Justin Hawkins Rides His Oversized Stuffed Tiger Into The Sunset

In a long, sad interview with Britian’s The Sun, Darkness lead singer Justin Hawkins–a man who looks like a spider from Mars, and sings like a banshee who just stepped on a tack–announces that he’s quitting the band. Apparently, Hawkins spent more than £150,000 on coke over the last few years (that’s $278,219 in American money), and after a trip to rehab, he’s afraid that staying in the group may cause a relapse:

“I regularly used to stay up for four days at a time on coke and alcohol binges. 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 went through a period of doing drugs during shows. I would come off stage and do a line and then go back on. But it affected my voice so I switched to starting the minute I came off stage. I wouldn’t stop until I blacked out. Every day focused around drink and drugs.”

We understand that Hawkins may want to take it a little slow, especially now that he’s on the up-and-up; but does he really have to quit the band entirely? As much as we love the Darkness–and we do love them, even on last year’s spotty, underhyphenated One Way Ticket To Hell… album–this guy was the band, and with a few exceptions (Stephen J. Hawking, an actual hawk), it’s hard to imagine a new singer making the band anywhere near as memorable. We look forward to being thoroughly depressed by next spring’s sure-to-flop premiere of Rock Star: The Darkness.

Hawkins in ‘I quit’ shocker [The Sun] The Darkness – Friday Night [MP3, link expired]