But the band delivered a blistering performance despite the 10

But the band delivered a blistering performance, despite the 10.30am warm-up slot. Permission To Land crashed into the charts at number two and the group went on that summer to support Robbie Williams at three sell-out shows at Knebworth. Only 1,000 copies were pressed but six weeks later the track “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” received its first Radio One airplay, championed by DJ Jo Whiley.Media interest began to grow and the band started looking for an album deal. Meanwhile, tours with established groups like their teenage idols Def Leppard as well as Deep Purple and Wildhearts were beginning to help them build a fan base.The turning point was a headline gig at the London Astoria in the spring of 2003.

The venue was sold out and fans and reviewers went away to spread the word. By now a major deal was in the offing with no less a label than Atlantic Records. The band’s first EP was released in August 2002 on a tiny independent record label, Must Destroy. Styling himself Justin “Danger” Hawkins, the musician had played in several bands, going on to form the heavy metal outfit The Commander while studying music technology at Huddersfield Technical College. By the time he met up again – musically speaking – with his brother Dan and childhood friends Frankie Poullain and Ed Graham, all four were living in London. The Darkness was born.Hawkins was earning a living writing commercial jingles which he hawked between the advertising agencies on an old four-track recorder.

There was some success – he counted Swedish mega-retailer Ikea among his clients – but the life of an anonymous musical technocrat was never going to fulfil his childhood dreams of rock stardom.At first The Darkness were written off by the critics merely as a musical joke. Every day focused around drink and drugs,” he said.It is a far cry from his early days as a fresh-faced aspiring young rock star. Friends recall that during his teenage years he used to practise with his brother Dan (a member of the band) in the garage of the family’s Suffolk bungalow, a stuffy room packed with instruments and soundproofed with old egg boxes.Not only could the Kirkley High School pupil imitate all the strutting moves of his guitar-god heroes such as Queen’s Brian May and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, but he could reproduce their solos note-perfect.Yet, according to The Darkness legend, it was not until he performed a virtuoso karaoke version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” at his aunt’s pub at Beccles in Norfolk on Millennium Eve, that his brother was convinced of his suitability as a future frontman, rather than just another lead guitarist. I became secretive, volatile and verbally abusive, a really unpleasant person to be around.

He insisted on going on stage first during awards ceremonies so that he could finish early and spend the rest of the night night snorting cocaine and drinking vodka “I wouldn’t stop until I blacked out. There were lots of periods I don’t even remember; blackouts,” he said.Everything had revolved around drug taking. I spent over £150,000 on cocaine in three years – a frightening amount. I was consuming up to five grammes a day, which cost me £1,000 a week, sometimes more,” he told the Sun.The singer says he has been clean for nine weeks after attending the month-long addiction treatment programme at the Priory clinic in Roehampton.