{"id":273550,"date":"2025-11-20T12:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/273550\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T12:45:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:45:12","slug":"how-justin-hawkins-became-metals-least-likely-influencer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/273550\/","title":{"rendered":"How Justin Hawkins became metal’s least likely influencer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s be honest \u2018The bloke who sang Christmas Time (Don\u2019t Let The Bells End)<\/a> becomes a metal influencer\u2019 wasn\u2019t on many people\u2019s bingo cards at the start of the decade. But when Covid hit and The Darkness<\/a> were forced off the road in 2020, Justin Hawkins<\/a> got creative when it came to how he would connect with fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing Patreon and had got pretty comfortable on camera,\u201d the singer recalls. \u201cSo my producer at the time said, \u2018You should probably do stuff on YouTube because it\u2019ll be really successful.\u2019 I was very sceptical about it. I didn\u2019t like the stigma of being a YouTuber, even though I\u2019d had all these experiences [on camera] with Cameo and Patreon. For some reason I thought a more public-facing thing was not really what I signed up for.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When 2021 rolled around and The Darkness still weren\u2019t able to tour \u2013 even though they\u2019d got seventh album Motorheart<\/a> in the bag \u2013 Justin decided to give it a go. The Justin Hawkins Rides Again YouTube channel officially launched in October 2021 with the express intent of getting Justin to react to news and songs from the world of rock and metal. It quickly proved a hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weirdest thing for me has been going to a festival where The Darkness is on the bill and having people come up and recognise me, not because of the band but because of the YouTube channel,\u201d he admits with a laugh.<\/p>\n

It turns out getting one of the last major British rock stars \u2013 after all, who else has managed to cross over into pop culture over the past two decades? \u2013 to offer expert opinion on music and industry stuff was something of an untapped niche online.<\/p>\n

Justin Hawkins Rides Again found itself racking up hundreds of thousands of views as Justin reacted to everything from Sleep Token and President to the beef between Ronnie Radke and Sebastian Bach.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing this, I\u2019ve learned quite a lot about areas of rock that I never would have driven down really,\u201d he admits. \u201cI\u2019m learning about music and teaching myself as I go along. I try to keep it accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

In 2024, Justin took the JHRA format out on the road for the first time for live shows across the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a difficult adjustment to make,\u201d he admits. \u201cThe nature of the channel means it\u2019s all very improvised. You can\u2019t really rely on that if you are doing a tour. It\u2019s difficult, if you try to learn a joke and you know what it\u2019s going to be, you can mess it up and get the whole thing wrong. I found myself overthinking it, basically!\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite a few hiccups \u2013 including a segment where local bands could submit their demos for review, only for a few not to actually turn up to the show (\u201cLife got in the way, maybe,\u201d he offers) \u2013 the tour proved a success.<\/p>\n

In 2025, he played his biggest Justin Hawkins Rides Again gig yet: at Download Festival<\/a>. The day before The Darkness played the Opus Stage, Justin walked out to a packed tent of people who\u2019d come to see him talk. So of course, it all went tits up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething like 3,000 people had come to see me,\u201d he recalls in awe. \u201cSo of course, my computer wouldn\u2019t communicate with this video wall they\u2019d got in there! In the end, I had to rush out and try to fix it without anyone seeing who I was. And that got a cheer.<\/p>\n

“I was like, \u2018This thing I was going to do clearly isn\u2019t working. Would you like to see a picture of my dog instead?\u2019 They all started chanting, \u2018Dog! Dog! Dog!\u2019 So it was great, because even though everything I\u2019d planned went out the window, it still worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

That baptism by fire certainly hasn\u2019t put him off. He\u2019s now plotting a full Justin Hawkins Rides Again tour in January and February 2026, embarking on a 20-date run that will see him play theatres and gig venues across the country. While the format has been streamlined, he expects the shows to still deliver the same blend of insight and humour as the videos on YouTube, and admits there\u2019s still a joy to finding new things entirely through the channel.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve found out about myself is that I\u2019m not as closed-minded as I thought I was,\u201d he jokes. \u201cI can listen to something by a band like The 1975 \u2013 a band who I\u2019ve completely ignored \u2013 and end up crying on camera when I found something really moving. It\u2019s really brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch Justin Hawkins Rides Again on YouTube. The tour begins at Swindon’s Wyvern theatre on January 12, 2026.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Justin\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Press)<\/p>\n

David Coverdale: “The Roger Moore of Lead Vocalists” – YouTube
\n\"David<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let’s be honest \u2018The bloke who sang Christmas Time (Don\u2019t Let The Bells End) becomes a metal influencer\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-273550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}