Justin Hawkins Opens Up About The Darkness, Taylor Swift, and Making ‘Dreams’ Come True (Exclusive) originally appeared on Parade.
Ever since The Darkness shot to the top of the charts with their 2003 debut album, Permission to Land, the band has resisted definition. At a time when indie rock reigned supreme, The Darkness — led by singer-guitarist Justin Hawkins — brought a much-needed dose of fun to the music world, mixing hard-rocking but immensely catchy tunes with clever lyrics and a flamboyant sense of style.
Over 20 years later, devoted fans (including Taylor Swift) are still listening. The Darkness released their eighth studio album, Dreams on Toast, this spring, and they’re gearing up for a major tour of North America kicking off later this month. As if that weren’t enough, Hawkins — who hosts a popular podcast on YouTube, Justin Hawkins Rides Again — is also scheduled to hit the road in 2026 with a U.K. tour of his one-man show.
“I’ve gone from sort of dreading that to really looking forward to it,” he tells Parade. “I’ve got no idea what’s gonna happen, and I think it’ll be really, really fun regardless.”
Hawkins seems to have a special talent for making things fun; case in point, Dreams on Toast‘s instantly unforgettable tracklist. While bands like The Darkness always have to deal with the challenge of winning audiences over to new material (when they’re only familiar with hits like “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”), international festival-goers this summer have been responding well to the new tunes. This comes as no surprise: From the full-on sonic assault of “Rock and Roll Party Cowboy” to the infectious “The Longest Kiss,” it’s nearly impossible to resist the band’s latest offerings.
“You know, I think we’re coming into unfamiliar audiences and it’s just, [the new songs] are really fun to play and they stick around…even if they don’t know who we are,” Hawkins says, adding, “So that’s a really good sign, I think.”
Of course, the road isn’t always fun. In his typical candid — and hilarious — fashion, Hawkins recalls a past tour of America that “nearly broke” the band.
“It was seven or eight weeks of it. And sometimes it just felt like we hadn’t planned it very carefully,” he says. “It’s like we, we’d sort of thrown darts at the map…you know, we went into Canada and then came back into America and then went back to Canada and you know, we kept doing stuff like that and a lot of back and forth.”
“And then some days off you’re like, oh, I’m looking forward for this day off, ’cause the next day we’re playing in this sort of, you know, random historical American city that we are excited about,” he continues. “But in fact, what happens on the day off is 12 hours of driving with a bus that keeps breaking down.”
For Hawkins, his main priority these days when it comes to touring is making sure that he gets to spend plenty of time with his daughter, who’ll be celebrating her 12th birthday soon.
“The most important thing is that in the middle of the American tour, I come home and it’s my daughter’s birthday, and I’ve never missed one of those,” he says.
There’s no question that having a rock star dad comes with perks — like VIP tickets to see the aforementioned Swift, who catapulted The Darkness back into the spotlight in 2024 when she was seen singing along to “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” at the US Open with Travis Kelce (she also danced to the song in a 2016 Apple ad). And who could blame her? As Hawkins puts it, “If you grow tired of that song, you grow tired of life.”
In all seriousness, Hawkins does appreciate the love Swift — and her fans — have given The Darkness.
“I really admire her as a individual,” he says. “My daughter’s a huge fan…I think she’s been really kind to us over the years.”
While some might find the connection between Swifties and The Darkness to be an unexpected one, the crossover makes perfect sense, in a way. It all comes down to good music, energetic performances, and, once again, the element of fun — which, as Hawkins explains, helped to shape the sound of the band from the beginning.
When The Darkness was still trying to get noticed, he says, labels struggled with how to market the band, but Hawkins stayed true to his vision.
“I was like, put a picture of my face on the front of a magazine,” he says. “That’s how you market music, you know, let people decide themselves. You know, don’t worry about it. Just ’cause we didn’t sound like anything else that they were sort of signing at the time. “
“I still wanted to have fun,” he says. “That’s why The Darkness sounds the way it does, ’cause it’s not actually us trying to be successful or trying to get signed or whatever. It’s something that’s shaped itself in spite of what was fashionable, you know?”
Fans all over the world definitely agree: The Darkness is always in style.
The two-part North American leg of the band’s headlining Dreams On Toast Tour starts on August 30th in St. Louis, MO. For more info, check out https://www.thedarknesslive.com/.
Related: The Darkness Singer Justin Hawkins Has Bold Reaction to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Singing His Song in Viral U.S. Open Clip
Justin Hawkins Opens Up About The Darkness, Taylor Swift, and Making ‘Dreams’ Come True (Exclusive) first appeared on Parade on Aug 6, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 6, 2025, where it first appeared.
