THE DARKNESS Frontman Isn't Bothered By LEMMY's 'Novelty' Comments

January 29, 2013

In a recent interview with UWeekly, guitarist/vocalist Justin Hawkins (pictured below) of reformed British rockers THE DARKNESS was asked for his thoughts on his band being mentioned in a less-than-favorable light in the 2010 documentary "Lemmy" in which the MOTÖRHEAD mainman called THE DARKNESS a "novelty act."

"I haven't seen it," Justin said. "I've heard about it, though. Isn't it one fictional character discussing a fictional character with another fictional character? [laughs] There's a lot of that kind of stuff in the world. Too much, if you ask me, and I didn't bother watching it. You know that expression: 'water off a duck's back?' Um, like that… only with less interest, I suppose. Water off a disinterested duck's back."

Speaking to Classic Rock magazine in 2004, Lemmy revealed that THE DARKNESS banned him from appearing at one of their Los Angeles shows after he branded them a "novelty act."

"I don't have a problem with them," Lemmy told Classic Rock, "I just have a problem with people making them out to be more than they are. They're just a band — a good band that play good tunes. I just have a problem with the vocals.

"Ginger wanted me to do a song with him when THE WILDHEARTS were supporting them in L.A., but they banned me because I said I didn't like THE DARKNESS in some paper. I said I thought it was a novelty record.

"And it was: they're not normal vocals, and it was the first one of its type, so... And then all this terrible shit came down."

FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl, who invited Lemmy to work on his PROBOT project, acted as peacemaker between the two parties.

Lemmy: "Dave Grohl — the cunt — rings me up, 11 o'clock at night, and says: 'Come down the Rainbow and have a drink.' And I get there and he's surrounded by THE DARKNESS. Dave's a nice guy — he likes to keep the peace, which is a great thing. So I'm sitting next to the singer and he says: 'So you don't like my vocals?' I said: 'I don't like 'em because it's not my sort of thing, but I defend to the death your right to do what you want to do.' As soon as we talked about it, it made it alright, cos bands are basically on the same side."

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