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

nme.com:

The Darkness for their new album.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.