Stephen Dorff on how The Darkness convinced him to feature on new album: “Justin Hawkins has got a crazy brain” 

Stephen Dorff has opened up about his time working with The Darkness for their new album.

• READ MORE: In praise of The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins’ genius YouTube channel

The Justin Hawkins-led band dropped their latest album ‘Dreams On Toast’ last Friday (March 28) – marking their eighth studio record and the follow-up to 2021’s ‘Motorheart’.

Aside from featuring an assortment of singles that the band had been steadily releasing over the past few months, including ‘The Longest Kiss’, ‘Rock And Roll Party Cowboy’, ‘Walking Through Fire’ and ‘I Hate Myself’, the album also featured a closing track called ‘Weekend In Rome’.

In the ballad, there is a memorable spoken word section that opens the song: “Meandering like the Tiber, hand in hand, we scaled the Spanish Steps, the night air thick and sultry, I kiss you beneath the Italian moonlight… This was my dream.” This, it was soon confirmed, was provided by actor Stephen Dorff.

Following on from his appearances in True Detective season 3, the movie Blade and The Beatles biopic Backbeat, the actor opened up to Classic Rock magazine about how he ended up on the album.

“I know their music from way back,” he said. “I thought they were a great rock band with Justin’s [Hawkins, singer] voice and flair and the crazy sense of humour. I like a lot of bands out of England but The Darkness had an edge.”

Explaining how the collaboration arose, he said: “I was in London for something, and I ended up going out to Dan [Hawkins, guitarist]’s studio where they were recording the album. They were doing ‘Weekend In Rome’, and they asked if I wanted to do it. Justin was writing these words while we were there: ‘Can you say this, can you say it like this?’ They got me on a couple of other songs too, but I think ‘Weekend In Rome’ is the one that worked best, so that‘s the one they kept.”

“Justin was saying: ‘Just think of it as a dream, you’re on an airplane and you’re kind of sleepy and sad’,” he added. “He’s got a crazy brain and he’s such a great writer, and he kept giving me all of these great lines.”

Later this week The Darkness will continue their run of 2025 UK headline tour dates, which has already included a massive show at London’s OVO Wembley Arena. 

The tour will continue tonight (March 31) with a show at the O2 Apollo in Manchester, followed by a gig in Newcastle tomorrow (April 1), and in Liverpool on Wednesday (2). Find any remaining tickets here for the tour here.

Justin Hawkins and co. will then embark on a number of shows across Europe, and head back to the UK this summer for a slot at Download Festival 2025.

In other news, the frontman has also locked in a guest appearance on The Stylistics’ first new album in nearly two decades. He contributed to the upcoming record’s opening and title track, ‘Falling In Love With My Girl’, and other names who have collaborated on the record include The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood, ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons, KISS’ Gene Simmons and Steve Lukather of Toto.

The post Stephen Dorff on how The Darkness convinced him to feature on new album: “Justin Hawkins has got a crazy brain”  appeared first on NME.