Have you ever wondered what happened to members of The Darkness after their very public and fast implsion? Well three members of the band, namely, Dan Hawkins, Richie Edwards and Ed Graham regrouped, recruited bassist Toby Macfarlane and have re-branded themselves  as the “Stone Gods”. HRH was given access to the band before their Newcastle Academy show .The band gave much thought to our questions and some may find the answers at times surprising. In the interests of everyone concerned we have left out the deep ruminations as to whether burgers are male or female and the merits of Mondeo cars over Volvo and also many remarks which will have to remain forever, in journalist terms,” off the record”. 

Stone Gods

Stone Gods is a brand new musical venture featuring three members who are no strangers to the rock world having originally been in The Darkness. How did you go about bringing Toby in to be your new bass player and completing the line-up for the new band? 

Toby - Yeah even I want to know how did you ensnare me? 

Dan - Well the Stone Gods started about a week after the split of The Darkness. We called Toby and asked if he would be interested in starting a new band. At the time he was touring with Graham Coxon’s band, which had been touring for many moons. We had a gut feeling that he might say no as he had been with Grahams band for a long time and we were asking him to basically quit his job and take a punt on a brand new band. Amazingly he said yes straight away. 

Was it hard for you Toby to come into a band where the other three already had a history together? 

Toby - I did wonder. Part of me did think as I was on my way up to give their new stuff a listen whether it would feel awkward, as we hadn’t seen each other for some time but as it happened within half an hour everything felt fine. 

Dan - It was great to have Toby involved. As we got more and more tracks down and even more booze we all ended up in a massive bundle. Do you call it a bundle up here? 

Richie - It’s called a pile up on round here (laughs) 

Toby - so there you go instantly I was contented to be involved with a bunch of morons (laughs) 

Richie how did you feel about moving across to handle both lead vocal and guitar duties? 

Richie - it’s great actually. When Dan phoned me up and said do you fancy doing some singing I didn’t really give it a thought and just said yes. It’s quite organic really. In fact an hour previously Dan had rang and given me the sucker punch that The Darkness was over and so when he rang back and asked if I wanted to sing in a new band it was great. I remember going back into the room where my girlfriend was and saying “yeah, I’ve got a new fuckin’ band”. 

Had you always played guitar? 

Richie - well I joined The Darkness to play bass but that was almost a bit of a sidestep, as demonstrated by some fantastic bass lines in that band (laughs). To be honest guitar was really my instrument from years back and to get back to playing guitar now feels awesome. You can’t beat strapping a six string round your neck and rocking’ out. 

We’ve got to ask about the implosion of The Darkness, it must have been particularly emotionally draining time especially for you Dan? 

Dan - Implosion, I like that description. Yes it was an emotional time but there were other personal issues that were going on at then as well, which probably got me down more than the band splitting up. I would compare it to splitting up with a long-term girlfriend, which as it happens was also happening during that time. I remember thinking, “fuck my life’s going to change” and there was a certain amount of euphoria. I don’t know. I like to think I’m an optimist. 

It must have made it even more difficult the fact that the whole situation was splashed across the front pages of the tabloids. Did you feel resentment towards the press in the way it was handled? 

Dan - Not necessarily. To be honest I felt that my brother should have approached the fans first before going to the Sun newspaper. The first the Darkness fans found out about things was from a fucking two-page spread and it showed he was irresponsible and obviously didn’t give a fuck. I don’t think he was thinking particularly clearly at that time and he was still going to rehab. All you can say is it happened. 

Did you know about what was going to happen before it went in the papers? 

Dan - Oh yeah. Just to underline it let me say that things had been going downhill a long time before that. To be honest looking back I don’t think we should have made that second album. It’s only by hook and by crook and the efforts of Roy Thomas Baker that we managed to make that fuckin’ record. Now it’s a huge relief to get back into something that everyone loves doing and wants to be involved in. 

Thinking about where you are now, do you feel under more pressure to succeed again? 

Richie - No, not at all. I hate to use the cliché but it really is all about the music. At whatever level this band operates on we’ll be happy if we can still make records and still go out on tour. The whole celebrity nonsense that went along with The Darkness is a bit of a fuckin’ albatross round your neck to be honest. If we are forever touring at this Academy 2 level we will be eternally grateful as we are having a fuckin’ great time. This time it’s not about achieving the same level of success, although it depends on how you measure success. My personal measure of success would be to keep this band going, keep us on the road, keep us making records and having people come out to see us play. To me that is success and as long as we do that we’ll all be very happy. 

Toby - having said that I would like a new car (laughs) 

With the new band have you swept away the entire infrastructure that you had behind you or have you brought some of it with you?

Dan - To a large extent yeah. However we have a tried and trusted crew on board who are our personal friends and who I feel are the best in the business. Some of these guys have been at times helping us for nothing and so we feel very lucky to have these people standing behind us and supporting us. We do have a new manager who is great so you could say it feels like a new chapter for all of us. 

To draw a line under The Darkness are there any lessons that you’ve learned from that period in terms of what you’re doing now? 

Richie -for me coming in towards the end of The Darkness, the most important thing that I’ll take forward with me, after seeing how things were near the end, is that this job is by far and away the best fukin’ job in the whole world and you should never forget that. You should always enjoy it and be grateful for the fact that you’re walking out on stage in front of people who like what you’re doing. I’m having a fuckin’ ball and I count my blessing every time I wake up in the morning. 

Dan - mine would be that communications in bands is the key. If you’re not happy about something you should put your cards on the table .If someone is unhappy or has a problem they should never feel afraid to speak out and say it other wise things just build up and build up to the point of no return. 

Lets move on to the new music… 

Dan - can I just add I’m going to wash my hair less as it’s just getting bigger and bigger! (Laughs) 

Richie -  I’ve got a lovely shaped head! And make sure you put that in (laughs all round). 

Moving on swiftly (laighs0 to the new music which so far has only been available to listen to as a few snippets on your web site. the first thing that strikes you is its more intense and darker direction. was that intentional? 

Richie - to be perfectly honest we just thought throw it against the wall and see what sticks. There was no agenda. We didn’t think today we’ll write a rocker followed by a ballad followed by something that sounds like this and so on and so on. We just threw it all in the pot and some of them carried on to be recorded and some of them didn’t. There was never an intention to follow a certain route. Some people have commented that it sounds a bit more angry and maybe a bit darker and in hindsight maybe that’s a reflection of things that were happening at that time. Maybe that collective environment moulded things a bit. I’m not sure but maybe there is some thing in that line of thought. 

How do write your songs. Do they come from jams or do you each bring ideas in and flesh them out? 

Richie - a bit of everything really. We sit around with acoustic guitars and acoustic bass and try things. 

So is all the material brand new or have you brought in anything from days gone by? 

Dan - It’s completely new apart from one riff that I had from before which kind of found its way in. It was important to create something new. 

Richie - the other thing was that although Dan and I had been in the The Darkness together we hadn’t written a song together as The Darkness was very much Justin. When we decided to do something new there was a definite feeling of would we be able to write a song together and when Toby came on board it added another element to everything. It’s worth pointing out that Toby is a fantastic songwriter. There’s a song we play mid-way through the set tonight, it’s a sort of power ballad, Toby wrote that one and it’s a belter. Toby has a sort of punk rock background and even the songs we had written before Toby came on board just slotted together even better with him involved. He added another dimension to what we were doing. Sometimes we might have four very different ideas but when we stick them together they work…it’s great. 

How do you handle who writes the lyrics 

Richie - it’s just a pad and paper and everyone throwing in ideas. Someone might have a good title or maybe someone has something in particular that they want to sing about. It’s very much the four of us sitting round and chatting about various lines and sometimes laughing at them (laughs) 

Dan - it’s a very unusual situation to be in just sitting in a room talking about lyrics. You have to be emotionally secure enough to suggest things and being able to do it is a rare and good thing to have. 

Richie - apparently Chumbawumba got their name from a monkey tapping away at a keyboard. 

Dan - I think maybe the monkey should have joined the band (laughs) 

Toby - .never mind banning foxhunting. I think those hunters should be allowed to hunt members of Chumbawumba. 

These days you need a Gorilla on drums… 

Richie - funnily enough …have you met Ed (laughs) 

Looking at you’re MySpace site your plans are to release an EP followed by an album but you have yourselves down as an unsigned band. Are you actively seeking a record company or do you plan to license it yourselves and just secure a distribution deal? 

Dan - at this juncture Play It Again Sam are releasing the EP. We are in negotiations with various labels as well as Play It Again Sam as to who is going to release the album. So far we have done everything off our won back. We’ve recorded the album and paid for our own rehearsals and tour. If we’d held on for another month or so we probably wouldn’t have had to do that, but to be honest we just wanted to get out there and fuckin’ play. We didn’t want to have to wait for anyone’s permission. We could have held on and had a big first single, a video and done the festival circuit but it don’t feel right to sort of play off the past. We want to get out there and build it from grass root upwards and do it for real rather than taking any shortcuts. 

Are you using feedback from the audience at live shows to decide what will potentially go on the album? 

Dan - No the album is recorded, mixed and the track list is ready. We ‘re trying to get Bob Ludwig out of retirement to master it and I think we’re nearly there. The whole things sounds fuckin’ massive and it’s up there with albums like the Black album (Metallica) and Appetite For Destruction (Guns n Roses). It’s got a diverse collection of songs on like Night At The Opera (Queen). We’re really happy with it. 

Getting back to what you mentioned earlier about enjoying getting back on tour, what do you prefer clubs or arenas? 

Dan - well you get better riders at the arenas (laughs) 

Richie - I love the clubs and the very fact you’ve got someone only a couple of feet away from you looking right in your eye and you can see right in theirs.ther’s that interaction that you lose when your playing an arena let alone a fuckin’ great big filed. In a club its amore intense experience and you can feed off a crowd when they’re pumped and raring to go. 

Has playing smaller stages changed the way you interact with each other on stage? 

Dan - well we can see each other now (laughs). Basically towards the end of The Darkness when we were doing Rock In Rio to crowds of a hundred and thirty thousand, we were going on just before Guns n Roses, and to be honest you couldn’t see the crowd. At the moment I am struggling a bit with the small stages, as my special awareness after the bigger shows isn’t as it should be. I’ve got about three different cuts on my lips where I’ve banged into things. See that mark on my forehead, that’s from head banging and coming into contact with the microphone (laughs). Bottom line is that things are more exciting now. 

Are you finding at shows that your bringing in new fans or is it mainly fans from the old days? 

Richie - a bit of both actually. 

Dan - .it’s strange how there are a lot of young kids who couldn’t have discovered us through the old band and to be honest we’re getting people who to be fair hated The Darkness. 

When you did your first headline show as Stone Gods how did you feel? 

Dan - pretty much shitting myself. 

Richie - you know I couldn’t even smell it! (Laughs) What I find amazing is that people are coming out after literally only hearing a minute and a half snippet on our web site or after seeing some badly recorded mobile phone videos on You Tube. We genuinely feel moved that people are coming out the shows. As Dan mentioned earlier at no point did we want to ride on the back of The Darkness, we’re conscious this is a new thing and there is no reason why a Darkness fan would necessarily like us as we are two different bands and yet those fans are still coming to check out the shows. 

Dan - and to think there is still no product out there just the two snippets of music and an acoustic performance on our MySpace. We have mailing lists for Darkness fans that we could have contacted but we have chosen not to .we weren’t even going to have a web site and only got it up and running in November last year as people were wanting to know what shows we were appearing on as a support slots. 

The response you’re getting from these shows must give you massive confidence for the future. 

Dan - yeah but we will take it step by step and we don’t want to run before we can walk. 

Richie - we’re very aware we need to win people over and do a lot of convincing but we are prepared to get out there and do whatever it takes and play as much as possible. 

Toby - get them to take the bait and bite. Get them in the boat so to speak 

Dan - lets hope they’re not sick (laughs) 

Twelve months down the line sitting here doing another interview where do you want to be? 

Dan - easy. In the big room up there (Academy 1) If one was asking about ambitions and stuff playing the larger hall would be great. 

Richie - If I find myself for the next five to ten years touring at Academy 1 level I would be in fuckin’ seventh heaven, in fact I would be very, very happy.

And with that, and a few more jokes, handshakes and laughs we left the guys to get ready for the show. And what a show it was. if you haven't read the HRH review of the Stone Gods live in Newcastle then you can find it via this link. To find out more about the band then you can either check out their official website @ www.stonegods.co.uk or the MySpace site @ www.myspace.com/thestonegods