Dancing in the Darkness (7 page)

B
eing in a successful band, it’s easy to fall in love with yourself. Are you doing what you’re doing to make people happy or to feed your ego? I suppose you could say we wanted to feed our egos by accidentally making a few million people happy. My publisher hopes this glorified toilet book gives you a few other examples of how to do the best things accidentally.

In the course of cultivating a handlebar moustache, I accidentally made Scotland the most famous country in the world. And then, as you’ll discover, I fell out with the singer and accidentally saved myself from the second-album disaster. As Shakespeare might have said: ‘’Tis better to flash dance for a short time than be a limping ballerina in the theatre of eternity.’

I’ve learned that everything boils down to doing things inappropriately – whether paying compliments to ugly ladies or encouraging people to laugh at and ridicule
you
. An inappropriate action is usually the first idea that comes to your brain, the one that we normally never reveal to anybody because humanity likes to cage impulsive behaviours. You don’t believe me? How many times have you heard somebody saying, ‘This is just not right,’ but still carry on enjoying it?

To do things appropriately, you need to think about it first – and in doing so you lose the spontaneity. Moreover, what’s appropriate usually has less impact and is always less fun. Right now, I’m sure that I’ll only manage to entertain you for the duration of this book if I also write about the ‘wrong’ things. So here goes…

T
here were boobies everywhere. Boobies up above, boobies down below, boobies ahoy – in fact, from our cherished vantage point, Justin had concluded, ‘Boobies are the currency of success.’

Polka dots and puppy fat, crimson-faced damsels, brides of enlightenment (with sex on the brain) and rockaholics in fishnet who’d been around the block several times already and fancied another go. They all had boobies. And apparently, most of them had twats also – if we’d care to have a rummage and find out for ourselves. They say that gravity is irresistible, and for a while we all knew how that felt. Eventually, though, even making apples fall downward from a tree can get a bit wearing.

Some of them would just stand there staring, eyes on stalks, milking the moment for all it was worth, momentarily stunned by Justin’s flaming crotch
tattoo. They reminded me of Sissy Spacek’s character in
Carrie
. Looking back, I suppose it was simply a case of one bewildered person meeting another.

Most of them were satisfied with the standard signature or autograph on a concert ticket stub, magazine, sweatband or thong. But the real enthusiasts wanted a ‘boobograph’: ‘Could you sign my tits, please?’ Tiny pause. ‘OK!’
*
The boobograph hunter would then gladly get them out, like she couldn’t quite believe her luck. Which was an amazing coincidence, as we couldn’t quite believe ours either.

Some of them were truly
boobtastic
. I mean, you wouldn’t plonk your family trinkets under a pawnbroker’s nose if you didn’t think they were worth perusing, now would you? I can’t prove it, of course, but I’m fairly certain they enjoyed it as much as we did. A good technique was to start the name at the top of the cleavage, feigning decency. My ‘Frankie’ would then veer dramatically southwards, stopping just in time for a dainty ‘x’ on the nipple itself. Bass players get used to starting and stopping in the right place.

Now I remember all those lovely tits and appreciate very much the acts of generosity. Just like charity fucks, it’s better to give than to receive. I’d like to be able to offer a similar act of giving. I’ve decided that one day I’ll go to a Nelly Furtado concert, sneak in backstage and ask her to autograph my balls.

A
t in-store album signing sessions we'd work our way through one large Vodka Sprite after another to spruce up the inevitable hangovers. Detroit springs to mind as a memorable one. The place is full of oddballs, a refreshing antidote to the sheer antiseptic alikeness we'd experienced elsewhere in the so-called ‘land of the free'. There were wonky teeth here, cauliflower ears there, hare lips, films over the eye, cleft palates, crossed eyes, protruding kneecaps, inverted nipples – a carnival of inbreeds to enchant our tour-heavy hearts. Because, after all, weren't we cut from that very same cloth ourselves?

OK, Dan had his ‘bat wing' ears fixed as a child, but Justin's teeth where wonkier than Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, I was ET's ugly cousin and Ed was just plain batty. Freaks are meant to be
rockers and rockers are meant to be freaks. What else are freaks supposed to do? They can't
all
just go and live in Detroit.

So here we were in our spiritual home, ‘Detroit Rock City', signing autographs. A twitching, skeletal teen jostled into view, with what looked like a stuffed puppy dog under his arm. It
was
a stuffed dog, but not a puppy, more like a Pekinese. (I've never been much good at dog breeds.) ‘Hey, you guys are awesome! Would you sign my dog for me?' Why would he want us to sign his stuffed dog, we wondered, charmed by the sheer silliness of the request. ‘He [the dog] used to belong to my grandpa, who I couldn't stand, he was a real piece of shit. When he died he left me his dog and when the dog died I wanted him stuffed as a memento. Now I want you guys to sign him, 'cos my grandpa hated heavy metal.'

He'd obviously put a lot of thought into this. We each of us happily obliged, of course, and, for the
coup de grâce
, Ed signed his name with the ‘E' on one bollock and the ‘D' on the other. Proof that, in Detroit at least, our drummer really was the ‘dog's bollocks'.

Disturb stupid people – their thoughts are worth nothing anyway.

N
ME
magazine placed me at number 28 in their ‘Top 50 Coolest People’ of 2003 because I was supposed to have said, ‘When you’re climbing a mountain you don’t stop halfway and start sucking your own cock.’ I suspected the real reason for my favouritism was they wanted to wind up our singer because he wouldn’t play ball. He preferred to get in bed with the more
rock-orientated
Kerrang!
magazine.

Justin got sick of the personal attacks on him and developed a persecution complex, and the
NME
vultures just licked their lips (though it would be more accurate to liken them to King Kong, and Justin to the damsel in distress, as I’m convinced that they secretly loved him). All the while they would compliment my moustache and ‘youthful’ virility, though I was clearly older and punier than our iron-pumping front man. I was perceived as the band mascot, the odd-looking underdog that you’re supposed to empathise with or feel sorry for.

But that didn’t stop me defending the band’s honour, along with the rest of the guys. We used MTV, the style mags and the world’s music press as our launch pad against
NME
’s scathing reviews and barbed asides. Of course, we were on a hiding to nothing. Radiohead and U2 had both similarly tried going to war with the publication before eventually relenting. It was very much a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Admittedly they were just ‘groupies with pens’, but the magazine
was
the industry standard. Plus, let’s face it, not talking to music critics is a bit like not paying your gas bill: they’ll only cut you off in the end, leaving you to freeze to death.

It all started at one of our early showcase gigs, when we were pitching for a record deal. We got absolutely slated, with Justin in particular coming in for some stick. The review, penned by Mark Beaumont, concluded that the only people who’d still like the band in a year’s time would be ‘Japanese tourists and retards’.

The tide turned when Darknessmania swept the country a few months later, and
NME
, in their
innate wisdom, changed their tune, utilising their own unique brand of investigative journalism: how do you make your own cat suit? Is it glam metal or hair metal? Is it cock rock or peacock rock? Basically they didn’t have a clue, but as always they got their knickers in a twist about our hipness factor: perhaps we were just about un-cool enough to be cool? Or perhaps we weren’t? Without our co-operation, they were forced to cobble together features from second-hand sources, just enough to justify a front cover mind you, motivated as they were by a circulation war with
Kerrang!
. (We joked at the time that we’d consider talking to them if they did a commemorative Darkness issue and adjusted the lettering from ‘N.M.E.’ to ‘M.E.N.’, but the advertisers wouldn’t let them.)

One piece in particular rhapsodised over Justin’s ability to marry the poetry of Morrissey and showmanship of Dave Lee Roth while concluding that the merits of yours truly could be summed up in one word: Saxon. I was just tickled to be mentioned, but when I read the piece out to the guys later, Justin’s face broke into a grin that looked like it would happily eat as much shit as you’d care to shovel his way. And with that shit-eating grin
plastered firmly across his mug he was determined to rub
NME
’s nose into the leftovers.

We were backstage at the Reading Festival in August 2003, weaving our way through the press caravans and marquees, fulfilling our promo commitments after a triumphant set. The editor of
NME
, Conor McNicholas, appeared out of nowhere, a little wobbly on his feet. It was early evening backstage and no one else seemed to be around. ‘Justin!’ he exclaimed, ‘I am so sorry!’ He literally fell to his knees and clasped his hands together in entreaty: ‘Please forgive me, make peace with
NME
.’

In our surreal universe nothing was surprising, but I’ll admit even we were caught off guard. Perhaps that would excuse Justin’s retort: ‘Fuck off, just F-A-C-K O-F-F, you waste of fucking space. I will never talk to
NME
, you’re all a bunch of cunts, fuck off!’ He was rabid, livid and probably one or two other words ending in the letters ‘id’. They had to pretty much drag him off and calm him down.

The conflict was undeniably one-sided. I almost felt sorry for the stunned editor. He had tried to take a light-hearted approach to the situation – a helpless yogi pitched against the abominable snowman. Before I knew it, we were whisked into
the BBC tent for a TV interview and it wasn’t until later at the hotel bar that the events of the day really sank in.

Looking back, it was more than a little odd.
NME
begging to get into bed with (officially) the un-coolest band in the land. And, of course, me recounting this tale isn’t the smartest move either, as it’s sure to backfire. These days, if you crave success you’re expected to crawl to the press and instead here I am relating a tale about Conor McNicholas. So what
will
I do after the inevitable slating in
NME
? Whatever happens, it’s reassuring to know I can always set a stall up outside Madame Tussauds, and flog the book to Japanese tourists and retards.