Hold the scones

London

You stateside folks wonder about us Brits sometimes, don’t you? We’re so proper and reserved, so tea and scones, so cricket, so ... just so. Then, suddenly -- remember Hugh Grant and George Michael -- we let it all go and do something crass like sending you our favorite new band, the Darkness.

This is a combo that will never appeal to those with a delicately purist rock ‘n’ roll sensibility. These are four lads who bring you headbanging, coarse laughter and a robust lack of good taste. All around, they might well be the polar opposite of Radiohead.

Yet the Darkness stands before you festooned with the old country’s highest pop honors. At the 2004 Brit Awards, the UK’s Grammy equivalent, it was named best British group, best rock act and best album (for its debut, “Permission to Land”). It is indeed our rockin’ royalty of the moment.

On the other hand, the members are a rough lot. They play very loud heavy rock under the influence of Queen, AC/DC and Aerosmith, and they sing about, well, love by all means, but with reference to topics such as masturbation (“Holding My Own”) and genital warts (“Growing on Me”). Actually, some suggest the subject on the latter is really lice, but neither interpretation could be described as edifying.

Now the British fondness for rude double meanings being what it is, at this point we’re already roaring them on. But what wraps it up for us is their stage show.

Certainly, they’ve got big riffs and shout-along tunes, but first up, just get a load of singer-guitarist Justin Hawkins: In a candy-stripe cat suit slashed to the waist he does star jumps, scissor kicks and headstands and even gallops through the crowd astride a roadie’s shoulders. Best of all, he hollers “Give us a ‘D!’ ” and the audience goes “D!” Then (let’s cut to the chase) he hollers “Give us an ‘arkness!’ ” The crowd: “arkness!”

Naturally, there’s a customized variant on the Darkness cheer for every town they visit: “Give us an ‘N!’ Give us an ‘ooyork!’ ”

The heart of it is, they make lots of people feel good. From their standard nowhere-and-nothing pub-band beginnings, they picked up dedicated fans at every gig by giving everything, always.

One of their numerous female devotees, Helen Stephens, 26, first saw them in a London bar two years ago: “Thirty people watching, the stage only 6 inches off the ground, yet you could tell that in their minds they were playing Wembley Stadium! It was the most entertainment I’d ever had in an evening. Anyone could whip his top off, slide across the stage on his knees and play a guitar behind his head, but it just looks really stupid if you haven’t got fantastic songs to back it up.”

Not that the Darkness members, bright fellows all, have ever been averse to a bit of stupidity. In fact, the album might aptly have been titled “Permission to Be Stupid.” Early fan Graham Burgess, 34, a systems manager, says the band liberated him from glum indie rock: “They gave me the chance to get my air guitar out of my air guitar case and give it a good spanking.”

Hard work pays

THREE members of the Darkness -- Justin and brother Dan Hawkins (guitar), and Ed Graham (drums) -- come from Lowestoft, a small, worn-out east coast fishing port. But, says Dan, the unexciting surroundings never made them angry, so the punk-slacker-bummer mentality passed them by (although Justin threatens a Soviet-style musical about the fishing industry’s decline, he is suspected of insincerity).

Instead, once they got together with Scottish bassist Frankie Poullain in London in 1999, they committed themselves to a ferociously disciplined program of self-improvement, slave driven by Dan. Then, the moment they hit the smallest stage, they let it rip -- too literally some nights as Justin had to wear his original homemade cat suit, hairy and sporting a long tail because it was based on the musical goat-god Pan, until it was threadbare.

For three years, the record company scouts told them they were a joke throwback to the ‘70s. Then independent label Must Destroy Music spotted that they were funny, but mighty serious, and released an EP.

Even so, they decided to finance the album themselves, on the cheap, subsidized by Justin’s earnings from writing ad jingles for Mars candy and Volkswagen. Finally, Atlantic Records heard it and signed them.

Candidly, they have striven for success. “I wanna be a star,” says Justin, unembarrassed. “Our rightful place,” Dan asserts, “is playing the biggest shows that have ever been seen.”

That means making it in America. But is America ready for the Darkness?

“It bloody better be,” Justin says, “because we’re coming, ready or not.”

Robert Shaw, 23, a former student superfan who now runs the band’s website, asserts, “They have a fantastic work ethic. They will break America where other British bands have failed: They won’t take no for an answer.”

Reaction has been impressive. The CD has sold more than 400,000 copies in the States.

You see, resistance is futile and you might as well surrender now. So how about a quick rehearsal? OK, L.A., give us an “L!” Give us an “osangeles!”

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The Darkness

Who: The Darkness

When: April 17 to 18, 7 p.m.

Where: Henry Fonda Theatre, 6126 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Price: $16.50 (both shows are sold out)

Contact: (323) 468-1770

Phil Sutcliffe, a London-based music writer, can be reached at Calendar .letters@latimes.com.