Northern Ireland’s eclectic performer Duke Special tours Czech Republic
Duke Special is a songwriter and performer from Belfast whose style is influenced by vaudeville and theater. Having opened for the likes of Van Morrison and Snow Patrol, he is known for putting on a captivating live performance – often using unusual instruments such as old gramophones or transistor radios. Duke Special’s four-concert tour of the Czech Republic kicks off Tuesday night at Prague’s Malostranská Beseda. We caught up with him ahead of his show, the second time he will be performing here, and started out by asking if he had any special connection to the Czech Republic.
You have supported artists like Van Morrison and Snow Patrol, playing in front of huge audiences. Is it nice to play more intimate venues like Malostranská Beseda for a change?
“Actually, I play all kinds of size venues, small is more normal for me, actually. I’ve played all sizes, but I love the intimacy of a small venue and being able to make a connection with an audience, for me that is the most important thing, and a small venue really helps with that.”
Your gigs in the past have ranged from solo shows to a full line-up of musicians - how do you enjoy playing most?
“Being a solo artist, I get to do all kinds of things, everything from small gigs just on my own to, just recently, I played with an orchestra. I’ve done a lot of shows with orchestras over the last few years, and that is an amazing feeling. But I really love and thrive on the variety, so tonight it is just myself and a drummer, a very great and eccentric percussionist from England, called Chip Bailey, who is playing with me. He is a natural clown and a great performer so I am excited about that.”
“Chip will hit anything; he will get a percussion sound from anything. I draw a lot on theater for my performance, so I want it to be entertaining and I want it to capture an audience. So it will be a mixture of very silly, funny songs, to more heartfelt, I suppose, but yeah, definitely entertaining.
You mentioned you are influenced by theatre. Are there any other art forms that influence your on-stage performance?
“I recently wrote twelve songs based on very old photographs and performed them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, so all those songs were based on these very old photographs from the early 1900s, so I find all art forms influence me, everything from literature to film, and photography, visual arts, theater, poetry, all of those things.
“Playing some festivals back home, a small tour of Ireland and a tour of the UK, and then I am writing music for a play in Belfast and working on a new record, so I will be busy.”
Duke Special will be performing at Prague’s Malostranská Beseda Tuesday night at 8:30, and play in Olomouc on Wednesday, Brno on Thursday and Valašské Meziříčí on Friday.
