The Duke Spirit 26th May Birmingham Academy 2
The Duke spirit have just released their debut album Cuts Across The
Land and are part way through a headline tour. Fused caught up with
Toby and Dan Duke, before their gig on Thursday night to find out what
other bands inspire their music, how their album is being received and
highlights of their tour so far.
Unsurprisingly, when you get reviewed you get compared to other female
fronted bands. What bands that don't fit in to this category do you
feel inspires your music?
Toby: Mary Chain, Space Men 3 and Spiritulized. We like it when bands
take something special and take it to another place. Kinda like
anything going on outside the music scene at the moment! There is a lot
of monkeying around (laughs).
It is fair enough though to compare us to female fronted bands, because that is what we are.... so we don't pretend we are not.
But musicaly we take influences from all over the place, for instance
punk bands like The Clash.... but then there are bands like Souxie and
the Banshees....
If you could be anybody in Stars In Their Eyes who would you be?
Toby: I think Joe Strummer.
Dan: I'd wing it and have a go at Bob Dylan.
Toby: I thought you were going to say Bob Marley for a minuit there..
Dan: Nah (laughs). Not sure I could pull thatoff.
Toby: I bet this question it a cheeky way of getting us to tell you who our biggest Idols are
Dan: Yeah..... sly one that.
Which comparison to a band have you found most flattering?
Toby: I suppose musicaly we have been likened to The Gun Club, which is
quite exciting because we discovered that record after hearing that.
Having Lila in the band, we do get compared to some ridiculously huge
icons such as Patti Smith. Who could possibly compare us to that!
One London magazine once refered to Lila as a young Aretha Franklin. Possibly the highest praise you can get.
Dan: I like it when people make up a whole new genre to fit us in to.
People have said we are sort of like.... wierd.. kinda rural....
backwards... pagan rock!
Have you ever been offended by comments made about you or your music?
Dan: erm..... we sometimes get some that are a bit boring.... if they are really bad they are usually quite funny.
Toby: Yeah but we did get callled an Oasis tribute band with a crack
whore for a singer... It's so ridiculous... who would be offended by
that?
We get more offended by the way that people write... Crap journalism is offensive.
Dan: One review of our album said it was like satan wanking over
dismembered baby parts... It amuses us the images that our music evokes!
This is your first tour since the release of your album, how has it gone so far?
Dan: The Highlight is probably playing at the Astoria. It was by far
the biggest headline gig we've ever done. We were quite nervous
about it for a long time,
Toby: By supporting other bands we have got used to playing pretty big
venues around the country, we've supported bands that are doing really
well. We played Alexandra Palace with Kasabian, it was ridiculously
large. So we are used to the stage but to mentally prepare for your own
headline gig at the astoria is quite a task. Whether we could get
enough people to actualy come and watch it. ...(laughs) ....but it was
actualy amazing.
Dan: The whole tours been amazing actually, having an album out, people
come along knowing our songs, yeah this whole tours been amazing.
Review: Thursday night was hot and it was sticky! The audience
was shining with sweat before either support had played a note. So by
the time they had finished everyone was soaking.
Dispite the heat the gig was amazing. They played every song as if it
were an encore! The whole set was crammed with energy and power.
Lila didn't let us girls down. She is the woman we'd all love to be.
With a sexy performance of exaggerated gestures and angular movements,
she naturaly danced with passion as if she were alone in her bedroom.
It was the kind of gig where you want to be the only one in the room
and don't want too take your eyes off the stage for a second. The
rhythm is consuming and the music makes you want to dance, no one
seemed to be bouncing around everyone just .... moved!
Live 'Lion Rip' is the kind of tune that makes your stomach/ heart
ache. The vocals were flawless, and teamed with the captive performance
of the entire band, the track is emotional....
The Duke Spirit are Wonderful.
Adrianne Crewe
Image by David Bowman