Following their rather superb in-store appearance at Southsea’s Pie & Vinyl the Duke Spirit spent time to meet and greet their fans, with drummer/keyboard player Olly Betts then taking a moment before his pie and mash to speak to Mr Teeth.
With our favorite little record café being a slightly different take on your conventional record store, the welcoming and intimate setting provided the initial talking point before settling down to discuss in-store appearances in general and the release of the bands fourth full length album “Kin“.
Photo credit: Sam Taylor @ Pantha Photography
As you’ve already mentioned earlier how much you like the shop, how did playing here come about?
“I met Steve a few years ago, he was putting on a Pie & Vinyl gig at the Registry Pub for my other band (FURS) and it’s just such a great set up here, run by great people too.”
This being part of a string of in-stores…
“Yep, today’s the last one, it’s been fun, we did a similar tour about 6 or 7 years ago but there wasn’t a Pie & Vinyl so we didn’t make it to Portsmouth back then.”
A lot of in-stores are acoustic, whereas you guys have still been quite full on, how would you say this evening compares to other gigs?
“We used to do them all really stripped back but struggled because of the nature of the music and now it really varies store to store, last night we did full electric at Rough Trade whereas tonight was still stripped back a little bit, I guess we’re getting a little more proud in our old age and we can tailor the cloth to suit so to speak… or at least that’s what we try!”
Well, I’d say it definitely worked this evening…
“Thank you very much”
In terms of recording, on the press release for “Kin” it mentions you’ve been finding new sounds, how would you interpret that PR wording in regards to the album?
“Over the last 5 years Leila and Toby have gone off and done a side project called Roman Remains, I’ve had my project in Furs and been working on other music with Luke, so we’ve all had a chance to experiment a bit more and we’ve definitely used more synths on this record but very much kept our core sound and the Duke Spirit heart whilst spending more time on the keyboards and vocals.”
The new record also features quite a few guests…
“We’ve been really very lucky, Mark Lanegan which is incredible, we toured with Mark really early on and Leila especially has done quite a lot with him over the years and they’ve become quite good friends, so was great to reach out and get him to sing on a track.
Simon Raymonde was already working on the album, Hackneys Deep Throat Choir from East London my housemates good mates with so got them involved and Sam from the Archie Bronson Outfit we’re massive fans of, so was great to get him on a track, like I say we’ve just been really lucky.”
With the Mark Lanegan collaboration coming about quite naturally then, was it written with him in mind given his quite unique vocals?
“Yeah it’s a really gravelly voice but not at all, Leila and Toby wrote the song ages ago and it was just fortuitous he was able to sing on it as when they wrote “Wounded Wing” we thought it’d be great to have a deep male vocal on this and well Mark Lanegan ended up being a no-brainer.”
How are you pulling it off live?
“We did it live last night and on a Radio 6 session it turned out our guitarist does a rather impressive Mark Lanegan impersonation and I think we were all really surprised that he’s just nailed it.”
I noticed the album kicked off with a pledge campaign, how would you say that’s altered how you’ve gone about releasing the record?
“Well it’s been a really good set up for us, we’re an old band now having been around since 2003 and we wanted to release the record ourselves. We’ve been on various record labels and had great experiences but wanted to keep this one a bit more DIY, when pledge came in it’s a great platform to reach out to fans and knock on a few old doors and remind them that we’re still here making music.
I’ve not met them personally but Luke has done a lot with Pledge, again it’s all about having a great set up and they’ve got a really good way to keep it crowd funded but very much working with ourselves and Essential who have been distributing the record as well, so yeah a really good platform for us to get the new album out there.”
So with the bands dinner almost ready talk soon turned back to the shop in general and the quality pastry products on offer, Olly deciding to opt for the “Heidi Pie” whilst going halves with Leila on the “Darlin’ You Bean” created in the Duke Spirit’s honor.
Thanks for your time Olly, it was a pleasure chatting with you.
Mr Teeth
