S11 EP4: Justin Hawkins

Alan Carr's 'Life's a Beach'

Alan Carr hosts Justin Hawkins, frontman of The Darkness, for a nostalgic and humorous conversation about life on the road and beyond. They

Key takeaways

The Darkness is releasing their 'Croc of Hits' album on November 27th, followed by an arena tour.
Justin Hawkins detailed a major dental procedure involving moving teeth with an Allen key to correct 'Neanderthal' teeth.

Main topics

The Darkness tour and new album
Dental surgery and aesthetics

Notable quotes

I believe in a thing, Carve.

Conclusion

An entertaining deep dive into the personal anecdotes and lifestyle of

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:04) Welcome to Life's a Beach. I'm Captain Carve and I'm your in-flight entertainment. Are you ready to take off? Speaker 2 (0:11) Good, because I go all Speaker 1 (0:12) the way. My passenger this week has won multiple Brit Awards and sold millions and millions of records worldwide. Well, get your devil horns ready because The Darkness is Greatest Hits, Croc of Hits, is out 27th November and an arena tour later this year. Speaker 2 (0:31) I believe in a thing, Carve. Speaker 1 (0:33) You bet I do. It's Justin Hawkins. Speaker 1 (0:38) Look who we've got on board. Justin Orkis. How you doing, Justin? Good, Alan. It's so nice to be here. Thank you for flying, Alan. I'm Speaker 2 (0:45) on Speaker 1 (0:45) the plane. Speaker 2 (0:45) It's Speaker 1 (0:46) great, isn't it? Speaker 2 (0:47) Are you all right? Speaker 1 (0:48) You've not got no turbulence yet? There's Speaker 2 (0:49) been nothing so far. The takeoff was smooth. It is. I'm impressed with all of the stewardship. It's brilliant. Speaker 1 (0:55) If you think the takeoff was smooth, listen to the chat. God, I'm smooth. Speaker 2 (1:00) Yeah, one of your eyebrows went up when you said that. Like Roger Moore. That's how you know. Roger Less. Roger Moorhen. Speaker 1 (1:07) Moorhen. Now, the last time, well, one of the last times we met, we were hanging off a speedboat at Falk Park, being dragged through a lake. Speaker 2 (1:20) Why did we do that again? Can you remember? Speaker 1 (1:22) Well, it was on Friday Night Project and then it was every guest we had, we had to do something that they wanted to do. So you must have suggested to have a fun day out at Thorpe Park. Does Speaker 2 (1:33) it feel like something I would have suggested, though? No, it Speaker 1 (1:36) doesn't, because you look like you really weren't enjoying it. Speaker 2 (1:38) No, I hate it. Well, I mean, I loved the time that we spent and the bond. Nice Speaker 1 (1:42) backtracking there. I hated, loved it with you. Speaker 2 (1:47) No, but the idea, I mean, I think I probably like the idea of water skiing. It's an activity Speaker 1 (1:52) that I've always felt I would probably show some aptitude for, but I was wrong. Yes. Well, you weren't upright, were you? You were just sort of dragged behind. No. Face down. Speaker 2 (2:04) I must admit, I went freestyle a bit on it. But Speaker 1 (2:08) that was 2006, 20 years ago. Speaker 2 (2:11) Oh, crikey. I Speaker 1 (2:12) know. Where does the time go? I don't know. I was kind of... Speaker 2 (2:15) Every day I anxiously awaited a text from you and I got nothing. Speaker 1 (2:20) But Speaker 2 (2:20) you're busy. You're really busy. I know that. Oh, my Speaker 1 (2:22) God. I feel so bad. I'm sorry. Because Speaker 2 (2:25) you had me on the one that we shall not name. Yes. Celebrity Ding Dong. I don't think you should be ashamed of that, by the way. It was Speaker 1 (2:33) a fun show, but it used to get slagged off. Why? Well, it was celebrities versus pedestrians. Pedestrians. We were being quite tongue-in-cheek about people who weren't celebrities. And the guys were, us celebs were fabulous and pedestrians were like, they'd be stealing and fighting and stuff. Speaker 2 (2:52) But do you remember... I'm so wrong. There was one moment in that show, the one that we shot, and I don't know if you used it in the edit because I never watch anything back, but I was, you charged me with the task of doing some sort of quiz that involved, you know... matching something with and I didn't know I was so out of touch with like celebrity culture or anything I didn't I wasn't getting anything right and it kept saying it kept buzzing to say I was wrong and I just lost my temper and started kicking the scenery and then you said the celebrities are revolting and I thought that was such a really succinct piece of off the cuffery I was really impressed with how sharp you were on that day I was ashamed of myself, but I was impressed with you. I might Speaker 1 (3:37) watch a bit of that celebrity ding-dong back. It had its merits, you know. It did. Well, listen, we've got to talk about travelling. OK. Life's a beach and I love to hear. What kind of a traveller are you? I mean, you've travelled the world, touring and stuff. Do you still travel for fun or is it a chore? When you see an airport, does your heart sink? Oh, I think that depends on the Speaker 2 (3:59) airport. I love the new Smith's detectors. Speaker 1 (4:02) What's the Smith's detector? Speaker 2 (4:03) Well, you remember when you used to have... Well, in some places you still have to do it. You have to decant all of your liquids into... Oh, you don't have to do that now. Yeah, that's Speaker 1 (4:12) the Smith's detector. How Speaker 2 (4:13) do Speaker 1 (4:13) you know what it's called? Speaker 2 (4:15) I keep... Because I do so much travelling, I look at what the equipment is that they're using. And if it's Smith's detectors, I'm like, cool. I'm just going to walk through. It's great. And I try and do everything hand luggage. You should go on You Speaker 1 (4:28) Bet or something because you've got to know this knowledge. You know, they reveal different Speaker 2 (4:32) details. Who was the host of You Bet? Was Speaker 1 (4:34) that Matthew Kelly one? Oh, then it was Bruce Willis, do you remember? If you want to bet on it, you bet. Well, you better get on it, you bet. Don't fret, do you, you bet. What was the theme tune? That was the theme tune. Stop being rude. Speaker 2 (4:49) Was he rapping it? Speaker 1 (4:50) He was rapping. Bruce used to rap. Speaker 2 (4:52) Yeah, he had bars. Speaker 1 (4:53) Yeah. Bought a gun, rap, rap, rap. Speaker 2 (4:56) Yeah. I suppose nice to see you. You could say that that's... Higher, lower. Yeah, yeah. That's true, yeah. Yes, Speaker 1 (5:03) yes. Nothing in this game for two in a bed. That's bullseye. That's right, yeah. You're right. Have you been asked to do Celebrity Bullseye, by the way? I did do Celebrity Bullseye. I hosted it, yeah. Oh. Yeah, and then... And then the thing is, can I just... Speaker 2 (5:17) Well, then as a follow-up question, why wasn't I asked? Oh, you do like darts, don't you? I love the darts. Speaker 1 (5:22) Why didn't you come on? Well, you didn't have a celebrity version. It'd be Speaker 2 (5:25) something to do with the fee. Yeah, I know what you're like. You're still revolting after all these years. Speaker 1 (5:31) The thing is, this is the thing that people don't understand. I did Bullseye and then do you remember... Everyone loves a bit of bully. Let's heal up a bit of bullying. We have the mat. And the thing is, I have this thing, this kind of this blind spot. Well, when I see someone dressed as a colourful animal, I forget there's a human inside. And so this little runner was like, bully, and would go like this. And then when the person won the car, I went, yeah! I grabbed bully, yeah, shoved bully in the boot. And you get bully too and slam the boot. And in my ear, they were going, Alan, Alan, that's a person inside. So this poor runner was like. Yeah, Bullidge, get off of me. Speaker 2 (6:09) Once again, this is a great example of your ability to suspend disbelief and completely commit to the role. It's method. I know. Honestly, I'm like Lawrence Olivier, the way Speaker 1 (6:18) I shoved that Speaker 2 (6:19) bull in the... Is that why you don't do it anymore? I Speaker 1 (6:22) know. They've got someone else to do it now, which is fine. I mean, I didn't really understand darts and all that. No. So you're really good then on the hockey. Speaker 2 (6:31) I used to be really good. And then I got like, I think because... My system with darts was, do you know that ape index that you have? If you put your arms down, it needs to be... I can't remember. I've got long arms. Where Speaker 1 (6:46) do you get all this information Speaker 2 (6:47) from? I just make most of it up. Are you Speaker 1 (6:49) one of those people? Do you have one of those brains that you're highly inquisitive? No, I'm just full of shit. Speaker 2 (7:00) I just make stuff up and it turns out to be true half the time. Speaker 1 (7:05) I love this ape thing. Tell me about this ape. Yeah, it's like Speaker 2 (7:08) there's an ape index. People talk about it when they do climbing and stuff, but it's to do with the proportions of your arms compared to the rest of your torso and all that. So I've got long arms for my height. And so when I was playing darts, I'd go side on and then basically I'd just be putting them in the board. Oh, shut up. So there's no throwing involved. Well, you know, not that long, but Speaker 1 (7:29) it was... Is that why you're so good at guitar? Because you can do... Because I can Speaker 2 (7:34) reach Speaker 1 (7:34) all the strings, yeah. Yeah, wow. Speaker 2 (7:35) Does your knuckles drag on the floor when you walk? I'm sure some of my ancestors would have... ..were like that, but my mum's side have very short arms. Oh, how funny. It's evened itself out, yeah. Speaker 1 (7:49) Have you ever seen Young Frankenstein with the man and he throws the dance and he's got the metal arm? I can't remember that scene. Oh, it's so funny. That's Speaker 2 (7:58) the Speaker 1 (7:58) Mel Brooks one, right? Yeah, yeah. And he goes, we've got the metal. We maybe have to be there to see it. It's funny. I'll research that. So tell me, where do you like going? Because you live in Switzerland. I do. Sell me Switzerland. Say I come to your house. What are we going to do? Are you near the mountains? Speaker 2 (8:18) Yeah, well, I'm sort of Speaker 1 (8:19) in... Speaker 2 (8:21) I'm in a rural part of Switzerland, which is very well known for having things like orchards. So cherries and apples and things is what they mostly produce. But it's near lakes and you can see mountains. So it would depend on when you visit me. Yeah. Because having not visited me for 20 years, I would imagine you'd want to get like two a year in now. Yeah, yeah.