have been Flash Gordon," says Ed dryly.
"You know when a guitar solo is going really well when you have to switch guitars half way through, then just
carry on!"
A strange thing happens when you�re soloing: your balls get bigger and your shirt gets more� opener.�
"Fuck me, that stinks"- Dan referring to his thin lizzy shirt-which at the time was drying on the radiator
"Anyone got any moisturiser?" calls Dan. "I've just had a shave and my face feels like it's gonna fucking fall off."
Dan is confessing to someone: "The thing is, I've actually run out of Thin Lizzy T-shirts."
"We were quite naturally twats for a long time but now we are considered cool for some reason."
We're a bit like a donkey, aren't we? We never fail to amuse--and we're quite hairy."
Frankie
"We are the revolution and have been sent to pull rock from its own arsehole."
"There's never any time to sit around sucking eachother's cocks"
"When you're climbing a mountain, you can't stop half way up and start sucking your own cock."
Our album is selling well on import in America but Wall-Mart wont stock it because of the woman's bum on the sleeve. We'll just re-shhot it and turn the named woman around so we can see it from the front."
"You see people standing there at gigs and you can tell they're so uptight that their buttocks are really clenched.
Free you arse and your mind will follow."
"Some people may think what we do is cheesy, but one man's cheese is another man's meat."
A mobile phone starts ringing, the second one this show. Justin looks around at the rest of the band who pretend they can't hear anything: "For fuck's sake Frank, answer that fucking phone." "Hello, Mum, I'm on stage," says Frank casually.
"It doesn't matter if you're the stage manager or a groupie, we demand professionalism."
(On the growing me video) "We got pissed up in a pub and came up with it!"
" I would have the arrogance to dispute the existance of crop marks. However, I would say with all certainty that there is a phenomenon known as skid marks and I challenge anyone to dispute that."
ED
Sex, drugs or rock & roll?
" For me it would have to be sex, probably! If you could only have one. Because rock & roll, well you can get bored of a song. Drugs, you could get bored of taking too many drugs. But you can never get bored of sh**ging though!
Well I won't."
On Justin pulling the button off his coat:
"Wanker! That coat is still ruined. The button is safety pinned on."
"Yeah, I get called Badger because I have white hair in my eyebrows, it's a natural thing. The white hairs just came up when I was about 13, for no reason whatsoever! So people called me Badger."
"Yeah. We were on a Welsh TV show and Justin's trousers ripped open revealing something that should not have been revealed. I was so disgusted by the sight that it actually put me out of time."
"I find in the day you can't see fireworks. But pinching someone's bum should definately be done in the light, as you need to see what you're gunning for!"
"I've got a gong!"
" I believe in the possibility of large eels, but that's all."
"On the surface holding my own is about wanking. But it's also something deeper than that"