{"id":28596,"date":"2015-11-06T08:05:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T21:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=28596"},"modified":"2016-03-05T12:39:49","modified_gmt":"2016-03-05T01:39:49","slug":"frankie-poullain-of-the-darkness-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2015\/11\/frankie-poullain-of-the-darkness-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Frankie Poullain of The Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cI think we used the new album to escape from the upheaval we went through, the upheaval with management. Obviously we did the comeback and when you do a comeback for us it wasn\u2019t really a comeback, we just wanted to get together again and do an album\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From Release: THE DARKNESS,<\/strong>\u00a0multi award winning, multi-million selling megaband formed in 2000 by The\u00a0Brothers Hawkins,\u00a0Frankie Poullain\u00a0and (now departed)\u00a0Ed Graham\u00a0have had good years and bad. And some years where they didn’t actually do anything. This year is a good’un, because\u00a0THE DARKNESS\u00a0are back with their brand new fourth album ‘Last of Our Kind’, released in June 2015 and a new drummer\u00a0Rufus Taylor\u00a0(son of Queen drummer\u00a0Roger Taylor), now they are back for an Australian Tour!<\/p>\n

In San Francisco after headlining a festival with Die Antwoord and Tenacious D we chatted to Frankie of The Darkness about the upcoming Australian tour, shaping a set, memories, \u2018Dinner Lady Arms\u2019 and much more\u2026<\/p>\n

Of course we’re here because you’re headed back to see us next month, with a nice little catalogue behind you now, how do you go about shaping the set these days?<\/strong>
\nYeah it\u2019s nice to have the four albums to choose from now, it\u2019s just such a great feeling. I guess what we really do is, the whole things with songs is you don\u2019t know when you\u2019ve written it if it\u2019s good or not, no one can, you can only see in the very special ones but there\u2019s a lot of songs that need time to tell you whether not they\u2019re actually good songs, so it changes all the time with each tour. We feel now we\u2019ve chosen to play our nineteen or twenty best songs and that\u2019s what we do in the set list and Justin is playing keyboards actually in a couple of songs. That\u2019s gonna be the first time we\u2019ve done that in Australia, we\u2019re doing that for the first time at the moment in The States and we\u2019re going to have the keyboard down there as well, it\u2019s a Fender Rhodes as well, it\u2019s a lovely sound.<\/p>\n

I was lucky to be at your first Sydney headline show at the Gaelic Club, it was amazing. What do you remember about that first tour down here?<\/strong>
\n*laughs* not much, you never remember much in Australia, just abstract little snapshots because you\u2019ve got the jetlag and then the partying, and also in Australia you\u2019re not on tour busses, when you\u2019re on tour busses you\u2019re leaving maybe three hours after the gig so you can\u2019t get too messed up, well you still get messed up but not in the same way. When you\u2019re staying at a hotel everyone\u2019s just leading you astray, especially as we were younger then\u2026 oh geez\u2026 well it\u2019s a lot of snapshots of things, situations and hotel rooms and people in them and oh my god, I\u2019ve got all these things but it\u2019s so ungentlemanly to talk about it at my age to talk about that stuff, I sound like a creep\u2026<\/p>\n

I was down at Darling Harbour when you were on tour and I remember seeing you guys heading out on a jet boat\u2026<\/strong>
\nI remember that very clearly, that\u2019s one of the clearest memories, and I also remember going on a yacht with the guy that owned the record label, Michael Gudinski.<\/p>\n

‘Last of Our kind’ has recently been released, and in the three years since ‘Hot Cakes’ what helped shape the album?<\/strong>
\nUpheaval, personal and professional upheaval in a good way, I think we used the new album to escape from the upheaval we went through, the upheaval with management. Obviously we did the comeback and when you do a comeback for us it wasn\u2019t really a comeback, we just wanted to get together again and do an album but the industry perceive it that you\u2019re doing a nostalgia comeback type of thing, for us it was all about \u2018Hot Cakes\u2019 but unfortunately when you\u2019ve got management who just exploit that comeback and give us the wrong message as far as we\u2019re concerned. So we changed management in the US and UK, we changed labels US and UK as well, and unfortunately we couldn\u2019t work with Ed Graham any longer also, so we changed drummers. So the album is escapist and it\u2019s impassioned but sonically it\u2019s very warm sounding and Dan Hawkins did a great job, it\u2019s like for me a very hot blooded album.<\/p>\n

You’ve also got yourself a newer drummer, has having Rufus in the band helped give The Darkness a new dynamic on stage?<\/strong>
\nOh geez, it really has helped the dynamic on stage, it\u2019s just different, the personality of a fourth member can change a dynamic completely you know, he\u2019s obviously the vitality, he\u2019s much younger than us and the sense of humour is there and evident he doesn\u2019t give a shit and has a really healthy reverence which is something we\u2019ve always tried to foster and I mean there\u2019s never been a hint of anything discorded or unpleasant with him he\u2019s just a really great guy you know, really down to earth bearing in mind his background. He\u2019s just a great laugh.<\/p>\n

As the bass player you have to get into a groove with your rhythm section, has it been hard to adapt to a new drummer or has it been an easy progress?<\/strong>
\nNo not hard to adapt, I mean it\u2019s always hard and as talented as Dan and Justin are and technically, but I enjoy the fact that he\u2019s pushing me and he pushes the tempo to kind of really dig in and that\u2019s what it should be like you know, it should be tough, he really adds so much power and aggression to the mix.<\/p>\n

You’ve also recently played an even newer song in I believe ‘Rack of Glam’ which is a killer title by the way… Can you tell us about this one?<\/strong>
\n*laughs* Yeah, funny enough, ok so the title came by when we were in a song writing session with LIZ GRIFFITHS, this was just about six weeks ago and we were there for about a week and one day I said isn\u2019t it tedious how everyone always calls us a glam band all the time, and I said why don\u2019t we just make it prophecy, why don\u2019t we just do like a glam song and put the word glam in the title for a play on words. So then we started coming up with words with glam and then there\u2019s a pause and Rufus suddenly said \u2018Rack of Glam\u2019 and we all looked at each other and we just knew it had to be the title, and when you\u2019ve got a title that good the song of course Justin worked there and came up with some great lyrics and I\u2019m sure he would agree that it makes the song a lot easier when you\u2019ve got something really strong to guide you. So it\u2019s basically about man\u2019s relationship with breasts but he does it in a very non laddish way but Freudian basically in a way where men are imprisoned by the female bosom.<\/p>\n

Does this mean you’re in writing mode and we may see new music much sooner than later?<\/strong>
\nYes, exactly, much sooner because we\u2019ve always taken a three year gap between albums and in a sense maybe that makes the albums quite considered which can be a good thing, but what we\u2019d like to do with the next album is make it vibier and much more playful, we\u2019re talking about something like The White Album or The Beastie Boys, Paul\u2019s Boutique, we\u2019re looking for something in that vibe, that\u2019s the idea at the moment. We\u2019re already coming up with tracks and \u2018Rack of Glam\u2019 will be one of those, the musical style won\u2019t be like \u2018Rack of Glam\u2019, the way that song came about, the playfulness will probably be characteristic of the whole album.<\/p>\n

When you look back to ‘Permission To Land’ compared to now, what for you has been the biggest evolution you’ve seen take place within The Darkness?<\/strong>
\n*pauses* Well, the biggest evolution would be musical accomplishment and technique for sure, I mean \u2018Permission To Land\u2019 I guess one of the charms of it is you\u2019ve got these, it\u2019s very raw and you can hear these guys kind of playing and you can hear them struggling playing, but it\u2019s live and vibey, yeah. The songs are powerful but technically it\u2019s not as powerful as it could be, so I guess by our standards it\u2019s relatively lo-fi, some of it veers on the lo-fi and that can be a good thing of course, cause The White Stripes for example, I guess the biggest development has been live that we sound bigger and full bodied, heavier and with Rufus now we\u2019ve just gone to another level, we\u2019re sonically a much heavier band whereas before it was, even with \u2018Hot Cakes\u2019 it was quite fizzy and toppy and now there\u2019s a real depth to it.<\/p>\n

I have to ask and hear it from the horse\u2019s mouth, my friend Loretta has been pushing and trying for years, is there any chance at all you can play ‘Dinner Lady Arms’ at the Sydney show?<\/strong>
\nMy god it gets requested so often, so often! The thing with \u2018Dinner Lady Arms\u2019 it\u2019s the kind of song that an arena band would play, it\u2019s a big production and that\u2019s the problem with a lot of the songs from that second album is that it\u2019s more mid-paced, it\u2019s our least phonetic album \u2018One Way Ticket\u2019 and \u2018Dinner Lady Arms\u2019 is definitely such a mid-paced song and live we\u2019ve found that the mid-paced songs people don\u2019t come to see us to hear songs like that apart from your friend of course and people who love the song, but it does seem to change the vibe of the live gig, it slows down our heartbeats and we kind of lose our hyped up kind of highly strung delivery that make a Darkness gig like it is. It might just be because we can\u2019t be arsed to learn it again, maybe we will play it in the future, so we can slow down, but we like to go from the extreme, we like to go to the up-tempo stuff from then we have the \u2018Love Is Only A Feeling\u2019 type of thing, but the stuff in between sometime it just feels like it doesn\u2019t quite land. But, I wouldn\u2019t rule it out, it\u2019s not going to happen on this tour but it might happen in the future. We are doing \u2018English Country Garden\u2019 for the first time in years.<\/p>\n

Lastly, let’s look ahead to the future, so finish this sentence for me… In 2016 The Darkness will…<\/strong>
\nRelease their fifth album which will contain a minimum of fourteen tracks\u2026\u00a0 it\u2019s gonna be our \u2018White Album\u2019 if you like, I guess the working title is \u2018The Brown Album\u2019\u2026 but it won\u2019t end up being the title because that\u2019s too weak\u2026<\/p>\n

Well The Beatles had white, Metallica had Black, you can have Brown\u2026
\n<\/strong>Yeah, so from that point of view it\u2019s logical.<\/p>\n

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Catch The Darkness on the Blast of Our Kind Australian Tour:<\/strong><\/p>\n

6 November – ADELAIDE SA, HQ<\/p>\n

7 November – FREMANTLE WA, Metropolis<\/p>\n

8 November – BRISBANE, Tivoli<\/p>\n

11 November – MELBOURNE, Forum<\/p>\n

13 November – SYDNEY, Enmore<\/p>\n

Presented by Blue Murder & Select Touring<\/p>\n

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Essential Information<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Lowestoft, Suffolk, UK<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong> Justin Hawkins \u2013 Vocals, guitar, Dan Hawkins – Guitar, Frankie Poullain \u2013 Bass, Rufus Tiger Taylor – Drums<\/p>\n

Website:\u00a0<\/strong> http:\/\/www.thedarkness.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release:<\/strong> Last of Our Kind \u2013 (out now)<\/p>\n

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Deluxe edition coming November 20th<\/sup>\u00a0pre order below<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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