NYLON - May 2008 - (Page 106) WALKING ON WATER The Duke Spirit are making sure their second coming isn’t a wash-out. By Fiona Byrne. Photographed by Lucy Hamblin “I don’t like the idea of people thinking we have bad luck, like there’s a black cloud hanging over us,” says the Duke Spirit bassist Toby Butler, “but strange shit does happen to us all the time.” The British quartet are convened in the lobby of a hotel in downtown New York, and Butler is referring to a series of unfortunate events that befell the band on their last jaunt around North America, when they were supporting their debut album Cuts Across the Land in 2005. “I broke my elbow in a weird, drunken accident in Las Vegas,” he recalls, laughing, “and the next day we had to play Coachella so we had all these guys from different bands trying to learn the bass lines to cover for me. Luckily, American prescription painkillers are pretty strong, so about 10 minutes before we went on I was like, ‘I think I can do this.’ I sat at the back of the stage and just muddled through the set.” “It was a funny old tour,” agrees guitarist Dan Higgins. “We got robbed in San Francisco: While we were playing, somebody went backstage and methodically took all the cash out of a few of our wallets. Our gear was stolen in Portland as well. It was a bit like clinging onto a raft; you start on a big ship and you end up on this little raft.” The Duke Spirit are fond of nautical references— and they make many of them on their new album, Neptune, which was recorded at Rancho De La Luna studios in Joshua Tree, California. The record sees the band twist their dark, shoegaze-esque pop into a heavier rock sound built on the blues, with Liela Moss’s soulful voice holding a hint of the huskiness it has today due to a sore throat. With its many maritime metaphors, it’s a bit strange that Neptune was recorded in the desert —a contrast the frontwoman acknowledges with a happy shrug. “It was coincidental that we ended up going to the desert but then once we were there, I thought perhaps it was meant to be. It was the most healing thing to go to the exact opposite, and really enjoy that ultra-high contrast. It was like the alcoholic part of the album went there to dry out. It was the rehab.” “We liked the idea of writing an aquaticthemed album and then recording it in the driest place on earth,” agrees Butler. “I think we subconsciously found that quite amusing— as well as making such an English-sounding album in America.” Themes of endings and the search for wholeness also feature heavily in the lyrics, something which Moss attributes to her tendency to reflect on the past. “I’m quite a nostalgic person; I find it hard to only look forward, I always look back,” she muses. “Everyone’s got their thing haven’t they? The way they were brought up… like, if their parents were together or not—and mine weren’t together. I’m sure it’s all pretty simple stuff and cognitive behavioral therapists could work me out in seconds and write down my issues on the back of a postage stamp.” Neptune is a huge stride forward for the Duke Spirit, and they’re hoping their bad luck will be banished along with it. So far, the reception has been wildly positive—a change from some of the less-than-glowing press they received last time around. They laugh, remembering their favorite bad reviews, including the time they were called “an Oasis tribute band with a crack whore on vocals.” “I liked ‘Liela Moss and her band of estrogen-fueled House of Love copyists,’” Higgins says. “I guess they thought we were quite effeminate boys.” Butler, though, has seen a recent review he thinks trumps them all. “I liked one I read the other day,” he says with satisfaction. “It said, ‘The Duke Spirit: Not rubbish anymore.’” hair and makeup: virginia bradley using kevin aucoin. prop stylist: dru prentiss.
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