Two decades after Permission to Land crashed into the rock scene in a blaze of falsetto and spandex, The Darkness continues to chase the same lightning.
The multi-platinum British quartet’s latest release, Dreams on Toast—an LP that manages to be playful and profound—finds frontman and guitarist Justin Hawkins, guitarist Dan Hawkins, bassist Frankie Poullain, and drummer Rufus Taylor leaning into their eccentric instincts.
There’s the feral glam-punk bite of “I Hate Myself,” the arena-ready strut of “Rock and Roll Party Cowboy,” the sun-soaked ‘70s shimmer of “The Longest Kiss,” and the dreamy, slow-burning tenderness of “Hot On My Tail.”
The group even ventures into country with “Cold Hearted Woman,” a twangy detour that’s as unexpected as it is delightful.
In advance of the much-anticipated SF stop of its Dreams on Toast tour (Thu/13, The Fillmore, SF), Poullain told 48 Hills that the show’s namesake album, like its predecessors, was born out of curiosity.
“The albums are journeys of discovery,” he says. “They’re adventures in rock music—but not just rock music now. We sometimes play around with bits of country, folk, and even Italian cinematic music. We close the album with ‘Weekend in Rome.’”
On Dreams on Toast, Poullain also pushed his own playing in new directions.
“Sometimes I went a little bit posher,” says the bassist. “I’ve always avoided becoming a posh bass player. But on ‘Don’t Need Sunshine,’ that was probably the one that was most contrary to my usual style. I tried to really warm up the song and give it a sense of melody.”
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The title Dreams on Toast sounds absurd on its face, but Poullain says that’s precisely the point.
“I don’t want to know what it means,” he says. “It’s a feeling. Life’s like that a lot of the time—an iceberg. You see what’s on the top, and underneath it’s subconscious, dark, and murky. I like that.”
He mentions Morrissey and The Smiths as touchstones, famous for developing song or album titles that are open-ended. “The French call it ‘following your nose.’”
The album cover—designed by Grammy-nominated artist Perry Shall—only deepens the mystery with its tongue-in-cheek snapshot of band members appearing as high-flying executives in slick, sharp suits holding big ‘80s mobile phones, evoking yuppie excess and corporate swagger amid a backdrop of a glam-rock stage.
Conceptually, it winks at the idea of ambition, excess, and slightly absurd dreams—maybe exactly the kind of “dreams on toast” that the album title hints at.
“It’s a feeling of collapse and decay in Western capitalism,” says Poullain. “There’s nothing political on the album at all. But that’s how I perceive it. It’s like a humorous take on it because we’re not like Radiohead; we’re not going to come up with really obscure or depressing stuff.”
But it does hint at a Western malaise that the bassist traces back to ‘80s-era free-market capitalism.
Like much of The Darkness’s work, Dreams on Toast is both silly and sincere—a balancing act the band has perfected over two decades.
“The album was just us kind of pissing around, trying different things,” the bassist says. “It was a strange, eclectic kind of album, and all I can say is that it was a hell of a lot of fun to make.”
One song that captures this is “Cold Hearted Woman,” which nearly sparked a small mutiny in the studio.
“We were arguing about whether or not to have the fiddles,” Poullain says. “I wanted less fiddle, and Dan and Justin wanted more. But that’s all part of being in a band. Ultimately, it came out great. But it was something we hadn’t done before.”
That energy extends to the band’s live shows, which remain a thing of myth and muscle—outrageous but oddly grounding. “Adrenaline,” says the bassist when asked what keeps the band chasing that same stage rush. “And life-giving properties, communion with the audience, a sense of meaning in life, and making other people happy.”
When The Darkness returns to The Fillmore in San Francisco this week, it’ll once again be playing beneath those famous chandeliers, where rock legends from the Grateful Dead to Radiohead have performed over the decades.
“Whenever we play The Fillmore, we can feel the history, for sure,” he says.
He grows almost philosophical, describing the area’s energy. “Do you know the term ‘psychogeography’?” asks Poullain. “It’s when you visit a place, and you can sense the imprint that humans have left on the landscape. If you walk around parts of San Francisco, you really start to feel it seep into your pores. That’s the feeling I get there.”
For all its bombast, The Darkness is also one of the most personable bands on the road. “We have a VIP package now—people watch the soundcheck, we do a Q&A, photos, and a goodie bag,” the bassist says. “It’s fun and very light-hearted. A band like Radiohead wouldn’t be doing that.”
If The Darkness has endured longer than most of its early-2000s peers, it’s because of the members’ chemistry—particularly the creative tension between the Hawkins brothers. Poullain compares it to something deeply familiar.
“Some of it’s actually Freudian,” he says. “It mirrors my own family, where I’m sandwiched between two brothers—one older, one younger.” He notes, though, that although Dan and Justin Hawkins are both younger than he is, the two strong, very competitive brothers remind him of his own siblings.
While his brothers “argue a lot and fall out,” the Hawkins brothers don’t because they’re “emotionally evolved” and make a point not to infringe on each other’s space. Poullain finds their work style and mutual respect inspiring.
Asked if he feels like their brother after all these years, he shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” the bassist says. “I would say I’m the annoying uncle.”
That family dynamic has been reshaped by drummer Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen’s Roger Taylor, who joined the band in 2015. “With Ru in the band, we can approach any genre,” says Poullain. “We’re not just doing glam rock or heavy rock. We’re doing prog now, even soul songs like ‘Don’t Need Sunshine.’ We can do anything with Ru.”
After all these years, The Darkness members seem more comfortable in their own skin than ever before.
“We’re more accepting of ourselves and each other, better understand the essence of human nature, and are more harmonious,” the bassist says. “We’re less dogmatic and delusional. It’s all part of the aging process.”
From spandex to stadiums, from falsettos to fiddles, The Darkness has always walked the tightrope between parody and purity, theater and thunder.
Dreams on Toast doesn’t try to relive its early glory—it refracts it, turns it sideways, laughs at it, and loves it all the same. It’s a reminder that sometimes the silliest things can carry the most profound truths, and that a band this self-aware can still surprise itself.
When The Darkness takes the stage this fall, it won’t be peddling nostalgia so much as proving that rock, in all its ridiculous glory, is still worth believing in—sequins, solos, and all.
That spirit feels vital to a band that could have easily coasted on nostalgia. “We lean more towards discovery,” says Poullain. “Otherwise we’d be bored.”
THE DARKNESS Thu/13. The Fillmore, SF. More info here.
