The Darkness rhythm guitarist Dan Hawkins used to “cut his fingers to pieces” while playing harmonizing solos with his brother Justin.
Regular use of the G-string would injure the ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ hitmaker.
Dan told Total Guitar magazine: “When we harmonize on one of my solos, it usually sounds like Thin Lizzy and ABBA. And when I’m trying to harmonize with Justin’s solos, you can literally hear me sweating! Especially on Permission To Land it was a ****** nightmare. To be honest, the first six years of my career in The Darkness was a nightmare because my G-string was a 22. So we’d do one of the solos where I’d have to join in and harmonize, like something like Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End), and it would literally cut my fingers to pieces. Forget about moving an inch, that G-string wouldn’t move a millimeter.
“Justin loves bending those strings all over the place!”
Dan praised his brother for bringing the “raunchiness” to their harmonizing.
After Justin suggested that their relationship was like “fire and ice,” he replied: “I’m ice and you’re fire. You bring the salaciousness! The only time I’ll take a solo is if I have a melody in my head, something that adds to the emotion of the thing. If it makes sense to my ears, then I will put my hand up. And then sometimes I’ll think, “Oh no, I can’t really solo in this key! But if I hear something, I will put my hand up and say, ‘Yes, I will take that part of the song!
The Darkness’ reflection on their early playing comes as they release the 20th anniversary reissue of ‘Permission To Land… Again’.
