"I liked the idea of being a little bit enigmatic"

Interview and Photos (Newcastle/Leeds 2005) by Dawn

It's not every evening you arrive at a gig to find stage decor comprising a gramophone, megaphone, transistor radio, clarinet and a piano dripping with lush red velvet - but then it's not every evening you get to experience the compelling stage show and heartbreakingly exquisite music of Duke Special; a man whose image and whose band's quirky onstage antics regularly bely the shimmering beauty of his songs; whose olde worlde-style performances draw constant comparisons to the days of vaudeville and music hall.

Four nights into a brief tour with fellow Emerald Isle boys Hal, I catch up with the Belfast showman - more commonly known as Peter - in the Cockpit bar, having seen him play five nights earlier to a somewhat smaller audience in the Waiting Room restaurant in Teesside.

'It was quite an unusual environment to do a gig in a vegetarian restaurant,' he smiles, 'but yeah, it was really good fun and we had a really cool party afterwards - (bandmate) Steve and myself got on the decks and played The Sound of Music, all kinda stuff like that - really good fun.'

The gig was the perfect way to break up the long journey to Aberdeen for the first date with the Hal boys, who told me they specifically requested Duke Special's presence on their tour. Peter, meanwhile, is impressed with what he's heard of their music so far: 'I didn't really know much of them beforehand, but it's very understated and I'm only really getting to know the songs but I'm hoping to blag an album off them.'

And speaking of Hal, they share Peter's admiration for the glorious baroque 'n' roll of the wonderfully flamboyant Rufus Wainwright: 'When you're trying to find your own voice there's different people along the way who kind of fit like a jigsaw - suddenly "Ah, there's this bit". I was talking to one of the guys from Hal and he was saying that Rufus is one of those people. Tom Waits would be one of those people, Aimee Mann would be another, Magnetic Fields would be another, Elliot Smith would be another - so all these people have just really informed me and kind of validate, almost, what I want to do and really encourage me to keep going.'

Whilst part of the appeal of a Duke Special performance lies in his captivating, spinetingling vocals, Peter is ably assisted onstage by percussionist Chip and jack of all trades Steve. While the suited and booted Steve utilises the record player, radio, megaphone and clarinet, the lively Chip often leaves his drumkit in favour of playing, amongst other things, a cheese grater with a whisk. In his charming Irish lilt, Peter attempts to explain why:

'When we were recording we were trying stuff. I think initially we'd have preferred a washboard, and then we said maybe a whisk or something and tried it and it's taken off. Some people appear at gigs now with them and wave them at the appropriate time. We're actually going to try and develop a series of Chip Bailey kitchen utensils - we're imagining a stage at some point with maybe four or five hundred people all brandishing these things.' He laughs then, at the suggestion that perhaps he'd be left out, smiles: 'Well, you know, I could get a Magimix going or something.'