Justin Hawkins on rock stardom, distortion pedals and refusing to behave

There are interviews where artists talk about “the journey,” and then there are interviews where someone casually explains that they decided, sometime around the year 2000, to simply be a rockstar – with or without the industry’s permission. This is very much the latter.

What follows is a conversation with an artist who reworks Mistletoe And Wine, not because Christmas needed saving, but because noise, drones, My Bloody Valentine textures, and Cliff Richard’s phrasing felt like the right kind of mischief. Someone who treats bonus tracks as a creative free-for-all, singles as an afterthought, and career arcs as something best ignored altogether.

There’s no mythology here – no single life-changing moment, no neatly packaged origin story. Just decisions. Decisions to trust instinct over safety nets, to abandon polish for connection, to let shows veer into part lecture, part confession, part glorious rock spectacle. The kind where laptops fail, crowds boo the commercialization of rock’n’roll on command, and the fourth wall dissolves completely.

This is an artist who understands that rock culture works best when it stays intimate, strange, and slightly uncomfortable – and who would rather fly by the seat of his pants than land a punchline like a comedian. He’s reflective without being precious, irreverent without being cynical, and fully aware that the best discoveries still happen mid-sentence, mid-tour, mid-mistake.

Also, he’ll be playing with Iron Maiden on 11th July. Which, frankly, tells you everything you need to know.

LTW: What made you want to rework Mistletoe And Wine? How excited were you to put your own stamp on this song?

JH: When it comes to classic Christmas songs I think the catchiest one is Mistletoe And Wine. It’s very simple. Easy to sing. What is not to love. I think we wanted to do a Christmas edition of the Dreams On Toast album. It needed a Christmas song. Rather than try to write another one because let’s face it we’ve already written the best one we reworked Mistletoe And Wine. My brother and I have always been sort of into that drone type ’90s music. It is really fun to try to explore that side of things. So, we try to make it sound a bit like My Bloody Valentine or that noisy ’90s record.

Your vocal on this track is kind of playful, a little emotional. How did you balance humour and sincerity?

I just copied Cliff. I have really studied his original vocals on his version. And I say his version not because I think ours is the definitive, because the song itself came from a musical. I don’t know if you know that. It’s part of a musical that came out in the ’80s or late ’70s, which is why it’s got some weird lyrics in there about following the master and stuff like that. It’s taken from another body of work all together. It is a brilliantly chosen song by Cliff in the first place, and I thought the way he did it was just the right way. I didn’t want to move too far away from his approach. To keep the essence of the track, it was important to observe his performance.

After the success of Dreams On Toast, do you feel more confident in taking creative risks like that single?

Well, I never thought that was going to be a single. I just thought it was part of the Christmas edition. We were taking risks just thinking it was going to be a bonus track. There is no need for a safety net when you’re doing bonus tracks. We approach every song like that; we just do what we feel is right for the song. The risks that we take happen later; the choices that we make in terms of which ones are singles.

Now you have a huge tour ahead. How does releasing that song help set up what’s next for you in the future?

I don’t think it is indicative of what’s coming really. It’s really just a moment in time. I think in terms of what’s coming, we just have a huge body of work – eight albums and all the bonus tracks. I actually think there’s stuff that didn’t make it on the albums that should have. And I think the time has come for us to compile a properly curated “best of”. It would be a really great listen for people that are not familiar with all of our work. I can’t really tell you what’s in our future to be honest, because I never really think like that.

Was there a moment in your life that you recall that changed the whole trajectory of it?

The honest answer is no. It’s not really a moment or event or anything like that, it’s more like a decision. I don’t remember a day or a year or a pivotal moment itself. But I know at some point in the year 2000 I decided I was going to live like a rock star. Be a rock star. Become a rock star. Even if I didn’t sell any records or have a band, I was going to be a rock star. That has definitely changed the way I dress. Speak. Behave. I wasn’t very focused before. I had kind of given up on the idea of being a rock star. I was more interested in trying to get into music by being a film composer. I would work on adverts and television bits. I scored some films before the band started up. At some point I think I just realised we were auditioning singers for a band we were in. I was playing keyboards and guitar on that one. I spent two years looking for a singer, I saw hundreds of people come through to audition. I could see what was missing and I realised I had that. Then I just decided to do it and that was it.

I want to talk to you a little bit about the Rise Again Tour. The show blends music and culture and insight and performance into something that’s part lecture, part confessional and part rock spectacular. What was the moment you realised that worked for you on stage and not just on YouTube?

I have done a tour for this before. It was much more structured, it had a lot of things I was relying on production-wise. It became a bit of a science, how I was kind of saying stuff to make sure that when I was doing a joke it landed. There’s a certain way of structuring sentences and timing that comedians will know inside out. But I am not a comedian, I don’t want to be a comedian. And what I want to do is to have the laugh happen naturally and I want the preposterous nature of this industry to be seen for what it is. At times it is laughable. I realised what the blend was when I did the downloads – because none of my production stuff that I would normally rely on was going to work. I plugged my computer into the video walls, and I realised it doesn’t work the same way as a big screen, so I couldn’t actually show anything. So, I had to go out there and tell everybody that this is going to be a bit wild but we are just going to jam. Eventually my manager was able to get my computer going. But for the first few minutes I was literally flying by the seat of my pants. It was fucking awesome.

I managed to get a picture of a campaign for rock ‘n’ roll clothing that was being done by Bobby Gillespie and Kate Moss. I was in a tent with 3,000 people and I just asked them. It looks like what they’re doing is appropriating rock ‘n’ roll and the way we dress; they’re trying to put that in whatever high street stores there are. I asked them how they felt about that, and they all booed. What I realised in that moment was that the rock community doesn’t want to be mainstream. They don’t want the band to cross over. They need it to be a special and part of their lives – to keep stuff small and special and so it means something to the people. That is actually a really important thing. I am always discovering stuff.

The tour is unpredictable and it is meticulously crafted. So how much responding instinctively do you do in the room?

I do that naturally anyway. If I had a forte, I would say it was that. That is actually the thing I enjoy the most about playing small intimate venues – that you get to connect with everyone in the room and react to it.

For more Justin Hawkins visit his YouTube Channel here

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All words by Eileen Shapiro. More of Eileen’s writing can be found in her author’s archive.

Photos by Simon Emmett and Gareth Parker supplied