The Darkness — “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”

So, you have to feel the same day as you.

Tamara is. This feeling can be done now. Tamara is a man.

“She is full of his soul for all his life moments.”

You find them on Tamara's.com and on the auspicious day. With the code Spotify 10, you get 10% of her soul on Tamara's.com. Perfect for you. And now, for me.

Tamara is. I have not worked in an office in 13 years. I work exclusively at home in near total isolation and in sweatpants, mumbling to myself and enjoying very little in person social contact outside of my immediate family. And that's all very much for the best.

I am isolated for my own protection and for the protection of others. Why did I stop working in an office? You ask? Oh, various reasons. Various noble and ignoble reasons.

One ignoble reason I started working exclusively at home is that one time at my last office job, I was reprimanded by HR for emailing everyone in our office. The YouTube link to an aerosmith video.

Let me answer your first question.

♪ I'm alone ♪ ♪ Yeah, I don't know if I can face that ♪ Yeah, whatever aerosmith video you were thinking of, I didn't send that one.

“Wasn't loving an elevator or crazy or pink or dude looks like a lady?”

No, I emailed all my coworkers the video for Angel and electrifying power ballad. Off the 1987 aerosmith comeback album, permanent vacation. Angel, a relatively wholesome, chased, soaring, transcendent, majestic piano driven power ballad. Frontman Stephen Tyler is not actually singing while stranded on the surface of the moon. That is a state of the art in 1987's Special Effect.

♪ I'm a tease in the cry that you is for you ♪ Yeah, it's 2012 or so and I'm wearing jeans and working in the San Francisco office of a music streaming service that got totally obliterated by the existence of Spotify. It's tough break. I was an managing editor, which is not a real job title at a technology company. Or anyway, it's not a job title.

My coworkers are obligated to respect managing editor. Can even manage not to get yelled at by HR. So I'm sitting in the office one day and I'm trying to give away two tickets to see aerosmith live at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. And so I fire up a John T. Little email and I see everybody and I'm like, hey, you want to go see aerosmith. I got two tickets to Paradise.

Maybe they'll play the greatest power ballad in rock and roll history. And I throw in the YouTube link to Angel because this song whips ass. ♪ I'm a tease in the cry that you have ♪ ♪ And that's how it goes between us ♪ ♪ Don't make it turn ♪

♪ I'm pulling my pride ♪ I didn't say it whips ass in the email, that would be unprofessional. I'm not an idiot, but I love Angel very much. The incendiary guitar action, punctuating every word right there. ♪ I won't you love ♪

I do believe Aerosmith lead guitar's Joe Perry is wind milling those righteous power cords. ♪ Bam, bam, bam, bam ♪ While standing in the middle of a real life desert highway,

“I believe that part of the Angel video was filmed on the location.”

♪ Don't make it turn ♪ ♪ I throw away my pride ♪ ♪ The yearning viral super '80s grandure ♪ Of this pre-chorus, man. I caught Angel at random on MTV when I was nine years old.

And it was the best song I'd ever heard in my life.

And it felt like MTV would never play Angel again.

This is a deep cut relatively. They kept playing dude parentheses looks like a lady close for emphasis instead. And so I sat there every day with our VCR turned on and a blank VHS tape queued up so I could tape the Angel video if it ever came on again.

and I hurtled our coffee table and I mashed the record button like five seconds

into the video. That was the greatest day of my life up to that point. It's like I won the Super Bowl. ♪ Enough enough ♪ ♪ I've suffered and I've seen that ♪

Can you blame me really for wanting to share some modest portion of my joy

“with my coworkers at this doomed streaming service?”

No, you can't blame me.

Chorus. ♪ Play, yeah, you're my angel ♪ ♪ Go, set it to nine ♪

Fun fact, five years later in 1992, the Angel in the Angel video played the ghost of Christmas past in the Muppet Christmas Carol. That's not true. Unbelievable song, fantastic song. So I CC the whole office and I say, how do you do fellow important co-workers who wants to go Sierra Smith?

Check out this red video. I have a real job and I get pretty much no reply for several hours and then I get an email from HR and I don't remember exactly what the email said

“but it was words to the effect of knock it off, right?”

Right, I might have actually gotten an email from our lawyer who like all my co-workers had way better things to do and she's very polite and diplomatic but she's like, "Please don't email everyone here. Anything like that ever again." And I'm like, "Oh, shit."

And I go back and I rewatch the whole Angel video at my desk at work. And now I'm worried that there's an orgy in it or something but there isn't. The spiciest moment I can find in this video is honestly a quite tasteful silhouette of a Foxy lady undulating behind a large billowing sheet.

The Foxy lady is maybe probably mostly naked and Steven Tyler's on the street in a trench coat and okay, I see the problem now. All right, that's my bad dudes. I'm sorry I emailed that to everyone. That's not how a managing editor should behave.

I maybe shouldn't work in an office anymore.

I should probably move back to Ohio and never go anywhere or talk to anyone again.

Pretty much, look, I'm not at my best in 2012. You know what I'm at my best? Back in the 80s when I just sat around all day watching rad hair metal videos on MTV. I am confident that you can hear this guy's wallet, even if you are not partaking in the

video version of this podcast, business up front party in the back does not suffice to describe the gargantuan voluminousness of this guy's wallet. A Fortune 500 company in the front, J. Gatsby party in the back. No, that's dumb. This man's hair is large, biblically large.

Now it is 1988 and I am 10 years old and I have just seen the face and the hair of God. In a striper video, striper the venerated Southern California Christian metal band. This song is called "I Believe in You" and it is an even more wholesome chase, soaring transcendent majestic piano driven 80s hair metal power ballad. The way striper frontman Michael Sweet points,

emphatically when he hits that last note in my heart, you'll stay.

“That's how you know this chorus is going to biblically whip ass.”

From their 1988 album In God We Trust, this is "I Believe in You." Striper is a literally biblical name, Isaiah chapter 53 verse 5, King James Version, quote, "But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chest disement of our peace was upon him. And with his stripes, we are healed." And quote, " Striper with a Y, STR Y P E R, it's cooler with a Y. Get a load of these drums."

Metal bands are cooler if there's brothers in him. I saw the "I Believe in You" video on MTV when I was

“10 years old and I was mesmerized. I am mesmerized by those righteous power chords.”

I am mesmerized by Robert Sweet's drum kit with all the symbols hung from chains overhead. I don't know if that sounds good or may drum tech perspective, but it looks cool as hell. I'm mesmerized by the string section of tastefully dressed Foxy ladies playing see-through violins and whatnot. And I'm mesmerized as Michael Sweet keeps hitting notes higher than the towering peaks of Mt. Sinai. Striper's famous black and yellow color scheme. Also, extremely cool, extremely

“metal. Would it shock you to learn that this song I believe in you has a key change? Would it”

shock you to learn that this song peaks with Michael Sweet hitting an even higher note? I suspect this does not shock you at all. The Striper also molot guy is singing way too hard to point this time. It's not a true classic hair metal song if it doesn't have at least one note that would physically kill you if you attempted to sing it. What's that? Oh, you don't like piano driven hair metal

power ballads? Okay, that's fine. I respect that. Let me ask you something. Do you know a second song

by the rock band E-Europe? You 100% know at least one song by the rock band E-Europe. They're from Sweden. You know the final countdown, right? Sorry, I had to do the whole thing. It felt rude not to do the whole thing. But do you know another Europe song? Because I know three. I know the final countdown. I know let the good times rock and I know this one. I know open your heart from the 1984 Europe album Wings of Tomorrow. Open your heart is a power ballad

and Europe's keyboard player is prominently involved. But this tune is not piano driven per se. Instead, it's driven by the part where the guitar player physically throws his acoustic guitar off screen and switches to electric guitar and starts whipping ass.

I don't think I got to tell you how psyched I was sitting on my couch the first time I watched

Europe's guitar player go through and then go boom boom boom boom. I picked up our coffee table and I threw it at the ceiling. MTV used to play this stuff all the time. MTV used to be all hair metal all the time. All majestic power ballads all the time. All mallets all the time. Now that's

“not true, technically, factually. But that's what it felt like to me. It was all mallets to me emotionally.”

When I was 10 years old, MTV was in the whole world to me. And to me, this was MTV's whole world, righteous power cords, glass pianos, spandex, medium to severe, woodness, and magnificent plumage. You wouldn't call this sort of thing critically acclaimed or even especially cool. But by the

mid '80s, hair metal was ridiculously huge. And yeah, never mind, it was incredibly cool.

And it did indisputably define the first decade plus of my life. I'll put it to you like this. I heard black flag, the king's ex song, way before I ever heard black flag, the punk rock band. Yeah, in high school, in the mid '90s, the first several times somebody cool mentioned black flag,

a hair metal adjacent trio from Springfield, Missouri, holy crap. I had no idea these dudes

“lived in Missouri. I thought all the cool metal bands lived in California or Europe. I lived in”

Missouri for most of the first decade of my life. I lived in your recum, Missouri, near six flags,

and also near a super fun site. And no offense, but I can assure you, Missouri was not this cool. And yet here is King's ex. Here is King's ex, front man, Doug Penic, the coolest guy named Doug whoever lived. Doug is rocking a more mohawk-based sort of magnificent plumage. And Doug is starring in a weird, cool unsettling rock video that features awesome state of the art in 1992 special effects. The black flag video walked, so the black hole sun video could run. Meanwhile,

Doug is hitting a climactic high note that would kill me if I attempted it. [Music] Yes, I said 1992. You heard me correctly, black flag by King's ex came out in 1992 and got played a lot on MTV in 1992. Now, you may have also heard me say, dozens of not hundreds of times that hair metal did not exist in 1992. What's that dumb a historical wildly exaggerated cliched

“statement? I'm always making I guess. Grunge killed hair metal. That's what I always say. In September”

1991, the very first time Nirvana smells like teen spirit video appears on MTV within five seconds.

Burn in our chicken to burn on a hair metal is dead five seconds. The smells like teen spirit video premieres and hair metal spontaneously combusts. Hair metal chokes on someone else's vomit. Hair metal dies in a bizarre gardening accident, but that's not true. And that's giving Grunge way too much credit for existing. And I'm giving hair metal nowhere near enough credit for surviving. Yes, in the early nineties and beyond, the likes of poison and white snake and Cinderella and

warnt and winger and whatnot enjoyed markedly less commercial success and media attention and

critical acclaim compared to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and so forth. But plenty of early

nineties hard rock did not qualify as alternative rock at all.

“Everything about you. You know what video played on MTV constantly in 1992?”

Everything about you by ugly kid Joe. Ugly kid Joe or from Sweden. That's not true. They're from Southern California. The everything about you video takes place on the beach. The lush cinematography, the righteous head banging, the disconcertingly handsome lead singer. Think of this as the temple of the dog hunger strike video for dickheads. I don't even mean that ugly. Dickheads complimentary. Dickheads is the ugly kid Joe vibe on purpose. These dudes had another

big hit in '92 with a weirdly awesome dead serious cover of cats in the cradle. The 1974 Harry Chaypin weepy folk lousy father, anthem, cats in the cradle. My boy was just like me. But like listen to everything about you again sometime. It's got rude scrappy punk adjacent energy. It's got a grunge crunch to it. It's got a disquieting red hot chili peppers style, funk metal breakdown. Well, I know you know everybody know you can talk yourself into ugly

kid Joe as Lala Palooza material. Yes, they maybe are alternative. Yes, but no, everything about you is a hair metal song in sound and vision and temperament. For one thing in the video, they're flying what appears to be a sex doll kite on the beach. That is hair metal ass behavior. For another thing, ugly kid Joe's frontman sounds an awful lot like David Lee Roth also on purpose. That hit everything about is pre-mo David Lee Roth. That's pre-mo classic Van Halen.

Nirvana all the time. Alternative rock was not the only kind of rock. All sorts of additional

“non-alternative flavors of rock. Back then plenty of impressively clothed and man-scaped dudes”

bellowing chased soaring transcendent majestic acoustic guitar driven hair metal power balance. And if you don't believe me, then love is on the way, is on the way. From their 1992 album The Lizard, here we have Saigon Kick, with love is on the way.

I feel bad for Saigon Kick's drummer because his bands biggest hit has basically no drums in it.

So in the video, they just hand him mallets and one drums we can go periodically. Here play with this Saigon Kick. Aha, they must be from Florida.

“Saigon Kicker from Coral Springs, Florida. Please don't tell me why they name themselves that.”

No thank you. Also, the Japanese version of this album The Lizard includes Saigon Kick's cover of Dear Prudence by the Beatles. Also, no thank you. Moving on to 1993. Oh, look who it is. Yes, it's Aro Smith with Living on the Edge. The lead single off their 1993 album Get a Grip. If you saw a brief shot of Steven Tyler riding around with half his body painted black, just forget you saw that. Also, you can't tell in that clip, but he's naked. Just forget I told you that.

It's not safe for work. Get a grip is the Aro Smith album with cryin amazing and crazy on it.

The Elysia Silverstone video trilogy, the godfather trilogy of its time. Aro Smith are absolutely nobody's idea of an alternative rock band. And yet Aro Smith are absolutely thriving on 90s MTV. Does the name budnik mean anything to you? Bobby budnik? The dickhead bully from the early 90s Nickelodeon Summer Camp sitcom salute your shorts. The redhead mallet kid who was also in Terminator 2. He looked like Muppet Babies Axel Rose. This actor's name is Danny Cooksey.

“Did you know that Danny was also the frontman for a rough tough mean hair metal band called Bad For Good?”

I overused the Muppet Babies as a reference point, but this kid really does look like Muppet Babies Axel Rose. He looks like Super Mario Kart Axel Rose. That's Bad For Good, Bad Numeral For Good, All One Word. And I personally am totally convinced that budnik is rough tough mean bad and 19. I believe at least 20% of those things. That's rude. I'm sorry. I really like this song. 19 is a cover of a fill why not song? The great fill why not from thin Lizzy, coolest guy named

fill ever. And look, given the choice between a hair metal song about how the singer is 19

and a hair metal song about how the singer's girlfriend is 17, I will always enthusiastically take this.

Yes, incredibly budnik is my second favorite member of Bad For Good, whose lead guitarist is named Thomas Mikroklin. Thomas Mikroklin. Not Tommy Mikroklin. Not even Tom Mikroklin. I am smitten by both the formality and the flagrant informality of Thomas Mikroklin. All he must be Irish. All of these songs I got from this incredible 2013 spin magazine list called No Alternative. 40 hard rock songs

that Nirvana couldn't kill. I was working at spin at the time. I worked there for like 10 minutes total. It's not my fault. Not an office job and not my fault. But I got to write a few blurbs for this phenomenal list of non alternative early 90s rock songs that my brilliant co-workers

the 500 best heavy metal albums in the universe. Chuck was a driving force on this list. And I was

delighted just to be along for the ride. This list is not really online. The slide show doesn't work now. It's not my fault. But I emailed my old spin colleague Christopher R. Winegarten. And I might

“do you remember this 90s hard rock song list we did? Do you have it saved anywhere? And Chris”

writes back immediately. And he says, "Yeah, I found it by searching my email for jack old." For you audio only consumers, your ears do not deceive you. That was a chainsaw solo.

Those are chainsaw chorus actually to a 1992 hit song called The Lumber Jack.

Jack O'Hale from the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Jackal are on Geffen Records, which means Jackal and Nirvana are label mates. Sure, that's Jackal with a Y. J.A.C. K.Y. L. It's way cooler with a Y. As Striper taught us, any hair metal band name is cooler with a Y. Let me break this down for you. You know what's not cool? A hair metal band named Dentist. What? No, I don't want to listen.

“I think those guys sound terrible. You know what's cool? A hair metal band named Dentist.”

D-E-N-T-Y-S-T. Ooh. They replaced the eye with a Y. That's super tough. I'm intrigued. You know, it's incredibly cool. A hair metal band named Dentist. D-Y-N-T-Y-S-T. Oh shit. They replaced both the E and the eye with Y. That is rough and tough and metal as hell. I loved that spin list so much. Forty hard rock songs that Nirvana couldn't kill. The alternative to the alternative. Radsaws by warrant, slaughter, acdc, motorhead, extreme def leopard, queen's rike, et cetera.

That's queen's rike with a Y. And there's an oomloud over the Y. Holy shit, the list was ranked. I believe. And so, you know, the number one, the very best early 90s hard rock song, Nirvana couldn't kill. That would be November rain by cons and roses led by axle rose, real life full size, non-super Mario Kart axle rose. Yes. November rain is the correct choice for the number one non Nirvana early 90s rock song. Yes, of course. However, I was there. I was there

sitting in a sold out movie theater in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, February 14th, 1992. Valentine's Day. I might have actually been on a junior high date scare quotes with a young lady who as it turns out was just not that end to me. Good for her. It's a good call. I was there for opening night of the best movie I'd ever seen in my life. And I found out that the best non Nirvana hard rock song of the early 90s might have actually

“come out in 1975. I think we'll go with a little Bohemian rhapsody gentleman. Good call.”

The Wayne's World movie directed by Penelopee Sphere's Penelopee is the best. Wayne's World opening night. The Bohemian rhapsody scene. Bohemian rhapsody by Queen. Yes. Wayne's World is set in present day Aurora Illinois and a subtle joke amid all the phenomenal unsuttle jokes here is that early 90s cable access TV era Aurora Illinois looks like and is basically still fully living in the 70s. The second best song in this movie is Wayne's girlfriend's band's

cover of Ballroom Blitz. A song originally released by the glam rock band sweet in 1974.

Great song. Great cover in this movie. Shout out Tia Carrera. Shout out crucial taunts.

Wayne's about to swing by a rock club where meetloth the 70s and 90s rock star meetloth. He plays the bouncer who's playing the shitty Beatles. Are they any good? They suck. I love every last second of the Wayne's World movie so much in all this movie's Super 70s glory. No stairway denied but nothing compares to the Bohemian rhapsody scene.

It's their movie but this scene's not the same without the two long hair burnout dumbasses

in the back seat and all their 90s via 70s hair metal glory. The guy in the back on the left is about to uperatically raise both his hands and roll his eyes skyward as he sings.

“And I will never forget the glorious joyful goofy look on this dude's face for as long as I live.”

There's another guy in the back seat now the drunk guy in the middle who's singing along but he's also maybe gonna hurl absolute bedroom in my movie theater in suburban Cleveland on valentine's

day 1992 when the Bohemian rhapsody scene hit screaming laughter total chaos on remitting joy.

It was the Minecraft movie of its day. This is unequivocally my all-time greatest movie theater memory. This scene we come to this place for magic etc. And to this day I'm curious. This is 1992 we are 90s teenagers. To be clear, Queen are eternally cool. Queen are eternally huge.

“Queen do not require redemption or rediscovery. Bohemian rhapsody is not a deep cut that this”

movie is shrewdly excavating but Bohemian rhapsody blaring in a room full of 90s teenagers.

This is not our song. This is not our time. This is not our generation. This is not alternative rock.

This song is pure uncut 1975. This song is our parents in song form. And here on valentine's day 1992 we love this scene immediately and permanently. And Bohemian rhapsody is suddenly present tense again. In 1976 the song peaked at number nine on the billboard hot 100. After the Wayne's World movie Bohemian rhapsody re-entered the charts and now it peaked at number two. Beaten out only by jump jump by Chris Cross. All of all it. The Wayne's World Bump is delightful. Did you know

that the sequel Wayne's World Two came out just a year and a half later in late 1993. That's efficiency. You know what happens at the end of Wayne's World Two an aerosmith concert. Look who it is. But yeah to this day I'm curious. Thinking about that packed joyful theater full of 90s teenagers, how well did we know Queen and no Bohemian rhapsody before Wayne's World? How well did I know this song? Is it Bohemian rhapsody specifically and exclusively

that has this timeless teenager delighting time warp ability? Or does all ridiculous operatic 70s glam rock carry this potential? Because I feel like all my life long before Wayne's World and Long after ostensibly new rock bands have been actively trying to teleport us all back to the 70s and the farther away we all got from the actual 70s the harder those bands tried and look nothing else is Bohemian rhapsody. Nobody else is Queen except no substitutes.

However, the little guitar shutter there, the vibrato, the dirt or world, within six seconds this song is an all-timer. My name is Rob Harvella. This is the 35th episode

“of 60 songs that explained the 90s coal in the 2000s and this week we are discussing I believe in a”

thing called Love by the darkness. From there 2003 debut album called Permission to Land. Also darkness front man Justin Hawkins is naked as this video begins and I think his nudity is somehow audible. I got to do an ad break now or HR is going to yell at me again. This is a school flashback, just to get to the right and then I hope that it's a stimp.

Yeah, exactly. This stimp is so deep in the air that is just a different. The same studio,

“job or to the stimp. I don't feel like I'm a stimp. Stimp? With this stimp.”

Dunge did not kill hair metal. Rock and roll is not a monolith. As a naive impressionable Wayne's world loving teenager, I struggled to wrap my head around this. The media attention,

the critical attention, the hype at any given time led me to the conclusion that there was only

one type of rock music happening at that particular time. But just as Queen was not the only type of rock music happening in 1975, Grunge was not the only type of rock music in the early 90s. Pop punk, Green Day, the offspring, etc. was not the only type of rock music in the mid 90s. New metal with the turntables and the rapping and whatnot, lymph biscuit and various other

“dickheads. New metal was not the only type of rock music in the late 90s. And the super cool”

Grunge adjacent rock is back, crew, the strokes, the white stripes, the hives, etc. That was not the only type of rock music in the early 2000s. Anywhere in that span, anywhere in the span of human history, you can also find an anacronistic, rowdy, sleazy, heavily tattooed, so uncool, they're kind of cool, meat and potatoes all caps rock and roll band singing about how much they love cocaine. Sometimes those bands could be hard to spot, though. Not this time, here we have the Anaheim California Rock Band

Buck Cherry, one word, and their hit 1999 debut single "Lid Up." Mama can you wait. I forgot about that part. Referring to an attractive lady as Mama is an aerosmith coded move. For me,

“I realize aerosmith did not invent that, but I always think of aerosmiths anyway. The shirtless”

gy rating super tattooed cocaine love in gentleman in the "Lid Up" video is of course,

Buck Cherry front man Josh Todd, who has two first names. Josh is always talking to the press

about how rock and roll is trying so hard to be cool that it's not actually cool anymore. Talking to Rolling Stone, Australia, in 2016, about why he wrote a song called "Tight Pants," Josh says "Because a woman's arse is fantastic," and he laughs and he says "Let me tell you what's missing in rock and roll." You used to be able to dance to it. There was also a lot of sexual in UNDO. It was fun. It was a party. It was a really good time. You can't find that anymore,

unless you go to pop music. People aren't singing about stuff that's sexy and fun. Plus, there's not a lot of great front men. The ones I love are those that the guys want to be and the girls want to fuck. We also need more guitar heroes. We need more great front men. With both of those in place, there'd be a really good movement again. And quote, "That is Josh's legitimately thoughtful response to the question, why did you write a song called "Tight Pants," verbatim,

the question is quote, "Why write a song?" Perynthesis, "Tight Pants," close parentheses, about a woman's arse." And quote, "That's a great question." Buck Cherry did not sound very much like 1999 in 1999, but that was the point. That was Buck Cherry's value proposition. Every era of rock and roll needs, let me tell you what's missing in rock and roll, type bands. Buck Cherry, where you're favorite rock band in 1999, if you thought most other rock bands

in 1999 sucked. And these fellas have put out 11 albums and prospered and persevered and only grown more sophisticated. For example, in 2014, Buck Cherry released an EP called "Fuck." Six songs total on the "Fuck" EP. Track 1, somebody fucked with me. Track 2, say "Fuck it." Track 3, the mother fucker. Track 4, I don't give a fuck. Track 5, it's a fucking disaster.

And finally, Track 6, "Fist Fuck." I wish that one more at last. I will say that I would have

intent. I should have just made up my own track listing. Nobody would have checked that. Also, Buck Cherry released their "Fuck" EP on their very own record label, which they named

“"Fbom" records. "F" hyphen bomb. Would I respect Buck Cherry just a tiny bit more?”

If they'd summoned the necessary courage to name their label, "Fuck" records? Yes, I would respect them a tiny bit more. Are we doing this? Or are we doing this? "F" bomb records. Now is not the time for half measures. Buck Cherry, let me refer you to Track 2 on your own "Fuck" EP, which if you'll recall is called, say "Fuck it." Hey, guess what? It turns out that say "Fuck it" by Buck Cherry is a cover of "I Love It."

The 2012 smash hit. I love the cocaine pops on by iconopop and Charlie Xiex. With the line, I love it replaced by say "Fuck it." It's a great idea. Meanwhile, by 2003, the rock-and-roll landscape has gotten even more chaotic and confusing. In that it's increasingly hard to tell the old bands from the new bands and to tell the cool bands from the so uncool they're almost cool bands.

“Since here question, how cool or not cool is this precisely?”

Here we have jet from Melbourne, Australia. With their blockbuster 2003 debut hit single, "Are you going to be my girl?" No question mark. And by one way of thinking, this is peak 2003. It's Scruffy Stroke's adjacent garage rock. It's soundtracking a viral iPod ad. It is absolutely loaded with 70 signifiers in an emphatically 21st century sort of way. The black and white video, the guitarists, ACDCT shirts, the tambourine, the quasi-mote town. Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump,

bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. Bounce that sounds like Iggy Pop's lust for life. Even if jet insists they weren't trying to rip off lust for life. Does all of that make this song

cool are hopelessly uncool? Jet front man, Nick Sester, talks a lot about how he wrote a lot of the first

“jet album while sitting on the toilet. That also could go either way. Coolness wise. Yes?”

I said, "Are you going to be my girl?" The singer's prodigious mutton chops are quite 2000s via 1970s as well. That's jet front man, Nick Sester's brother, Chris Sester, on drums, by the way, rock bands are cooler if there's brothers in them. Talking to ticket master in 2024, that's cool, Nick says, "The whole premise of jet was to write straight up rock and roll. We grew up listening to our parents rock and roll records. So what was interesting to us was rock and roll that had

swagger and was sexy and you could dance to it." And quote, "That's buck cherry talk, though. That doesn't sound like a guy trying to be cool or current. That sounds like a guy trying to start the band you loved in 2003. If you thought all other 2003 rock bands sucked, and that

attitude, of course, leads to cool people thinking that jet sucks. Jet second album released in 2006

and called Shine On. That's the album that pitchfork famously reviews by simply posting a gift of a monkey peeing in its own mouth. We're a video podcast now. We can show that gift. There it is. No, it is. That's that. That's the IKEA monkey. That's my mistake. That's the monkey that they found swaggering through an IKEA in Toronto in 2012. Jet's cool with me, but nobody in jet is pulling off that coat. I'll tell you that much. I love the IKEA monkey. And if we're talking

viral monkeys, I vastly prefer the IKEA monkey to the jet pitchfork peeing monkey. Just a personal

preference. For a band that sounds an awful out like the strokes, I have never personally

equated jet with the strokes. Because the strokes are cool and jet are not. Rock and roll is very confusing to me in the early 2000s. You can't tell the cool bands from the uncool band. You can't

doesn't do that anymore. Try finding anybody partying harder than this guy.

“Andrew W. K. Party hard 2001 Andrew is returning rock and roll to first principles.”

Specifically the principle of partying hard. And the party hard video is just robust sweaty dudes thrashing around buck cherry style. But party hard this song sounds like you're getting beaten to death by a giant sentient iPod. Is this man from the future? Is this man from the distance past? Is this man serious? Maybe that's the confusion of early 2000s rock music. Are you serious?

Was a question I was constantly asking back then as a confused 20 something. Are these people serious?

Are the critics who love these people? Serious?

“The Donna's take it off 2002. The Donna's from Palo Alto, California. The key to a high school”

talent show themed video is to have a few scruffy burnout kids and the audience who really dig your band but not too many people because too many people digging your band isn't cool. Do you know days didn't confused the great Richard Linklater movie from 1993 about 70s high school kids Matthew McConaughey going alright alright alright and so forth a question for you. Do you remember days didn't confused now as a 90s movie or a 70s movie or specifically as a 90s

doing the 70s movie? I am similarly pleasantly temporarily vexed by the Donna's who debuted at 1998 with an album called American Teenage Rock and Roll Machine and put out an album called the Donna's turn 21 in 2001 and yet every word of every Donna's song sounds like it was scratched with a butterfly knife into a high school desk in 1976. They sound a little bit like the runaways and a lot like kiss and they're very clearly very serious about sounding like a 21st century

American young adult rock and roll machine but they also look and sound and act like their geometry teacher put them in detention for 25 years. Same with the band Drunk Horse. Do you know Drunk Horse is a great band name? Drunk Horse are from Oakland, California. I love Oakland. In 2003 Drunk Horse put out an album called Adult situations. It's a great title. Within an album cover I would characterize as tastelessly censored and this song is called National Lust.

It's a great title and National Lust was one of my favorite rock and roll songs of 2003 in part because even now every few months align from this song pops into my head and instantly I'm in a fantastic mood. The line is tight pants make it hard not to think about sexual intercourse.

“I think we've established that this is a fantastic premise for a rock and roll song. It is”

2003 and with lots of rock bands we're dancing we're having fun we're having a party we're pissing off our parents but also directly emulating the music of our parents and as requested we're indulging in lots of sexual in UNDO. But this word in UNDO implies a sneakiness, a cageiness, a plausible deniability. Double in Tondras and that sort of thing. Whereas we're looking for single in Tondras and we like our new stuck-in detention rock stars to be as direct as possible.

They are called The Darkness. It's a great band name. It's pretty dark. They are from low

stuffed east suffoc England. I have never been there but it sounds lovely and they first break out

consists of Justin Hawkins on lead vocals, Angotar. His big brother, Dan Hawkins, also Angotar,

“rock bands are cooler. If there's brothers in him, Frankie Puleyne on bass and Ed Graham on drums.”

Unfortunately, even when you're staring right at them it's easy to forget there's three other guys in this band. When you got front man Justin Hawkins, prancing around in a bare chested zebra

striped cat suit like he's porno beetle juice. Did you know that the first line of this song is

you are drunk and you are sorely? I didn't. I really dig Justin Hawkins singing that line like he's auditioning for the barber of civil. All these concert-based rock videos spanning 30 years now, they all look remarkably alike. Don't they? You got four or five hairy, grimy, sorely dudes rocking out on stage. There's a comforting similarity. But falsetto,

porno beetle juice. This guy's a little bit out of the ordinary. Yes, the silliness, the Freddy

Mercury swagger, the uncouth language, the flagrant what's wrong with being sexiness. Justin Hawkins is really going for it. In an early 2000s rock and roll culture where most front men aren't really going for it. You don't see a lot of zebra striped cat suits in 2003. This song "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" is about some motherfucker who won't get his hands off Justin's woman. In the pre-chorus, Justin valiantly acknowledges his woman's bodily autonomy. Oh, I've got no right to lay claim to

her frame. She's not my possession. And then he calls the motherfucker another £5,000 to swear word. The way that darkness front man Justin Hawkins points

“emphatically when he hits that last note, that's how you know this chorus is going to biblically”

being serious mean in this context. To put it in the crudest, laziest rock critic terms, the formula here is ACDC, plus queen, plus irony, question mark equals the darkness. The ACDC part,

the exquisite knucklehead, chunky guitar riff part, you get that immediately on this first darkness

album, on the opening track, which is called black shuck and is about a dog that doesn't give a fuck. Black shuck, in fact, is about a dog that doesn't give a fuck and malled two churchgoers in the year 1577 in Blifeberg, a small English town south of low staffed. As the darkness guitar is Dan Hawkins told the magazine total guitar in 2011, quote, "You wouldn't exactly hear Bon Jovi writing a song about a church in Blifeberg. Would you?" The darkness are extremely proudly relentlessly English.

They will take great pains throughout their tumultuous, but it probably lengthy career to remind you that they are English. And we start right here on track one album one, talking to the website music radar about low staffed in 2023, Justin Hawkins says, quote, "I've definitely found

“there's a lot of truth in that expression. Never forget where you come from. What set us apart”

was that town? For us it is really a geographical foundation and if you don't have that framework then you've lost it and you're just trying to be global. That was really important, lyrically with stuff like black shuck." And quote, "This song also gives Justin the chance to go." I had to get the "in his eyes" in there. The darkness are not screwing around. Or the

anachronistic. The sound is 70s glam rock multiplied by 80s hair metal. But in 2003

“were used to new bands sounding like old bands. But now the style and the attitude is also”

anachronistic. Vocally and visually, Justin Hawkins is proudly channeling Freddie Mercury. He's channeling David Lee Roth. He's preening. He's mugging. He's porno clowning around. He's got armadillos and his trousers or his cat suits. Whatever. He is preposterous. And the darkness are funny. But just because you're funny, that doesn't mean you're joking. Right? Talking to the English journalist James Gill in 2002 before the darkness even got a record deal. Justin Hawkins says

"rock is funny" by definition. ACDC had a dude in school uniform for no reason and they've done it ever since. Now there is a culture of that can't be real. Rock is about the suspension of belief.

“It's like that's not acceptable anymore. Just be moved by the music. Where's the problem?”

And quote. This song is called "growing on me." One potential problem is that it's kind of gross. Yeah, this song is about having a sexually transmitted disease. Technically growing on me, qualifies as a double in Tondra as a innuendo. But only technically, I can't get you out of my head. That's gross, man. That can't be real, man. Justin Hawkins is frequently nude in this video as well. But at least he's tastefully pixelated.

You're really doing all this. You're doing all this. You're doing all this. You're doing all this.

“That's what can't save me. And what he's not nude in this video, Justin is often dressed in a”

sparkly white jumpsuit just in case you are tempted to forget that he is the front man. The chorus calling response there of "You're really growing on me." Or Emma, growing on you. It's quite profound. Profound and also gross. Just because you got jokes doesn't mean you're a joke band. Yes, in 2005, the Sony ANR man Nick Raphael did an interview with the website hit quarters and he talked about trying and failing to sign the darkness. Nick says, quote,

"There couldn't have been less of a buzz and only two record labels showed any interest in them. The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a

joke and that they weren't real. Now, 3.5 million records later, they're one of the greatest

of all bands in the world. And that's because what they did was real. They weren't copying anyone. If they were copying, then they were copying someone from 20 years ago and no one else was doing that." End quote. Well said. Here's a darkness song called "Friday Night." I just love the way Justin Hawkins sings the word "badminton." There even playing "badminton" and "Ping Pong" in the video. That's dedication.

Hey, here's another super fun upbeat, chunky ACDC riff type delightfully janty song called "Given Up." Oh, except my mama here actually refers to the singer's mother. And lyrically, this is a super gnarly song about being addicted to heroin. Dan Hawkins, the guitarist, has healthily clarified

that his little brother Justin has never actually tried heroin in his life. But nonetheless,

drugs are a significant part of the equation with the darkness. And there's legit darkness amid the jantiness. Though sometimes you do just want a soaring, transcendent, majestic power ballad. Don't you? This song is called "Holding My Own." I love this one. The incendiary guitar action

to explore this song, Lyrically, in private. This is a phenomenal debut rock and roll album,

Permission to Ladd. And it is consistently phenomenal. And I say that even though one phenomenal song immediately eclipse all the other ones.

“This dude really is naked and pixelated a lot. The first remarkable aspect of I believe in a”

thing called love to me is that the central guitar riff here is so fantastic. Dirty. That it doesn't matter that the lyrics are pretty dumb. Inderingly so, the lyrics are stupider than they are clever.

My hearts and overdrive in your behind the steering wheel. That when some clunkiness only underscores

how in love Justin Hawkins is. He's so in love that his powers of word play have severely diminished. Indeed, the pre-chorus is just in Hawkins singing, touching you, touching me, touching you, yeah, you're touching me whilst wearing. Yet again, a bare-chested cat suit and reclining on a giant pillow in a purple spaceship decorated with a statue of converting naked ladies. This dude takes great

“pains to remind you that he is the lead singer. I believe in a thing called love is a song about”

believing in a thing called love. Talking to songwriting magazine in 2018, Justin says quote, "I had this thing in my head that if we had songs with love in the title, we'd be successful. There were a lot of bands that were trying not to write about love or they were writing about love but without saying the word, like they were too cool to say it. I thought, fuck that. Think about some of the greatest songs of all time. They have love in the title.

It's there for a reason because it's something we can all feel and understand what it means. To feel embarrassed by it is a bit immature, really, and quote, and the darkness certainly don't want to seem immature. chorus. It's the chorus, to I believe in a thing called love, that makes this the darkness song to rule them all. Yes, the ludicrous ultra falsetto, karaoke heat check of this chorus. You're at karaoke. You've had 3.5 alcoholic beverages

and you stumble across, I believe in a thing called love in the song book, and you think I can do this. You can't. Every note of this chorus will physically kill you if you attempt to sing it.

“That's what makes this song great. That's what makes this song rock and roll. You know, it's also”

super rock and roll. The lead singer yelling guitar before the guitar solo outro. At this point in the video, a giant space octopus or something is attacking the band's Lord Helmet spaceship. I don't think you really want me trying to assess these videos on like a plot level. I believe in a thing called love is the song that lands the darkness on the cover of spin magazine. Well, it lands just in Hawkins on the cover of spin magazine. Well, it lands just

in Hawkins on the cover of spin with three other people under the headline the next big things. This is February 2004. And if anybody knows what's going on, rock and roll lies, it's spin magazine. And yet with this cover, spin magazine is clearly saying nobody knows what's going on. Rock and roll lies. Left or right on this cover, we got Paul Banks of Interpol, Dapper gloomy New Yorkers, emulating the 70s in a different way. We got Brodie Doll.

She is the lead singer of the great L.A. super grimy punk band The Distillers. We got Justin Hawkins, wearing a giant white coat and pink and white striped pants, making angel wings with his hands,

and his legs spread as wide as possible. And finally, we got Jeff Rickley of the New Jersey

nary a jumpsuit in Jeff's closet. I imagine this magazine cover. These are for very distinct ideas

“of what the term rock star means. And rest assured, only Justin Hawkins is channeling rock”

stardom in the 70s glam rock and 80s hair metal sense. In this article, Spin asks, "All four of these people, what band they most admire? Who's career they most admire?" And Justin Hawkins says, quote, "In terms of experiencing lineup changes and still maintaining credibility when you hit back its aerosmith. They all had their differences. One of the best things about the Stephen Davis aerosmith biography, it's called Walk This Way, is that there is

no happy ending. They're all still bitter and they've still got issues with each other, but they're still working it. And it's still a valiant and viable position to be in,

to be a member of aerosmith." End quote. Walk Who It Is. The second darkness album is released in

2005 and is called One Way ticket to hell. dot dot dot end back. Wordplay. Two observations.

“This song's guitar riff is nearly identical to the outro of I believe in a thing called”

Love. Yeah, in the one way ticket video hell has frozen over with snow, and the darkness are stuck in a giant snow globe, and then they have to climb a giant mountain of snow. Also, this song starts with a sound of someone sniffing cocaine. Justin Hawkins has said in interviews that at his peak, or his rock bottom, as opposed, he spent 150,000 pounds a year on cocaine. I don't know what that translates to in American dollars, but I imagine it's a lot. This song

is dumb and repetitive and I love it. I can imagine Wayne and Garth and the other guys in that

blue car in the Wayne's world movie singing this. The second darkness album. Okay, there's a song

in this record called English Country Garden. There's a song on this record called knockers, the full spectrum of the human experience. I picked up my 14-year-old son from middle school the other day, and I was listening to this album, and I failed to anticipate the inevitable. Right, so I'm driving and my son's riding shotgun and knockers comes on, and it says that right on the little screen and my son looks at the screen, works out the window.

Doesn't say anything. Doesn't acknowledge it. Just silent, palpable shame. Everyone in my family knows better than to engage with me at this point. I'm a liability. I've gone from unfit to work in an office to unfit to work in my own house. I'm going to end up doing this show alone in a storage unit or perhaps a sewer. From here, the darkness run into some

“drug related issues. Some extended hiatus is, etc. Let's not get into it. Here's what you need to”

know, and Buck Cherry know this also. You can't be the I love the cocaine band for 25 years. You physically can't. You can be the I love the cocaine band, but that is different. In 2012, seven years later, the darkness released their third album called Hot Cakes. I have been preparing myself to say that out loud for several weeks. Oh wow, look at this cover. For you audio only folks, this cover, it's a tasteful illustration of three Foxy

scantily clad ladies reclining on a bed of pancakes. Also, they are covered in what appears to be maple syrup. The pancakes are covered in maple syrup. And also the women. This cover is

so incredible that I'm afraid to listen to the actual album. Lest it not live up to the cover.

You feel me? Same deal, actually, with a sixth album by the darkness, which is released in 2019 and is called Easter is cancelled. Holy shit. Get a load of this cover. Look at super buff Jesus smiling on the cross. What on earth is going on here? If I'm reading this image correctly and

preventing the crucifixion of Jesus, which would mean that technically good Friday is cancelled,

“but never mind what them cook. That cover is amazing. I am amazed. I'm afraid to listen to this album”

also out of profound respect, but I will love this band forever. And I will love both of these albums

forever, even if I never hear them. And I encourage you all to share these albums with your friends

and your family. Just maybe don't talk about this band with your co-workers at work. We are delighted to be joined once again by Jill Hopkins, journalist and podcast superstar and Chicago institution. She is the civic events producer at Metro Chicago and G-Man Tavern. She hosts myriad live events. She is very busy and she is very tired. Jill, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you, Rob. I am out of bed. I am drinking a non-sleepy time tea for

change and I am so excited. Thank you for having me back. Of course, we are grateful to have you. You

“mentioned to me that you saw the darkness. I think in 2003 at the double door in Chicago,”

you also mentioned that that was your wedding venue. True, the double door. And so what was the better show?

So, okay, so my wedding, the greatest day of my life. Listen. Sure. I don't have children, so that was the greatest day of my life. Not the day my kids were born, which I imagine were your best days. But the darkness put on a hell of a show. They were so good. They were one of those bands that even without knowing what they look like or having seen a video. You hear the album or whatever and you're like, I bet these guys really turned it out. Like you just tell. Yeah,

so they were great. And it's the double door. And this was like in it's heyday. And I missed that

“venue so much. It was my favorite place to see shows. But it was a it's a small room. I don't remember”

what the capacity was. But I can't imagine it was more than like 400. And just on a single level,

like not really a balcony situation. And those dudes just, they did not come to play. They were taking over. And so say all of us, let's tap into a mirror. It is, there is so much, I try to resist it. But there is just so much spinal tap in this entire situation. I just, I want to just quote the entire movie to myself and to others the entire time I'm listening to this. But I don't mean that as a slight amount of that. It's not

huge compliment. That's a complimentary. Like they, they knew what we needed as a society. In 2003, which at the time felt, you know, as an American woman felt like kind of drudgery. It was the Bush administration. You know, we're going to like, you know, the protests and stuff. Yeah. And we're like, I can't imagine I could get any worse than this. Yes, yes. And here we are. And here we are. I know it was 28 plus years ago. But like I

imagine the crowd, like when I saw the darkness, what I responded to is the joy, like the elation, like we're enjoying being a rock band and you're enjoying watching this rock band, which is not a vibe as much as I love like interpole, for example. Like that joy is not the transmitted emotion there. Like do the darkness, like summing up sort of a joyful elation that not many rock bands in 2003 were, we're trying to create. Oh yeah, it was a very, it felt like

nationally internationally. Chicago's rock bands were all about the fun and the vibes and the joy. We had a great scene in 2003 still do. But like in 2003, there were bands like Bible of Devil and Las Vegas and just, you know, really great swaggy, tongue and cheek people who got it. And then nationally, we're we're dealing with like the strokes and interpole. And I've seen interpole live and I've seen interpole live at like a house of bands in Brooklyn.

Yes, there are people on skateboards while interpole is playing and it was still not a joyful

interpole. I love Paul Banks. I I think his album with was at the reserve the gizza one of the two

“had a rap album. And it was great. I played the heck out of it on my radio show. I think he's a”

great songwriter, but there needed to be some, you know, smiles at the show. There needed to be dancing on the dance floor. There needed to be girls in the front row. Like there needed to be this kind of attitude that I don't think we had seen since the late 80s and early 90s that they really captured and they were so much fun. I shout out to my friend Hobbs who gave me his extra ticket

so we could go to this show. And yeah, I mean, it was it was packed in. It was sold out.

And folks were just beaming air to ear just every little element that they brought to the stage brought more, you know, people looking at each other just like what is happening at some point. So there's a it was a flat floor with a staircase right in the middle that went down into the basement that had like another bar and like a close circuit TV so you could see what was going on upstairs if you wanted to do that. And from the stage there was a stairwell that went down into the basement

so you could get to the green room. So at some point, Justin Hawkins leaves through the stairwell

on the stage, you know, the rest of the band is vamping or whatever and it comes back up through the stairwell in the middle of the floor. All the shoulders of his tour manager in a different jumpsuit than he was wearing. He left the stage. A costume change. Awesome change. And everybody lost

“their minds. It was what I think people think kiss must have been like. But I've also seen kiss”

live in it. I can't imagine that was that much fun in the 70s. I mean, it was just it was just fun. It was just the bodymen of a fun show and there's not enough of that anymore just in general. Not even any more. Just in general. We're not having the times that we should be have in at the shows. Wow, it's going to ask. I know you'd be a big pearl jam person and I was, you know, what you were interested in rock wise in the 2000s. We go from like Pete Grunge in alternative rock.

And later in the 90s that sort of fizzles out, maybe you're in a pop punk, maybe you're in a new metal. But like what was your sense of what rock and roll was like in the early 2000s in 2003?

“And did the darkness like make sense in that context or was the whole point of the darkness? How”

anomalous they were? What a blast from the past or just a breath of fresh air. They were at that time. Like this is a podcast and people can't see the face that I made when you said pop punk or your metal. And it was okay. I'm not a sense. I did, I did sense that. Yes. But like, you know, like the early 2000s when things were looking kind of dire there after the pop punk. And you know, no, there's I've seen fallout boy much love to those those

local boys. There's, you know, Chicago is also a great pop punk city. But it was bleak. I don't know. I also say it. And then like around 2022 when like the white stripes and the strokes. And even like even hip hop needed a little something and like any R.D. It was it was about any. And there was the the the hives and the vines. Oh my god. What a, what an embarrassment of riches. It came out around then. There was an ethos and a sound that came out that hadn't existed

in a few years. And it was so grateful, so grateful for. And then I was at a party for a bunch of dudes on estrus records. Like that was a great record label. So we had like, yeah, just it was a really good look it up. Hey, who was this thing? Look up estrus records. Try to get them to come back. But so there was a party like a house party. And they were playing Queen to the Stone Age rated her like the full album at this party. And I had not heard it before. And when I tell you

summer because that kind of blended into the background mostly because we were all also doing drugs. But yes, it was just narrating your experience. Oh, yeah. All of those things I'll take to. So like there was this, that kind of focused me. There was this great website called stonorock.com. That was this like one stop shop for that kind of music. The desert sessions, chias, foomanchu, you know, all that kind of stuff. And that's where I was in the early 2000s. And

despite all of that, I never had bad feelings for like glam metal. The LA Sunset strip

“kind of poison. Yeah. I think I'm in like that exact right age where I was like, yeah,”

unskittybop is not offensive to me. I, I'm a 12 year old girl. This is great. It was, I mean, honestly, who else was unskittybopping? It was just the tweens. We were having a good time. So I didn't have like any ill will towards that kind of thing. So when the darkness came around, they felt like the exact right meld of this, this early 2000s rock sensibility and the showmanship of

a late 80s Sunset strip band. I loved it. I love that. That's a great, that's a great framing for

that. That makes a lot of sense to me because I love queens of the stonage too. And like they're not, they are laugh out loud. Funny. Like feel good ahead of the summer is a laugh out loud. Funny song. Like I, there's a lot of, I see a lot of connection between the darkness and the queens, just like the flamboyance and just the silliness almost like rocking silliness. Like is that element important to you in a rock band? You love Pearl Jam who are not the funniest band

“who ever lived. But ideally is there some sense of humor about your ideal rock band?”

Oh my gosh. Yes. I mean, I saw a spinal tap too in a theater. I spent money just a few months

ago to just reclaim that emotion. I think a tongue and cheek attitude can really elevate a band. If you take yourself a little too seriously, then like, I don't need to take you seriously. You've taken myself seriously enough for all of us. And there's, you know, there's bands like especially like in the 70s, you build it underground. I feel like they took themselves pretty seriously. Pretty serious. I feel like early YouTube did not take themselves seriously, but modern

day YouTube totally takes themselves seriously. I think that R.M. wanted to make you think that they

“were taking themselves seriously. But honestly, they were just a bunch of silly geese in a band”

from the south. And I do, I very much appreciate a sense of humor in a band. In the same way that I take it seriously in a romantic partner. Like, you know, how you go out with somebody and you think they're hot or whatever. They're really good looking. And then you find out that they suck as a sense of humor person. Like, you can't, you can't tell a joke. They can't tell a joke. Oh my god, what a funny disappointment. You're not going to marry someone who can't make

you laugh. And I feel that way about bands. And the entire commission to land album is a laugh riot. They know what that is. They do. They do. It's also extremely English, which I think is important. Like, this band is like very, very English. And I do think that that works for them. Like, does that work for you? Like, is there an exotic quality or is there like the silliness of singing about like, you know, churches in the 1500s or whatever is going on on that record? Is the English

is important to the joy that you get from this band? Just this morning. So we're listening to a permission to land on the big TV in the bedroom as I'm getting my life together. And I'm looking at the lyrics and my husband's looking over my shoulder. And there was a phrase there. I think it was the alcoe straits or something and some song at the top of the album. And he's like, oh, those lyrics

it's a highway in like a town in England. He's like, okay. I mean, it's some of the references are

so neat. And I don't know if English shit is exotic, but that's the wrong word. It's whiteness in a different font. It's whiteness in more serifs. Yes. Yes. It's an old English, old English font. But I do think that their regional pride, what else to put it, does make a difference. I like it when bands are just like, hey, we're from here and we're going to write this into it. Some people,

“there's, you know, there's a conversation about like, what's the greatest American rock band?”

And the answer is, are you? But there is a lot of talk about, you know,

Bruce Springsting in the Eastry band or, you know, peak aerosmith or whatever. And those, I think the thing about those groups is that they are very much from where they're from. Like, they try to be like just a generic thing. They are talking about the stuff that's going on where they are. And Chicago has a lot of civic pride. And I love that. Even when like, people move away, they're still just a Chicago miss about them. And there's, there's very,

very, very Anglo thing is going to the darkness. Well, also not having the thing that sometimes,

you know, when bands are British and they don't sing in their accents. I don't know how the word is for that. And they're not like, oh, hey, we're, we're, I'm so bad at impressions. That was great. That was fantastic. That was a perfect, it's perfect. The end of that. But here, they're very British down to the teeth. They got British, yeah. Yeah. It's a great quiz. Go ahead and go ahead. Just like, you can't tell a band from just this, I'm, I got British teeth and I'm from the

South Side of Chicago. I don't know, but there's, there is something very quintessentially

“British about them that I think is endearing. And it does make them more likable, I think.”

It would be a great quiz, like English or AI, like we are, it's one that's the top. It's, it's going to be harder than you think. I think this is how you become a millionaire Robby. You make that. And then you sell it to the NYT games. Yeah, right next to mortal, totally. Connections, mortal, whatever you call this. Yes. It'll be less frustrating than connections. My kids don't like connections either. They get very angry at the purple clue.

Because why are they just gaslighting us, Rob? It is, it's so delicious. It's designed and it's designed to annoy you. It's, that's the most annoying thing about the New York Times in 2026 by far. That's these things. That's, that's, that's, that's our biggest problem. I'm very jealous that you got two cat suits at the darkness show that you got like a costume change, right? Because I do think just in Hawkins, looks acts and dresses like a rock star in a way that I don't remember very many

if any other people dressing in 2003 is like looking the parts, another key components of this band playing the part. Yeah. And as, like I said, this is a podcast of people who don't see, but you can see behind me, there's a poster of Prince, there's a poster of David Lee Roth, era Van Halen. So I'm obviously a fan of a, of showmanship in a least, in a front person. And just in Hawkins is all of those things, rolled in one same with the hot. Those are

“another band that I was looking for. What else are these dudes going to do for a living cell cars?”

Like, they're not going to have to do that. Like, this is, this is, they're calling, obviously. Yeah. Like, he, he couldn't have done another job for work. Genetically blessed with that voice, but also with the kind of way fish mail body that allows a women's extra small cats.

tool manager. You have a good point. You'd have to be built a certain way. I am not an easily

“liftable person, myself. No, right. Realize how much boobs and ass weigh. And they think that they”

can just get me up there like baby house or at the end of dirty dancing. But no, I'm very dense as a human being. Justin Hawkins, if he told me that he could fly, I would believe him. He's like, he would take to the wind like a leaf in a breeze. That's right. A flying squirrel, evil, evil sort of vibe. Totally totally. And he's got that, that range, the vocal range,

that's great. And, you know, just, like, a curled lip kind of eye contact situation.

There's a little bit of Elvis in there. There's a lot of David and Rob. There's a lot of Freddie Mercury in there. There's, and also his own thing. His own thing. And like, the fact that he and his brother are in the band together, they must have been a menace at home. I don't know what their parents are still recovering. I don't know. I hope they bought them a house or something. That's not on the couch or something. There's an RV at least. I don't know if

that's an English conception. But yeah, they care about the care. There we go. Yeah.

What I mean, there's nothing that that guy could have done other than be the lead singer in a very flying point rock band. Like, if he, if he just decided to do like a, you know, what he got through the thing, people would be like, no. I don't get out of here. Get. I don't want to hear about the dust bowl. Justin, thank you. Well, we've done enough songs about the troubles or whatever it is. Right. That's true. Yeah. That's not even speculating. No, I won't.

Because he rock career of Justin. I'm just that could not possibly exist. Yes. He's just so good at it. He's so good. They're still putting out albums. He's, he's a good 20 plus years older and he's still just like, yeah, do it. Good for him. I don't have that kind of energy anymore. No, no. I wouldn't wear a tattoo back then, but I would certainly would not wear a tattoo now. Yes. I mean, somebody wants to pay me enough. I probably, you can, yeah, let's put that up there on your face. You can not go.

Yeah. That's right. Yeah. DM, Joe Hopkins, your social media site of quote in just in a ghost. Yeah.

“Work that out. I own techniques. I look in for an excuse. Do you do? Are you pro or anti guitar solo?”

Do we have too many guitar solos or not enough guitar solos in rock and roll? Joe. Pro, guitar solo, pro, bass solo, pro. Yeah. I'm solo, vocal solo, not enough dance. That's right. I'm not a scatting. Sure. I'm just saying that these people professional musicians have practiced and worked hard, whole lives. It's true. And they deserve a little moment in the summer. Also, I deserve to go to the restaurant. Yes. Yes. This. Yes. You get your moment in a spotlight.

I just don't have to be physically present to it. It's a witness it. Exactly. But I can still hear it. That's true. Yeah. And I'm going to be, I'm going to be hovering over a seat. And I'm just going to be like

“damn. This guy is fucking rocking out. Yes. But I mean, honestly, if you are good enough”

that the rest of the people in your band have allowed you to have a solo and especially if those people are still on stage while you have a solo, they haven't fucked up to the bathroom. Just like watching. Yeah. Yeah. I have seen Alex Manhalen do magic for four minutes in a row at a time. That's a long time. I've seen friends play a guitar for as long. I don't even know how long. As long in print time, 12 dates. Yeah. Yes. A fortnight of prints guitar solo.

at, you know, at the highest level. And I think that should be acknowledged and rewarded.

If you don't like a guitar solo, I'm sorry that you don't appreciate joy. Well said. Yeah, absolutely. Just to wrap up, you mentioned to me, it was very funny the way you put it. You post live band karaoke or you used to post live band karaoke and you said that around when the darkness hit, when I believe in a thing called Love Hits, you said like the white boys discovered their false setos. I believe was probably perfect the way. Yes. How what was that experience like and

“have you ever heard anyone competently saying, I believe in a thing called Love in a karaoke setting?”

I will say that that was one of the best jobs I've ever had. It sounds like it. It was really fun.

And it honestly prepared me for so many other things that I've done in my life because you have to be prepared for anything. You're working with musicians who have to recall music on a dime in seconds, honestly. And sometimes there's songs where as the host who, you know, you try to have as much knowledge of the song list as you can. Sometimes you're just going to be on stage to rescue somebody. If they, you would be surprised at how many people over the years were like,

I want to sing baby cup back. And then you give them lyrics and it just seems like a Santa Claus scroll and it keeps going. There's so many words and they're like, oh, it's like 15 seconds. Say it's like I've made it today. You just, you want the, you want the hook. You want the actual,

“you want to be removed from the stage physically. So do you have to like go in, like you're like a”

permanent under study for whoever's on stage. You have to wrap the rest of baby got back. And that's the rest. But sometimes you just need to just like give them the cue. You have to just be like, I like it. Yeah, exactly. If there's sometimes people get all the way through verse, verse, chorus, verse, and then the bridge comes and they have no idea what the branch is tripped up. Many, uh, so many people fail the bridge. But there's this, this song,

I've seen several incredibly great versions of these dudes. I don't know what is happening in their homes or their cars or their shelves. But they figured out that they can hit these notes and they want everyone to fucking know about it. And I am, I was always so here for it. There is, there was, you know, an eye contact that you make with the people in the band. You're just like, okay, all right. Oh, Chad's got it. It's always Chad. It's Chad or Kevin or Gary 100% of the time.

Oh, my goodness. James, the third is up here. Just get that. Okay, Jimbo. And like you are always,

I'm, I feel so proud. I feel like, oh, my, I'm just like they come out of the stage. I'm just like, bring it in. Give it, give it, and then you know, you get a, you get a hug from a busty black woman. I've made their week. You're just going to ride on that cloud still tell that story. 2026. Just as you are. There we go. What a beautiful thing. What a beautiful thing. Rock and roll is. It's some, it's one of my favorite beautiful things. I am, I am just so jazzed about, uh, the darkest.

“Did you know that their current drummer is Roger Taylor from Queen's Sun?”

I did not know that and yet I did nothing in hard voice. That's for me. Yeah, I knew that in my heart. I mean, it does make all the sense in the world because also this kid's name, a kid. He's probably a 40 year old. Yeah. He's his name is Rufus Tiger Taylor. And I was like, there's no. That's right. That he's seeing himself the name Tiger. And then I looked into it. And he was given the middle name Tiger by Freddie Mercury. No better. I'm still of middle names. It was, oh, Roger.

It's the, the accent is, I don't know how it's possible. But your English accent is getting better.

“If anybody wants to hire me for that, um, that's right. On your vastly popular podcast, I'm just saying,”

they can, I'm here. I'm sag.

Jill, it is a wonderful talking to you. This has been fantastic. And I'm so tired. Thank you. I missed us, Rob.

“I missed you. I have. And you're going to be back soon. So don't worry about that. I'm so, I'll see you in the”

higher. [laughs] [music]