SUFFOLK'S most successful ever rock band are not getting back together, the group's manager has said.

Jonathan Barnes

SUFFOLK'S most successful ever rock band are not getting back together, the group's manager has said.

Reports had suggested The Darkness, who split acrimoniously in 2006, were being offered a major deal to tour and record a new album this year.

But Sue Whitehouse, the band's manager and long-time partner of frontman Justin Hawkins, said there was “no truth whatsoever” in the story.

“I've no idea where that story came from,” said Ms Whitehouse, who oversaw the band's meteoric rise to fame.

A national newspaper had reported the Lowestoft rockers had been made an offer by a US entrepreneur to reform.

But a reunion appeared unlikely with singer and guitarist Justin and his former bandmates, including his guitarist brother Dan, pursuing other projects.

Since the split, Dan and former Darkness bandmates Richie Edwards and Ed Graham have gone on to form the heavy rock band Stone Gods, while Justin is touring with his new group, Hot Leg.

The Hawkins brothers and Graham, all former Kirkley High School pupils, formed The Darkness in 2000 with bass player Frankie Poullain, and went on to sell nearly two million copies of their debut album, Permission to Land, released in 2003.

They scored a string of top 10 hits and won a host of awards, including two Brits. But their second album, One Way Ticket to Hell… and Back fared less well and Justin, who admitted to a chronic drink and drugs addiction at the height of the band's fame, quit in 2006, leading to the band's demise.