The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

It’s not as if this pitfall has never befallen a rock band before. Richie Edwards is standing on stage in front of a packed Brighton Centre. He looks every inch the rock god, dressed in black and about to strafe out some riffola that will see his new band blow the main act, Velvet Revolver, clean off the stage. Edwards has come up the ranks in a very old school manner. He was a friend of various members of The Darkness, then guitar tech for Justin Hawkins, before becoming actual bass player in the group after the departure of Frankie Poulain. Now he’s the frontman in Stone Gods, featuring Justin’s brother Dan (lead guitar) and Ed Graham (drums), both ex-Darkness too, and former Graham Coxon bassist, Toby MacFarlaine. After another banging riff monster that has the partisan Velvet Revolver crowd baying for more and raising the horns skywards, he steps to the front of the stage and roars: “Thank you Brixton!” For the second time in half an hour.

Afterwards, backstage, Richie groans for a few seconds, but nothing can wipe the grin from his face: “Oh my God! I continually thanked Brixton! As soon as I’d said it I realised what I’d done and tried to make amends…”

The mood is ebullient as we get stuck into the rider, though. In The Darkness, three of the four were already used to dealing with brickbats galore, but the end of that group was judged to be the end of the story only by the naysayers.

Stone Gods are already making a name for themselves with a brand of hard rock and heavy metal that still owes a lot to the seventies, but has done away with most of Justin’s theatricality and love for power ballads, maintaining the passion for groups such as Thin Lizzy and Queen. The fact that they stole the show right out from under the nose of Velvet Revolver says a lot about their Protestant work ethic. They’re hardly out of the traps and already their debut album is ready. “It’s finished!” exclaims Dan. “It was engineered and produced by myself and my production partner Nick Brine. We met on the making of the second Darkness album and we’ve worked together ever since. It was recorded at my own studio, Leeder’s Farm in Norfolk, which Nick and I built. Our album was kind of the sonic test run before we opened the studio for business.”

Given that business has already included Seasick Steve, Nick Cave and KT Tunstall, it’s fair to presume that it’s going very well. The album, out in July, was mixed by former Metallica, Aerosmith and AC/DC producer Mike Fraser and is called Silver Spoons and Broken Bones - a title that presumably refers to the vaguely acrimonious way that The Darkness express came crashing off the rails after the sophomore album One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back.

So, at what point after the release of the album did you realise that the game was up? Richie: “It was probably about halfway through 2006 when Justin’s problems became really apparent. At the back of my mind, the minute he went into rehab, I knew that was it. I couldn’t really foresee him being able to come out of rehab and tour the world in a rock’n’roll band and still keep up his programme of staying match fit. And, sure enough, he just cleared off to get himself sorted out and said, ‘I just can’t do this anymore.’ I think if you look back at it now, the signs were there long before then.”

Dan: “The game was up only when Justin quit… I can be very tenacious and I don’t give up easily. Right up to that point, despite everything that had happened, I was excited about the challenge of turning things around. Clearly I was more excited than my brother.”

How was it when it ended? Was there any discussion of carrying on without Justin?
Dan: “My grandmother had just died… I thought Justin was still in rehab, but he’d been out for a while and didn’t tell us. On the day she died, there was kind of a family summit and I said to him, ‘If you don’t want to do it anymore, then stop fucking everyone around and quit as we all needed to get on with our lives.’ So he did. Not the best of days.”

Richie: “We couldn’t carry on. Absolutely not. As far as a lot of people are concerned - people who perhaps weren’t massive fans of the band - Justin was The Darkness. He was such an iconic figure in a way, with such a unique vocal style. So we were absolutely determined that this was a new band and a new beginning.”

Stone Gods were formed exactly half an hour after The Darkness split, and there doesn’t seem to be any real lasting animosity. Indeed, Richie agrees that Justin should oust Paul Rodgers from the current incarnation of Queen.

“There was no question of quitting,” Dan concludes. “I’m only on my third album. I’ve got a lot of rocking to do! I want to achieve rocking gigs, big riffs and a lot of hangovers. If we get to Astoria level on this album, I would be over the moon. I’m really enjoying the small clubs right now, though, so one step at a time.”

At the rate they’re going, they could make it to Cleveland sooner than expected, giving Richie a genuine chance to indulge in some stone to the bone, audience mistaking, Spinal Tap behaviour.