"Justin David Hawkins" (born on March 17, 1975) is an English musician and songwriter, best known for being the former lead singer and lead guitarist of The Darkness, noted for his heavy use of falsetto, his charismatic persona, and his flamboyant stage personality. Background
Hawkins was born in 1975 in Chertsey, Surrey, England. Growing up in Lowestoft, he studied at Kirkley High School (notably the venue for the second series of Channel 4's Rock School programme; although any reference to The Darkness was conspicuously erased in that series in spite of their having donated thousands of pounds' worth of equipment to the school), he left part-way through his 'A' Levels to study Music Technology at Huddersfield Technical College while living in Sowerby Bridge near Halifax, West Yorkshire. His brother Dan Hawkins is the rhythm guitarist in The Darkness. Music career
Hawkins fully developed his love of rock music while playing with the now defunct heavy metal band "The Commander" (Justin 'Turbo' Hawkins, Rico Musson, Shaggy Forley, David 'Growy' Owens, Jim Lee & Richard 'Beaky' Bedford). They are affectionately credited on The Darkness' debut album Permission to Land — (your wish is my Commander).
He is known for wearing catsuits, and his flamboyance and exaggeration. He considered himself a lead guitarist until Dan saw him performing an interpretative mime to Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in The Swan public house, in Beccles, on 31 December, 1999 whereupon they realized his potential as a frontman (though he still played most of the lead guitar in the band).
In 2005, Justin set up a solo project, called British Whale. His debut single, 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us', a cover of the 1974 hit by Sparks, was released on August 15th and reached #6 on the UK Singles Chart. In 2006 Hawkins released a second single, available only to download, an unofficial World Cup anthem called 'England'.
In October 2006, Hawkins left The Darkness to be replaced on lead vocals by bassist Richie Edwards..
Justin sung backing vocals on Def Leppard's cover of The Sweet's song Hell Raiser for their 2006 covers album Yeah! (album).
In early 2007, he became one of six acts competing to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest competition in Helsinki in a duet with singer Beverlei Brown. He entered "Making Your Mind Up" with Beverlei Brown singing a song entitled 'They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To' but did not win the competition.
On March 16, 2007, he appeared on the Comic Relief evening during the half-hour Top Gear of the Pops programme. This saw him performing Billy Ocean's 'Red Lights Spell Danger' with the three Top Gear presenters.
Later that month, on March 29, Justin created a new MySpace profile featuring songs which will be included on his upcoming solo album entitled "Panther". The songs are titled 'You Can't Hurt Me Anymore', 'I've Met Jesus' and 'Whichever'. On May 12, Justin added a further song to his MySpace profile; 'Gay In The 80's', to appear on the same album. Later, on July 13th, he removed all the aforementioned songs, and mentioned 'You'll just have to wait.'
Hawkins also announced that he had been participating in the recording of two Magnet Watch albums entitled "Nude Horizon" and "Party Party Time Time". On November 8, 2007 3:00am Justin posted a myspace blog containing directions to www.dothegreenthing.com - an organisation for which he has composed a new song "Do It In The Dark' to accompany a short film which encourages folk to switch off and save energy. The song has not been released as a single but is available as a free download.
There is a wax model of Justin at Madame Tussaud's in London. Personal life
In August 2006 it was reported (and later confirmed by The Darkness' management) that Justin Hawkins had been admitted to The Priory, a rehabilitation clinic. On October 11 2006 Hawkins revealed spending £150,000 in three years on cocaine after cracking the charts in 2003 with their single I Believe in a Thing Called Love. When he realised he was no longer in control of himself due to drugs and alcohol, he joined a one month addiction-treatment in The Priory.
Source: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/Justin-Hawkins/biography/
