The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins Says Rock Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Idling

The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins spoke to Classic Rock and touched upon the famous Gene Simmons statement ‘Rock is dead.’ Hawkins stated that rock just faces some ups and downs but it will never die.

It has been a hot topic of discussion among many musicians ever since the KISS icon Gene Simmons made the controversial statement ‘Rock is dead.’ Simmons has been consistently repeating his claim over the years.

The KISS frontman initially blamed the music industry for not supporting the incoming artists and then criticized the fans for the death of rock music by saying that they harm the industry by downloading and sharing the tracks for free.

One of the musicians who have been involved in the ‘rock is dead’ discussions was the Darkness’ Justin Hawkins. The band even has a song named ‘Rock and Roll Deserves to Die,’ which is the first track of their 2019 album ‘Easter Is Cancelled.’

The band had revealed previously that when they heard Gene Simmons’ phrase, it made them think about whether rock and roll came to an end or not. When asked about their inspiration for the song, Hawkins had stated that when a genre starts repeating itself again and again without any innovation, it deserves to die at some point.

During the conversation with Classic Rock, the topic again came to the ‘Rock is dead’ debate. Justin Hawkins said that there are some ups and downs moments of rock but it is an exaggerated statement to say that it is dead.

He explained that when they first stepped into the music world, the listeners were very interested in them and they even compared the band with AC/DC and Queen. However, this heavy attention started to decrease later on, but it always has the possibility to come back again.

Here is Justin Hawkins’ statement on ‘Rock is dead’ discussion:

“It’s always a bit dramatic when people say: ‘Rock is dead’ or ‘Rock has lost its mojo.’ It hasn’t. It generally has an idling mojo until something comes along and reinvigorates everything. It happened with Nirvana and, dare I say it, it happened with The Darkness. There’s that burst of interest, and then it goes back to its resting state.

There’s been some stuff that’s been nearly exciting recently, but I find it hard to get into artists who only have one very specific influence – one particular album by one particular band. Just get another influence, mix it up. People used to say that The Darkness was like AC/DC and Queen. Those are two influences. Two is literally twice as good as one.”

You can listen to The Darkness’ ‘Rock and Roll Deserves to Die’ below.