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Matt Duke (MySpace) is easily one of Phillyist's favorite things about, well, Philly. Because he plays frequently at World Cafe Live—probably our favorite place to catch live music in the city—we've seen him, and talked about him, many times. But it wasn't until his most recent show at WCL that we actually got a chance to talk to Duke. So read on, and if you didn't get to see Duke when he played with Tony Lucca and Jay Nash a couple weeks ago, fear not; Matt will be opening for also-ridiculously-talented Charlotte Martin at WCL on Wednesday night. So check out our conversation with Matt, and get details on Wednesday's show below the interview.
Let's get the obligatory first question out of the way: How did you get started in playing music, and writing and recording your own songs?
I played piano for a couple years when I was younger, and then I quit that when I was in grade school. And then there was just a pre-pubescent, super-hormonal phase—like I just wanted to impress girls, so I decided that the best thing to do would be to pick up a guitar. My mom had a guitar that was just sort of laying around the house, and I approached her and she said, "Well I'd rather not pay for you to do lessons when you just quit piano." But she was like, "But I'll teach you a song and you can just teach yourself from there." So I started to teach myself how to play guitar, and I started writing pretty instantaneously too, when I was about 13. I started playing out, just to small groups of friends, at a local coffee shop in Collingswood called—at the time, The Living Room, and then it became The Treehouse. And I played there just for friends for a couple years...for shits and giggles. And then I started doing this [playing music] for serious when I was like 19 or 20, when I dropped out of college.
Your music sounds like it incorporates a lot of different influences. Folk, jazz, and hard rock are three that hit us right away. Do you enjoy pulling sounds from different types of music? Or are there any particular artists you draw influence from?
Well, jazz is funny, because jazz and classical to me are the same sort of thing; I have a very hard time parsing through exactly what's going on while the music's being played. So it's actually—those are the things I like to listen to a lot of times.... It's like being dropped in Paris, and everyone else around you is speaking French, and it sounds really pretty but you don't know what they're saying, but you can tell by the inflection or the gestures that they're making what it is.
The jazz aspect does exist in some of [my] songs. It's simply some these weird, atonal, strange chord arrangements that sort of happen with bands like...Nine Inch Nails was really good about doing that. Like, Trent Reznor had all these incredible beats that were very basic, these really compressed sounds—but then also these really bizarre, like seconds [ed. note: musical seconds, not time seconds] and weird things overtop—and making it sound beautiful. Alice in Chains did the same thing. I grew up a grunge guy, so Alice in Chains...their harmonies were just out of this world. Bands like Soundgarden were huge for me, and Pearl Jam was a big one.
Ani DiFranco, for years and still now, is probably one of my biggest influences...lyrically and her work ethic and who she is...and her guitar playing is second to none. So that might be some of the folk element. But I also grew up listening to things like Tool and Mastodon.
Outside of musical influences, a number of your songs draw from literary influences. "Kingdom Underground," based on Paradise Lost; "Rabbit," from John Updike's Rabbit series; and "Ash Like Snow," from Ayn Rand's We the Living. Are there any other literary influences in your songs which we haven't noticed, and could you talk a little about how literature informs your music?
Well, on Winter Child, the title of that album is a reference to, and the song "Winter Child" is about, the Hemingway short story "Hills Like White Elephants." That [reference] was [to the line] "Ballroom dancing off a winter child...." "The Father, the Son, and the Harlot's Ghost" on Kingdom Underground uses the same sort of chronology and is loosely based on the story of the protagonist of Trinity by Leon Uris, which is this deep [story] that follows the Irish after the potato famine through the issues with England, and the schism between the orange and the green, Northern and southern Ireland.
"Happy Hooligan" is a reference to Vonnegut, 'cause that was referenced in a story called "[2 B R 0 2 B] (To Be or Not to Be)," which is this unbelievable...sort of about these different religious things.
I don't know.... There's different styles, so even as something as creepy as "Listen to Your Window," I'm trying to write from these different perspectives. I love John Banville, who's fantastic—sort of like a modern-day Nabokov in the way he writes—in how he can write from the perspective of being a sadistic, strange person, but who you still empathize with, which makes you feel a little dirty on the inside. It's kind of a creepy feeling.
But yeah, books.... Once I dropped out of school, I started getting into reading again, amazingly enough. My father has me reading Thomas Merton and all these other things. And all of those things play a part in [my music].
You touched a little bit on "The Father, the Son, and the Harlot's Ghost." And that song, as well as "Walk It Off" and "Sex and Reruns," sound much different when it's just you acoustically versus when you're playing with a full band, whether we're talking about your live shows or the Acoustic Kingdom Underground EP versus Kingdom Underground. So when you wrote those songs, were you writing for just you with the guitar and then re-arranged them for a full band, or was it the other way around?
Well, initially, when a song is being written, I can hear different parts in my head. I try to get an idea thematically, of the mood...what's it going to be? So, "Father...Son...," when it was written, sounded very much like it is on [Kingdom Underground]—very aggressive and driving, and you could hear these ethereal parts underneath. But then when it came to playing acoustic shows, I started [playing those parts] a little bit differently—not just for [the audience's] sake, but for mine. I wanted to be able to reinterpret it just a little bit, to keep it interesting. And when it's just me and a guitar, it puts more emphasis on the lyrics, rather than the driving sort of thing.
Same thing with "Walk It Off." "Walk It Off" became...the full band is what it was [originally] supposed to be—just this really abrasive song, and it just doesn't stop. But when I did it acoustic, it just felt more natural, more compelling, and it felt better to me when I would play it slower.
The way some of your music is arranged and sounds—often light and with a pop element—it's actually surprising just how dark some of your lyrics are. Are people ever thrown off by how dark your lyrics are at times?
Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I guess that's a little bit of selfishness. I sort of enjoy these pop-esque song structures mixed in with these lyrics. That was never intentional, it was just the way that I wrote.... The reason my songs sound the way they do is that if people aren't listening, or say they can't understand my mic and exactly what I'm saying, at least the music is going to take [them] someplace. If that's a positive place or a negative place, so be it.
"Tidal Waves" was probably the first stab [I took] at something where there was a very happy, cool sound but then the lyrics are very depressing. "Rabbit" is sort of the same way.
Along similar lines is the song "One Small Bird." Could you tell us where that song came from?
There was a child in Philadelphia who was the casualty of some gang-related violence in the city. There was a stray bullet that went through the window of a school while he was sitting at his desk, and it hit him in the head and he died.
I just remember watching that [story] on television, and this stuff.... It happens, but...the thing that affected me the most was that school is supposed to be a safe haven. Considering the places some kids grow up, and they go home to less-than-awesome conditions, to not even be able to feel safe, to be killed sitting at your desk at school.... That was sort of hard [for me] to swallow.
But I think that's something about folk music. If you listen to the chords and stuff, it might sound one way, but that might be overshadowed by the lyrics. I guess that's sort of the folk concept [in my music].
Alright, let's lighten things up a little bit. A lot of young musicians trying to make it big might head to New York or L.A., but is there anything you think Philly has to offer to young musicians?
Yeah, every place kind of has its scene, some more successful than others. Philadelphia's sort of on the rise. It's been a great place for singer-songwriters such as myself. ... I was lucky, because in the area that I grew up, it was a very eclectic mix of people. Like Melody Gardot, who's another WXPN person, is from the South Jersey area as well. And we were just kind of surrounded by all different types [of music].
The Philadelphia scene just really, truly appreciates music. It's just been difficult to get a lot of these artists out and known nationwide. There's a thriving community here, and people love to come watch us perform, which is fantastic. And we've got great radio stations to focus ourselves around. But outside of that, it has been a little difficult for some of us to get ourselves out. But that's also a good thing, because [Philly] has been a very nurturing place. Helen Leicht's been one of the biggest champions of what I do, and if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be where I am today. XPN has been the biggest reason why this scene has been thriving as much as it has been.
So let's wrap up with something we ask many of our musician interviews. If we stuck you on a desert island with only five albums to listen to, what would those albums be?
Oh, man. Jeff Buckley's Grace. [long pause] This is so hard. Tool's Aenima. Pearl Jam's Vs. Ani DiFranco, So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter—that's a live double disc, but we'll count it as one. Silverchair's Diorama.
Honorable mentions would be The Band's Music from Big Pink...no, wait, I take that back. Moondog Matinee from The Band. And, umm.... No, that's it. That's the only honorable mention.
Charlotte Martin, with Matt Duke
Weds., 9/30/09
7:30 p.m. (Doors 6 p.m.), all ages
World Cafe Live (3025 Walnut St.)
Tickets: $19-$24
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