33½ minutes with...Den Hegarty

Doo wop revivalists Darts were one of the biggest-selling acts of 1978, scoring three hits and considered one of the foremost live bands of their day

- By Mark McStea

Frontman Hegarty left Darts that same year, going on to explore a TV career before moving into teaching. He is now back in the Darts’ fold again. You’d experienced some success with Rocky Sharpe And The Razors, prior to Darts taking off. How did that band morph into Darts?

We’d been together from 1972 for about four years. The man who became Rocky Sharpe was an actor and after every gig he’d lose his voice, so it was messing up his career, so he had to quit, which was why we folded. We had a bass player stand in for the last few gigs and he suggested combining half of the Razors with some other musicians that he knew.

Did you already know that you had a great bass voice for doo wop when you started out?

No, not at all. We just put the band together as a laugh, and then it became clear that I could do all those bass vocal lines.

Sha Na Na [the US Showaddywaddy – Ed] were doing well around the time you started Rocky Sharpe. Were they any kind of influence, as they had quite an action-packed show and great visuals?

I suppose they were partly inspirational, but I’m not sure they had the love of doo wop. They were all out of university and it was a little like a stage show or something. When we started as Darts, we were doing the London pub scene and all the same gigs as people like the Pistols and The Damned. We were also doing the whole university circuit, so we paid our dues playing live and learning how to be a band.

Daddy Cool charted in October 1977 and paved the way for the massive run of success to come in 1978. That must have been a great time.