When The Darkness landed in 2003, everyone but the band themselves was caught by surprise.
After years of slogging away in various rock band line-ups, trying to drum up some sort of record label interest, their debut Permission to Land drew a stark line between critical and fan responses when it went to the top of the UK charts.
"We feel vindicated because we've had lots of doubters, lots of cynics and lots of killjoys who refuse to take what we do seriously," bassist Frankie Poullain told Richard Kingsmill on triple j in 2003.
"People think 'they're glammy, they can't have any depth' but what we do isn't glam rock. What we do is what the Americans and probably what the Australians would call rock and roll."
However the British music press, Poullain explained, mostly failed to recognise The Darkness as a "live rock and roll band" and instead focus on relatively disparaging prefixes, such as 'cock rock', 'peacock rock' or 'spandex rock' based on frontman Justin Hawkins' fondness for fancy dress.
"But that's only looking at the very superficial nature of what we do... We all dress up in slightly different ways, we all have our own style. That's just our way of expressing ourselves because we like to take it to the limit," Poullain continued.
"But the thing is we do the same thing when we're writing songs. We take that to the limit, too. We're very serious about our songwriting, we're serious about arrangements and performing."
"We're serious about everything in fact, even having fun."
It was obvious to anyone watching the 'Growing On Me' video - with its horny pre-historic animals, egg laying UFOs, and tub soaking frontman - that this UK band was totally committed to the principle of having fun.
They even considered 'Spaceship' at one stage as a band name, Poullain revealed.
"It just seemed to tie together all of these influences. Not the main influences, which are as you well know, Queen, AC/DC, Aerosmith, but the things like Foreigner and a lot of the '80s kind of rock iconography which is spaceship related. So we just felt it kind of resonated."
"It's classic, it's big, and it's kind of universal, [it] traverses the universe, like we're hoping to do," Poullain said with a slight hint of a wry smile in his voice.
Australian audiences latched on emphatically from the outset, with The Darkness touring as part of the Big Day Out in 2004.
Then, they cemented their connection with fans Down Under by filming their soaring power ballad 'Love Is Only A Feeling' in the splendour of the NSW Blue Mountains.
It may seem to rebuff the sentiments of Boston's golden radio staple 'More Than A Feeling' but the video, with the band standing small against the sprawling grandeur of the natural stadium, a helicopter circling above them as they pull off their guitar heroics, is positively affirming.
On video, on stage, or in interviews - at all points Justin Hawkins, looking like the love child of Steve Tyler and Angus Young, oozed the energy, convictions and sartorial sensibilities of a consummate frontman.
Though sibling rivalry and friction meant he wasn't always the first choice as the band's lead.
He and singing, guitar-playing brother Dan Hawkins would "always argue about who's the lead guitarist," Poullain said of the band's dynamics.
"Justin's rather fond of saying that Dan is credible and he's incredible. Or, alternatively, he also occasionally says that his brother's a shit hot guitarist, but he's white hot."
Original drummer Ed Graham knew the Hawkins brothers through school, while Poullain - a few years Dan's senior - met him in London while playing in bands together.
"We kept hiring and firing people and I kept trying to persuade him to bring [Justin] into the band. But he kept saying that he and his brother always fall out when they're in bands together, they always had to sack each other."
However, at a New Year's Eve gathering ahead of the turn of the new millennium, Dan saw punters at their local pub in stitches and cheering wildly for Justin's interpretive dance to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
In that moment, Dan realised the band had a natural star already among their ranks.
Returning to their love of classic rock, it was decided that "as Justin was such a far out kind of person and extremely entertaining company, it just makes sense for him to be the singer," Poullain said.
"He's amazing," the bassist said of Hawkins. "He takes real risks with his singing but he always manages to keep it in tune and keep it strong, but at the same time perform and also play incredible guitar. He's a very talented guy."
While his flamboyant costumes and theatrical falsetto wasn't for everyone, those that did appreciate Hawkins' Freddie Mercury flights of fancy understood they were witnessing a born entertainer let rip.
"You know, that's his soul, if you like, that's him. If you know him as a person, when you hear him singing you wouldn't be surprised at all."
The Darkness may have been slagged as a joke band, or even uncool amid the wave of edgier garage rock revival bands of the early 2000s, but with seven albums now to their name including most recently 2021's Motorheart, they're well beyond being viewed as a novelty act.
With their fun dial turned up to the max, their emphatic brand of rock n roll tempered by strong songwriting chops, dexterous playing and enhanced by a frontman born to rock, it was all but a given that we'd be compelled to believe in a thing called The Darkness.