Duke Special manages to create a unique version of an old-fashioned sound. Róisín Ingle is smitten
You have come to the Olympia Theatre to see Juliet Turner. You do not expect to fall slightly in love with her support act. But there he is, hair tied up in dreadlocks and eyes smeared with liner, a Belfast boy with attitude putting long-playing records on an ancient gramophone and dazzling the audience with his piano skills. Clashing huge cymbals as he showcases, in all the musical mayhem and the Jaggeresque preening, a voice shot through with equal measures of honey and heartbreak. Who's that boy? Duke Special, at your service, Ma'am.
A few weeks later, the same performer sits in front of you in a Belfast café. He orders a tea - "a large tea please" - and a caramel slice. His eyeliner is a faint smudge, his coat, picked up in London's Camden Street the other day, is a combat-style jacket with purple fun-fur at the cuffs.
Peter Wilson grew up in Belfast, getting piano lessons in his grandmother's home and singing come-all-yes with his three also musically-inclined older sisters. Later he performed in various bands - the improbably named Booley and Benzyne Headset - before he found his musical feet three years ago writing a smattering of songs that sound like instant radio hits and creating his riveting onstage persona. A fan of all things Vaudevillian, he noticed the name Duke kept cropping up on websites dedicated to the era and Special seemed as good a surname as any.
"I knew something was missing when I was in the bands. I enjoyed it, but it just wasn't where I wanted to go," he says, explaining how his producer friend, Paul Wilkinson, helped coax the hardly shy and retiring Duke Special out of his shell.
"I had strong ideas of what I wanted my stuff to sound like. I wanted it to sound old and timeless and classical. I didn't want to be stuck in singer/songwriter land because with the piano it cried Elton John and Billy Joel to me, much as I think some of their early stuff was great. There is so much music around now which is very well executed but it's soulless. It may be polished but it has no identity of its own. I wanted to make a mark."
Listening to his two EPs, Lucky Me and My Villain Heart, it's clear he has succeeded, and it will be no surprise when record companies come a wooing as a result. Between tracks, you hear that unmistakable crackle of needle on vinyl despite the fact that this - you almost have to double-check - is definitely a CD. Various devices, including old hi-fi microphones and instruments such as the Wurlitzer, create an old-world feel, while dislocated voices and Motown beats provide a twist.
But even without these devices it's the songs themselves that stand out. A tribute to Belfast's Connswater river, Some Things Make Your Soul Feel Clean is spine-tinglingly good. The love song Regarding The Moonlight At Eastbourne contains typically insightful lyrics which urge a potential lover not to "settle for the best" but to choose the Duke instead. I Let You Down is probably one of the best "I'm sorry for being such an eejit" love songs you'll hear anywhere. And Freewheel is another song that stays with you even after one listen.
The EPs have sold in huge numbers - around 5,500 to date - after the 120 shows he played last year when he went on tour alone and as support to UK-based performer Aqualung. Duke Special comes out all guns blazing on stage. He aims to surprise in the live show, employing everything from egg whisks to miniature drum kits to something called a stunt-fiddle, employed to devastatingly original effect.
"I want the audience to experience something theatrical and larger than life. Duke Special is a vehicle that allows me to articulate things that I can't express off-stage. When he walks on stage, that place belongs to him. He is extremely extroverted and honest and likes to shock people," he says.
Offstage, the Duke (28) is father to three small boys and husband to Heather, an art student who pops into the coffee shop for a quick hello before the whole family go off to see The Incredibles at the cinema. "When I'm on the road, I am out all night and then up in the morning with the boys," he says. "It's a challenge, but I really want to get it right. I want to be a good dad and husband, but I want to do that while being a really good performer. That's my ambition in life." Duke Special. The surname says it all.
Duke Special will play Whelan's (with Kelly Joe Phelps) in Dublin on March 4th; Róisín Dubh in Galway (again with KJ Phelps) on March 5th; Candlelight Sessions, Waterford, on March 10th; Spirit Store, Dundalk, on March 11th; The Lobby, Cork (with Neosupervital) on March 16th and Ruby Sessions, Dublin on March 29th. For more details see www.dukespecial.com