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Belfast born singer songwriter Peter Wilson AKA Duke Special sounds as distinctive as he looks. Entwining his vaudeville and music hall influences with a knack for melody results in music that is romantic and playful, yet dark and brooding and always utterly compelling; maddog oddball Stu grilled The Duke during preparations for his UK tour… MD: For those who haven’t been lucky enough to stumble across Duke Special, let them know what they’re missing out on. Duke Special: I am a performer who sometimes performs alone using a piano, a microphone and a gramophone, I also enlist the help of an array of spectacular musicians and make a habit of collaborating with puppets, actors and carpenters. MD: How much of your background has shaped the style of your music? DS: Well, my early years were influenced by the presence of 3 sisters and a string of ancestors on my mother’s side for whom music was a normal form of expression, entertainment and distraction. At this time I was sent to piano lessons while also being exposed to church music, folk music and the record collection of my home. MD: There aren’t many people out there making music right now that sounds quite like yours, was there a point you ever thought that maybe your sound was too different or have you always had such conviction in what you do? DS: The hardest thing in music is finding your voice, by that I mean being able to communicate your music and or words in a way which really reflects your personality, influences and aspirations. Yeah, it used to worry me that what I was producing didn’t sound current enough or of the moment. Now I am constantly encouraging myself to keep growing, developing and changing in order not to sound too much like myself! MD: I haven’t seen the full live show yet but I saw the one man show you did last year and was blown away by the sheer theatricality, almost as if it were a production rather than a gig – I think, apart from a Ben Folds audience, I’d never seen an audience so captivated or involved with what was happening on stage. How long and how much effort goes into planning your shows and are the full band shows as meticulous? DS: I’m glad you had that reaction. It is my goal for people to walk into the show and for it to feel more like theatre than a straight gig, so I am pleased! Also with every tour I do I like to see it like a new play with a different or varied cast and a different theme or script, which means often starting from scratch with new musicians and ideas. Unlike much theatre however, I have a very short time to prepare for a tour in terms of rehearsal so the first couple of shows can be fairly nerve wracking! MD: I have found that many musicians are frustrated actors and vice versa – is this true of yourself? DS: I am well aware of my limitations as an actor but love using theatrical devices in the context of a concert. The interface between art forms is the most exciting place for me and is where I find the most interesting innovations can occur. MD: From listening to the first album Songs From the Deep Forest and perhaps more so with the new album, you seem to have a knack for creating really striking imagery with only the arrangements and the instrumentation which I can’t quite imagine being able to do – how conscious are you of what you want before you sit down to write? DS: I find some songs come out of nowhere and a chord sequence or melody will drive the whole thing. For other songs I will have referred to a notebook where I have jotted down some garbled phrase or idea from a conversation, a book, a film, a thought or something and used that as a starting point. With “I Never thought this day would come” I had the image of sleepwalkers dancing with ghosts in an old dusty ballroom as the reference during the song-writing process. I find having a theme like that helpful as a starting point but I not in a restrictive way.
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MD: How do you see I Never Thought This Day Would Come as a progression? DS: I knew I didn’t want to make part 2 of the previous album. This is a different piece of work with a different sound, recorded in different places and collaborating with different writers and musicians. The previous recording was quite lush, was set in a forest in front of an audience of bears. This one is darker I think, a more bleak beauty. Everything is sliding, promises and expectations are crashing down. It is a song cycle in first love, despair and ultimately the promise of hope and a redemptive process.
MD: Was there a sense of second album syndrome when writing it? DS: Well, technically it wasn’t my second album as I had made a number before being Duke special but to an extent I was nervous about trying to live up to other peoples’ expectations. At the beginning of the process perhaps. Now I see what I do in the longer arc of making art that grows and develops and stays true to where I am at the moment of making it MD: How did the collaboration with Bernard Butler come about? DS: I had loved the music he had made with David McAlmont a few years ago and always thought I would love to collaborate in some way. My manager knew his manager and set up a couple of days writing together. Also Duffy had put in a good word for me after I got to know her doing some shows together in Ireland a couple of years ago so that helped. MD: When I first listened to I Never Thought This Day Would Come I initially thought that Mocking Bird Wish Me Luck was an odd choice for an opener because it goes against the rules for what an album opener should be, what was your thinking behind the track ordering and do you like to mess with the conventions of what is expected? DS: I felt it was like a little scene setter, a prelude for what was to come. Even the line “right at the start of me, you stole a part of me” seemed to place it at the beginning of the album. MD: I think that the album has a very distinct journey behind it and rewards the listener that plays it all the way through; I wrote in my review of the album that it ‘is impossible not to be swept up and carried through Duke Special’s carefully crafted slightly odd but thoroughly enchanting little world’ – how much of that world is true of yours and how much is a complete fabrication? DS: The Duke Special world is definitely true but a heightened truth, it condenses the highs and lows into a 45 minute listen or a 1 and a half hour experience depending if you are listening to the record or at a gig. MD: What do you get from touring that you don’t from recording? DS: Personally I get the connection with the audience, the chance to communicate the songs in a full way and to feel the reaction from people. For those attending they get a chance to use their eyes as well as their ears and also I think it’s about focus. With a recording there are so many distractions and competing sounds but in a gig it’s like everyone has agreed to get together for a time and really experience something together. I guess it’s like going to see a play or to the cinema as opposed to having the TV on in the background while you’re doing the ironing! Words & Photos > Stuart Hogben |
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