Italian band Planet Funk had no idea their song ‘Chase the Sun’ had become the sound of darts until they heard it blaring out inside the lobby of a London hotel
If you were to ask darts fans what the musical theme of their favourite sport is, they might not be able to tell you exactly the name of the song.
However, they would be able to give you a rendition of the chorus. Written down, it doesn’t really work. But when fans hear Planet Funk’s ‘Chase the Sun’, they go mental.
“Du du du du duuu du du du du duuuuu hey hey hey,” scream fans at the end of every leg, set and match, with darts supporters raising the roof, just like they have over the space of the last few weeks while the Paddy Power PDC World Darts Championships have been going on at the Alexandra Palace.
The cult hit song by the Italian band has become synonymous with darts over the years. However, the band admit that when the PDC asked if they could use the song back in 2005, they said yes, not knowing just how popular it would become with darts fans.
“I think the PDC first asked us about it in 2005. Could they use ‘Chase the Sun’ as a theme song,” said Planet Funk’s Marco Baroni speaking to GVA.
“We were working on our second album at the time and that song had done really well in the charts, including in Great Britain [it reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart in 2001]. There were a lot of requests at the time, for commercials for example, but this one caught our attention because it was quite special.
“In Italy, darts wasn’t a big thing at the time, but we quickly gave our approval. We thought: who knows, it might be something cool, so why not? We didn’t have to think about it for long.”
And it wasn’t until a few years later the band realised just how popular the song had become after they heard it in a London hotel lobby.
Baroni added: “We had forgotten about it a bit, to be honest. A few years later, we were in London to promote our album. After a not-so-positive meeting, I was sitting in my hotel room, blubbering, and then I turned on the TV and started watching darts.
“And suddenly I heard ‘Chase the Sun’ after a match, and the crowd went completely crazy. I jumped up and shouted: ‘F*** yeah, that’s our song!’ So that was my very first experience with darts. It gave me such a great feeling. That’s ultimately what we want to do with our music: entertain people.
“And it turns out that we’ve achieved quite a bit with one of our songs. It was fantastic to see. After that, we all started watching more darts, just to see how people went wild to our song. We never expected it to become such a cult song.”