News

As well as being played at various times over the next few days, you can also watch Hot Leg's Channel M '...In Session' show at www.channelm.co.uk/music

| 10 Mar 2009 |

Music students in Birmingham received tips from The Leg during their visit to Birmingham yesterday - go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7933829.stm to watch.

| 10 Mar 2009 |

Greeting a sweaty Academy 2 with a cheeky “Hello Wembley!”, Hawkins led Hot Leg through 90-minutes of all out rockers, camp anthems and arm waving power-ballads as if the 70s and 80s had never been away. And there wasn’t a Darkness song in sight.

It’s easy to look only at the striped jeans, comical headbands, bleached hair and falsetto shrieks and overlook the fact that Hawkins has surrounded himself with a fine band.

Read more | 10 Mar 2009 |

Last night, they showed at Birmingham’s Academy 2 that they have a more than reasonable chance of succeeding before a packed venue.

This was Hot Leg’s second tour in nine months and they set the Academy jumping from the off with a fine mix of infectious riffs and power chords, matched with Hawkins’ incredible larynx.

Read more | 10 Mar 2009 |

Not being Iggy Pop, Torvil or Dean, before I set out I picked up the phone and called another bandy-legged old pro, Justin Hawkins, the former leotard-clad lead squealer of camp-rockers the Darkness.

"Step and thrust; step and thrust," came the sage words from Hawkins, who was on his way to Whitstable at the time with his new rock outfit, who are appropriately called Hot Legs. "Suck in your stomach," he continued. "Go commando if you can brave it and watch out for those cold gusts."

Read more | 10 Mar 2009 |

MUSIC lessons can rarely have been any cooler.

Students at Jewel & Esk College arrived this week to find a guest tutor - in the shape of former Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins.

And the budding musicians kept the rock star on his toes as they fired questions at him on everything from favourite film moments to the more controversial departure of bassist Frankie Poullain, who went to the Capital's Royal High School.

Read more | 07 Mar 2009 |

Yes, if you still hanker for those days of posturing power pop, then it’s your lucky week, because the Freddie Mercury of Lowestoft is back - and as outrageous as ever.

Now fronting an outfit called Hot Leg, above, which boasts Oxfordshire’s very own Sam Stokes formerly of The Thieves and the strutting Vade Mecum on bass, he plays the Oxford O2 Academy on Tuesday, in an explosion of power chords, big hair and eye make-up.

Read more | 06 Mar 2009 |

MUSIC can be a cruel business sometimes. Don't think so? Just ask Justin Hawkins. A few years ago the former frontman for The Darkness could do no wrong: MTV awards, gold and platinum albums, a headline appearance at the Reading festival, even the South Bank Show dedicated an episode to Hawkins and his retro-rockin' cohorts. But my, how Hawkins' fortunes have changed.
Following well publicised alcohol and drug problems, and a hasty departure from his million-selling band, Hawkins has taken up from where he left off - playing the same sort of poodle-haired, glam-rock his former band were renowned for.

Read more | 06 Mar 2009 |