Out Of The Darkness, Into The Light

So, Justin Hawkins is eschewing fame, fortune, private jets, motoryachts, fast cars, the adulation of thousands, perhaps millions - to go Mr Clean and return to being Joe Public. Hmm. Not much chance of that, is there? People won't treat you normally, anyway, however much you want to step off your big, shiny pedestal and return to us proles. You'll still get pointed at, whispered about in your prescence, approached for signatures (you'll call them signatures again, back in the real world), tittered about, followed, hassled. And you'll still turn to booze and/or Bolivian marching powder "to deal with it".

Let's look at The Darkness phenomenon. I never got it, and there has been occasion in my life where my expert musical analysis has earned me money. To me, and many others, it was poodle-haired men in bright, glittery, skintight jumpsuits, wailing high-pitched love songs to a glam-rock backbeat, led by the bass. I know fashions come around again and again - but surely that was never going to be a world-beater? Or if it was - it wouldn't last. I felt at the time that this lot would be a one hit wonder - they'd go supernova then implode into a black hole. If there had been blogging in 2004, at the height of their fame and their ridiculous sweeping of The Brits that year, I'd have written it then.

Their first album Permission To Land sold 1.5 million copies. That is a large amount of records. I don't know if that figure includes legal downloads, but you can certainly add the illegal ones to that figure. That is a complete killing of the market. That is going mental, everyone knowing you, your music, wanting to see you live on stage, all that bullshit. Hawkins dealt with the bullshit via vodka and coke. And I'm not talking about a mixer, there. Speaking to The Sun today, Justin says: "I became secretive, volatile and verbally abusive, a really unpleasant person to be around. There were lots of periods I don't even remember, blackouts. I couldn't even tell you how much I was drinking - it was all day when we were on tour. My weapon of choice was vodka. It has affected every aspect of my life, with the band and my girlfriend Sue."

So, in an ongoing quest for normality, the next chapter of the celebrity collapse comes about and he checks into the Priory Clinic for substance abuse treatment. Justin has enjoyed his time there so much that, after just nine weeks of counselling, he is thinking about becoming a counsellor himself, the final cliched act in what has been, from start to finish, a banal, pompous, irrelevent and quite ridiculous show. Their second album, One Way Ticket To Hell And Back, notched up disappointing sales. From Permission To Land - hopeful, flying, free and in-charge - to One Way Ticket To Hell And Back. Hah. Hawkins seems determined to have lived his art, or for his art to absolutely control his life. What a dork. Music was crap, anyway.