Justin Hawkins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Justin Hawkins | |
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 Hawkins in Ankkarock 2004
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Justin David Hawkins |
| Born | March 17, 1975 |
| Genre(s) | Hard rock Glam rock Glam metal Heavy metal Rock and roll |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, Guitar |
| Years active | 2000 - present |
| Label(s) | Atlantic Records Must Destroy |
| Associated acts | The Darkness (2000 - 2006) Hot Leg (2008 - present) |
| Website | Myspace.com/barbecuerock |
| Notable instrument(s) | |
| Guitar, Synthesizer, Keyboards | |
Justin David Hawkins (born March 17, 1975 in Chertsey, Surrey, England) is an English musician and singer-songwriter, best known for being the former lead singer and lead guitarist of The Darkness, noted for his heavy use of falsetto, his charismatic persona, and his flamboyant stage personality.
Hawkins is influenced by classic hard rock and glam metal bands of the 1970s and 1980s and cites Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Aerosmith and AC/DC as amongst his influences.
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[edit] Background
Hawkins grew up in Lowestoft, he studied at Kirkley High School (notably the venue for the second series of Channel 4's Rock School programme; although any reference to The Darkness was conspicuously erased in that series in spite of their having donated thousands of pounds' worth of musical equipment to the school[citation needed]), he left part-way through his 'A' Levels to study Music Technology at Huddersfield Technical College while living in Sowerby Bridge near Halifax, West Yorkshire. His brother Dan Hawkins is the lead guitarist of the Stone Gods. He also has a younger sister called Suzi and his parents are called Harry and Sandy.
[edit] Music career
Hawkins fully developed his love of rock music while playing with the now defunct heavy metal band The Commander (Justin "Turbo" Hawkins, Rico Musson, Shaggy Forley, David "Growy" Owens, Jim Lee & Richard "Beaky" Bedford). They are affectionately credited on The Darkness' debut album Permission to Land — (your wish is my Commander).
He is known for wearing catsuits, and his flamboyance and exaggeration, with David Lee Roth-esque acrobatics. He considered himself a lead guitarist until Dan saw him performing an interpretative mime to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in The Swan public house, in Beccles, on 31 December[citation needed], 1999 whereupon they realized his potential as a frontman (though he still played most of the lead guitar in the band).
In 2005, Justin set up a solo project, called British Whale. His debut single, "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", a cover of the 1974 hit by Sparks, was released on August 15 and reached #6 on the UK Singles Chart. In 2006 Hawkins released a second single, available only to download, an unofficial World Cup anthem called "England".
In October 2006, Hawkins left The Darkness[1] to be replaced on lead vocals by bassist Richie Edwards.[2].
Hawkins sung backing vocals on Def Leppard's cover of The Sweet's song "Hell Raiser" for their 2006 covers album Yeah!.[3]
In early 2007, he became one of six acts competing to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest competition in Helsinki in a duet with singer Beverlei Brown.[4] He entered Making Your Mind Up with Beverlei Brown singing a song entitled "They Don’t Make 'Em Like They Used To" [5] but did not win the competition.
On March 16,[2007, he appeared on the Comic Relief evening during the half-hour Top Gear of the Pops programme. This saw him performing Billy Ocean's "Red Light Spells Danger" with the three Top Gear presenters.
Later that month, on March 29, Justin created a new MySpace profile featuring songs which will be included on his upcoming solo album entitled Panther. The songs are titled "You Can't Hurt Me Anymore", "I've Met Jesus" and "Whichever". On May 12, Justin added a further song to his profile; "Gay In The 80's", to appear on the same album. Later, on July 13, he removed all the aforementioned songs, and mentioned "You'll just have to wait."
Hawkins also announced that he had been participating in the recording of two Magnet Watch albums entitled Nude Horizon and Party Party Time Time. On November 8, 2007 3:00am Hawkins posted a MySpace blog containing directions to Do the Green Thing, an organisation for which he has composed a new song "Do It In The Dark", to accompany a short film which encourages people to switch off and save energy. The song has not been released as a single, but is available as a free download.
There is a wax model of Hawkins at Madame Tussaud's in London.[6]
It has been announced that Hawkins is supplying the singing and guitar playing for "Kurtz", the lead singer of the "bad guy band" Mantyz in the BBC's new animated series; Freefonix which debuted 4 January 2008.[7]
In the film Telstar, a film about Joe Meek's life and career that will be released in mid-2008, he will play the role of Screaming Lord Sutch.[8]
He is set to return with rock band Hot Leg in August 2008.[9]
[edit] Personal life
In August 2006 it was reported (and later confirmed by The Darkness' management) that Hawkins had been admitted to The Priory, a rehabilitation clinic.[10] On October 11, 2006 Hawkins revealed spending £150,000 in three years on cocaine after cracking the charts in 2003 with their single "I Believe in a Thing Called Love".[11] When he realised he was no longer in control of himself due to drugs and alcohol, he joined a one month addiction-treatment in The Priory. Hawkins has now been clean and sober for over a year.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Justin Hawkins quits The Darkness" (in English), NME.com, New Musical Express (2006-10-11). Retrieved on 2006-10-11.
- ^ Bassist Takes Over As Darkness Frontman
- ^ "DefLeppardUK.com". Retrieved on 2007-04-12.
- ^ Justin Hawkins enters race to become UK Eurovision entry
- ^ Hawkins & Brown - BBC Radio 2, Make Your Mind Up
- ^ "Do you rock - or not?". Retrieved on 2007-04-12.
- ^ Isle of Man cartoon series goes on air - Isle of Man Today
- ^ Justin Hawkins at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ http://www.myspace.com/teamhotleg
- ^ "Darkness singer in rehab clinic" (in English), BBC, BBC (2006-08-18). Retrieved on 2006-12-19.
- ^ "Drugs force Darkness singer out" (in English), BBC, BBC (2006-08-18). Retrieved on 2006-12-19.
[edit] External links
- Official Website of British Whale
- British Whale at Myspace
- New Project Myspace
- They Don’t Make 'Em Like They Used To MP3 - Justin Hawkins and Beverlei Brown's entry into Making Your Mind Up
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