The Duke Spirit interview: It's the best record we have made

Image: The Duke Spirit

Picking up where the alt-rock club of yesteryear left off, The Duke Spirit recently announced their own revival, returning five years on with a new breed of noise rock.

The London five piece have left behind some of the genre focuses of 2011’s Bruiser, this time choosing to produce a record with less musical direction and more emphasis on mood and feel.

Going from strength to strength, the band have garnered a following enthusiastic fans immersing themselves in the recording of Kin via direct-to-fan platform Pledge Music and releasing singles ‘Blue and Yellow Light’ and ‘Hands’. 

Kin marks a new era for The Duke Spirit, and as the Spring release date nears, things look ever-more promising for the quintet. Drawing comparisons to the emotionally-engaging dream-pop of bands like Wolf Alice and Warpaint, this album could not have come at a better time.

With all of that ahead and UK dates penned in, James Reynolds caught up with vocalist and pianist Liela Moss. 

Hi, how are you doing? 

I am supercharged. Just back from St. Petersburg and Moscow. 

What have you all been up to for the last few years? 

After Bruiser, Toby and I moved to LA for a while and from there toured an album, Zeal, from our electronic side project called Roman Remains. We supported Gary Numan along the way. I spent some time in Sydney too and sung at a Moroder event where he was watching us do all his songs with an orchestra, that was mental.

The other guys were doing a bunch of production projects at the same time, so we had a healthy refreshing lil' break from the band, and then regrouped with loads of funny stories and shit to tell each other which was a good thing because the usual anecdotes had been recycled for at least eight years.

It’s been five years since the release of your last LP Bruiser. With your upcoming single ‘Hands’ introducing the new record (due out Spring, 2016), how are you feeling about the band’s new lease of life? 

It’s the best record we have made. I'm digging it.

How did it come about that you decided to make the new album? 

We all had miscellaneous unfinished songs that were tantalising and wouldn't suit any of our other project things. They were kind of beckoning to be played within The Duke Spirit context, and we were feeling inspired again after rinsing it a bit too hard a few years beforehand. 

Was it odd to sit down and write for The Duke Spirit again, and did you find the dynamic any different to working under Roman Remains or Furs? 

Olly’s band Furs was probably so liberating because he was demoing, engineering, producing and playing in it. It was probably awesome for him to have the space to get really deep into something that he has more ownership of.

Roman Remains was a whole new performance lesson for me – timings, rhythm, everything was so different and chopped-up and not 'band-y' at all. That was so nerve-wracking and focusing. A great little foray into a different craft altogether.

Bruiser seemed to get a lot of praise for how you took the sound you were working with already and began to carve out a bit more of an identity for yourselves with songs like ‘Villain’ and ‘Sweet Bitter Sweet’. Do you think there is that pressure to move away from convention, and are you consciously aware of the kind of music you’re producing when you’re making it? 

We put no pressure on ourselves on this album except to work fast and not get caught up in self-editing or crippling indecision. We just moved through and around stuff swiftly, a bit like with our first EP years ago, Roll Spirit Roll.

Would you say there’s anything on Kin that’s particularly ‘out-there’ in terms of what we’re used to from previous albums? 

Yes, I think people are really interested in how “Blue and Yellow Light' sounds. The density of the harmony, the sounds and the fact that I move up to a falsetto and back down to a low register, transitioning between the two.

It seems quite scary that Neptune came out eight years ago. Do you notice any difference in writing the kind of spacey indie-rock you do now compared to the more Mosshart-esque garage rock of your older work? Do you like (or even recognise) the evolution your music’s undergone over the years? 

There’s more focus on the evocative, for sure. We've taken our foot off the rockin' truckin' vibe that might have got mingled into some of Neptune. Perhaps we are more interested in mood than riffs.

On top of the two singles you have and will be releasing ahead of the album, you’ll be playing four gigs up and down the country in February/March. In fact, the London gig was added after the other dates in response to the public demand.

How has the response been to the new material so far, and when the album’s out is there anywhere else you’d like to play? 

I love playing the new things, it feels like you have poured a bucket of ice water over yourself, and gone “WHOOO SHIIIT” whilst someone turned all the lights off.

All that random, nervous excitement. However, it is quite emotional too and, at times - with the new verses -  I’ve been on the verge of being overwhelmed, which is difficult. That sense that you want to give your all to the song but are then fighting back tears with a wobbly throat.

Any chance of a few festivals, home or away? 

Working on it, always working on it.

It’s still just about January (as of writing) and this album’s going to be one of the first noteworthy records of the new year. With your own music evolving, in some senses, alongside the current breed of indie music, whilst still sticking to those bluesy, psychedelic roots, how do you think contemporary music moves forward from here? Who are The Duke Spirit going to be, going to be playing to, five, ten years down the line, in terms of the sounds and the atmospherics that define the music and band? 

Oh my God, can I answer that about 6 months from now when I have meticulously searched my brain. I have no idea. If I knew that stuff I would be living too much into a projected reality, instead of the moment I am in.

Sadly, David Bowie passed away at the start of the month. You, like many others, wrote a tribute on your Facebook page. Some said that not only the last generation, but this generation, was beginning to lose its heroes.

Can you foresee any current artists “Helping [to] Give Voice to Several Generations of Misfits and Weirdos” to quite the same extent? How does an artist create timeless art in the post-punk, post-grunge, post-rock age?

They articulate themselves truly, aiming to discover more about themselves via conscious awareness of their thoughts, feelings, observations, and not by subscribing to what they think others want to hear.

Thank you for your time. Best of luck with the album.

Words: James Reynolds

UK dates below:

London - Secret Venue, Saturday 20th February 

London - Islington Assembly Hall, Wednesday 24th February

Norwich - Arts Centre, Monday 21st March

Bristol - Thekla, Tuesday 22nd March 

Manchester - Deaf Institute, Wednesday 23rd March 

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