Justin Hawkins Expected New Album To Flop

The Darkness singer Justin Hawkins tells the Belfast Telegraph he would have felt “vindicated” if the band’s sophomore album ‘One Way Ticket to Hell … and Back’ had been a flop. “I always said the second album would be a flop, so we’re lucky that our hardore fan base stayed with us and bought it,” he said. “But I would have felt vindicated if it hadn’t done well because that’s what I expected. All the way along we were warned of a backlash following the success of the first one and because we were waiting for it to happen, we felt prepared for it. These things do happen to bands. Look at ASH, a brilliant band, but they put an album together quickly and it struggled. But they came back stronger than before. In saying that, I’m really happy with ‘One Way Ticket’.”