PRESS: Smash Hits, March 2003

🦋 The following article with Darius appeared in the teen music magazine 'Smash Hits' back in March 2003.

❤️You can read the article by clicking on a photo or by reading the text below:

Ten incredible facts that you never knew about Darius...

He’s a real ‘tese

“I like to play the Malteser game. Find someone and ask them to hide six Maltesers about their person while you do the same. Now find each other’s chocolate! Girls have the advantage because they have longer hair and cleavage to, er…play with. I played it with a girl once before we went to a movie, but I left a couple on her by mistake and they melted”

Spiders spook him

“I don’t like spiders. I was camping once and woke up with one in my mouth. I’ve had nightmares about it ever since. My mate knows a girl who had a spider crawl up her nose in Asia. It laid some eggs and, two weeks later, all these baby spiders came crawling out.

He’s a trained scuba diver

“I spent New Year in Mauritius with my brother, looking at the hot South African chicks. They’ve got one of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world and I learned to scuba dive so I could have a look at it”

He can water-ski without skis

“I learned to water-ski in Mauritius, and I noticed all the locals were skiing on their bare feet, without skis. So on my last day I tried it and found that my size 12 feet were a real advantage for once”

Mushrooms could kill him

“I’m allergic to mushrooms. If I eat one my head explodes and I look like Mr Blobby. My face swells up and goes red, my tongue gets fat and I start feeling dizzy…I look like a mushroom actually”

He saved someone’s life last year

“After colourblind came out I went to see a mate who was working as a lifeguard at the commonwealth pool in Edinburgh. I’m a trained lifeguard, so he asked me to keep an eye on the pool while he got a coffee. So, I was up in the chair when I saw this kid face down in the water. I jumped in, got the kid out and started working on his chest while my mate gave him mouth to mouth. We brought him back and he said “Darius?! Can I have your autograph?”

He has a big bag of pants

My band collect souvenirs from each gig – underwear that’s been thrown on stage. It all goes in a bag that travels around with us on the tour bus. There’s a big pair of bloomers with my face printed on them, a G-string, some razzle-dazzle ones from Topshop….all sorts of knickers. The bag’s travelled 27,000 miles in 5 weeks. So, if you’ve thrown your G-string at me, there’s a good chance its done a lot of miles”

He can make you wet yourself

“I used to be in the Territorial Army and, on a training camp, I learned how to make someone pee themselves in their sleep. You put their hand in a bowl of warm water and keep sloshing it over and over. It relaxes them completely and they wet themselves. They don’t wake up, they just dream they’re going to the loo. It works!”

He loves dinosaurs

“Dinosaurs ruled. What would you say to a T-Rex if he was blowing hot air in your face? You’d just run. The reason they’re extinct is they didn’t enjoy sex. They didn’t have Ann Summers back then”

He’s invented his own drink

“I bought my flatmate a cocktail shaker for Christmas and we came up with the Big D. It’s made of pineapple and mango juice in equal measures and two or three shots of certain spirits…it’s a secret recipe. We gave it to some bar tenders in Mauritius and now they serve Big D out there”