Matt Duke (musician)
Encyclopedia
Matthew Thomas Duke is an American musician
and singer-songwriter
who was born in Reston, Virginia
and raised in Mount Laurel Township, New Jersey
. He released an independent album, Winter Child, through the student-run Mad Dragon Records at Drexel University
in Philadelphia. Later he signed to the major label Rykodisc and has since released multiple albums: two full-length albums, Kingdom Underground
and One Day Die
, and two EP
s.
, Italian and Polish
descent, and grew up with a religious Irish Catholic
upbringing. He lived in Reston until the age of 5, when his family moved to Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, where he lived until adulthood. Growing up in South Jersey he attended the Our Lady of Good Counsel parish
grade school until 8th grade, and then the all-male, private Jesuit St. Joe's Prep in Philadelphia for high school. As a child and teenager, he performed in local theatre productions through school and community programs. In his late teens and early 20s he worked a variety of jobs including: sandwich maker, framer
, gardener and construction
worker.
and she left him to teach himself, after he had quit playing piano she said she would not pay for lessons lest he quit again. The next three years Duke spent learning to play the guitar, from internet tablature
and playing along with the radio to bands like Alice in Chains
and Nirvana
. By the time that he was sixteen he started to play live shows at a local coffeehouse
in Collingswood, New Jersey called the The Living Room, doing a mixture of original material and cover songs. He also performed at open-mic nights at The Point
in Philadelphia. For his 18th birthday his family gave him a present of recording time to record the songs he had written for prosperity. Duke and a friend recorded six songs in two hours at his church, and CD copies ended up being passed around to friends and family.
. The CD was played in an A&R class at Mad Dragon, which then lead to Mad Dragon asking Duke to sign a one-year promotional deal with them, with the intent of using students for all aspects of the process like recording and promotion. Duke, along with two other artists, Julia Othmer and Trisha O'Keefe, were asked to contribute songs to a compilation record, which became XYX. XYX was the first CD released by Mad Dragon and featured four songs from each artist, with O'Keefe and Duke using the Drexel recording studios in the fall of 2004. Jim Klein, a professor at Drexel and part of the Mad Dragon program, handled production for Duke's part of the album. Duke, O'Keefe and Othmer supported the album with a small tour around Northeast.
After the tour was over, Mad Dragon wanted Duke to sign a deal to produce a full-length album. Winter Child
, the next album released by Duke, was recorded on-and-off over the next year. Half was recorded in Drexel with Jim Klein, and it was finished in a New York studio with Stewart Lerman
and Steuart Smith
. During the making of Winter Child, Ryko became interested in using their distribution company, Ryko Distribution, to handle distribution of content from Mad Dragon and other student-run record labels. This deal lead to Ryko Distribution distributing the Winter Child record. A student-made music video for the song "Oysters" was also made and the song was treated as the single from the album.
. Using a demo of the song "I've Got Atrophy On the Brain" that was recorded with students at Drexel, Ryko got the interest of producer Marshall Altman
and Altman agreed to meet Duke in Los Angeles to see how the two would work. After the meeting in Los Angeles, Duke and Altman agreed to work, leaving Duke to head back to Philadelphia to prepare and write songs for the release. With the songs written, Duke traveled to Burbank, California to record with Altman and finished the production of the album in just four weeks. Kingdom Underground was released later that year on September 23, 2008.
Months after the tour and release of Kingdom Underground Ryko asked Duke to record a supplemental EP of acoustic tracks to the Kingdom Underground album, called Acoustic Kingdom Underground
. This was to match the feel and sound of Duke's live shows, as he was touring solo without a band. The producer of that EP, Jason Finkel, would later become the producer of Duke's next full-length release. After recording Acoustic Kingdom Underground, Duke was invited to be the opener for a co-headlining tour featuring Jay Nash and Tony Lucca
. During this time the three became friends and recorded an impromptu collection of songs during the tour at a studio in Evanston, Illinois
, calling the collaboration TFDI, they released these songs as an EP with the same name.
. Duke asked Finkel, who had produced his acoustic EP, to be the producer for this album and the two began work in September 2009 on material. The album was then pushed back indefinitely, when, on November 1 of that same year, Duke suffered a hand injury in an accident, breaking two bones near his pinkie on his right hand. Duke was unable to play the guitar after the surgery and during his rehabilitation, but he worked on writing during his downtime, and was successfully able to play guitar again a few months later. Well enough to play, production for the album began again, and the direction of the album changed as a result of the accident. The album was released on March 29, 2011, two and a half years later than Kingdom Underground.
and rock bands like Pearl Jam
, Alice in Chains
, Soundgarden
and Nirvana
. Other influences include Ani DiFranco
and Conor Oberst
. He tours primarily as a solo act, with just an acoustic guitar for accompaniment.
As a song-writer, Duke's lyrical influences greatly refer to his religious upbringing and literary references, with many songs either directly based on novels, literary characters and/or religion. The track from Kingdom Underground's "Rabbit" is based on the John Updike
Rabbit
series of novels, for example. Other songs are based or reference such works as Ayn Rand
, Don DeLillo
, John Milton
and Leon Uris
. References to religion can be seen in songs like "The Father, The Son and The Harlot's Ghost" and the title track to Kingdom Underground, which is a song about the story of Adam & Eve
through the perspective of Satan
.
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
and singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
who was born in Reston, Virginia
Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...
and raised in Mount Laurel Township, New Jersey
Mount Laurel Township, New Jersey
Mount Laurel Township is a Township in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States, and is an edge city "suburb" of Philadelphia. As of the 2000 United States Census, the township population was 40,221...
. He released an independent album, Winter Child, through the student-run Mad Dragon Records at Drexel University
Drexel University
Drexel University is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees...
in Philadelphia. Later he signed to the major label Rykodisc and has since released multiple albums: two full-length albums, Kingdom Underground
Kingdom Underground
Kingdom Underground is the second studio album of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his first major-label record. It was released by Rykodisc in the US on September 22nd, 2008, and featured the single "The Father, The Son and The Harlot's Ghost".-History:...
and One Day Die
One Day Die
One Day Die is the third studio album of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his second major-label record. It was released by Rykodisc in the US on March 29th, 2011, and featured the single "Needle and Thread".- Background :...
, and two EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
s.
Early life
Duke was born in Reston, Virginia to Angela, a teacher, and Thomas, a contracts negotiator. He is of IrishIrish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
, Italian and Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
descent, and grew up with a religious Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
upbringing. He lived in Reston until the age of 5, when his family moved to Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, where he lived until adulthood. Growing up in South Jersey he attended the Our Lady of Good Counsel parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
grade school until 8th grade, and then the all-male, private Jesuit St. Joe's Prep in Philadelphia for high school. As a child and teenager, he performed in local theatre productions through school and community programs. In his late teens and early 20s he worked a variety of jobs including: sandwich maker, framer
Framer
A framer is a carpenter who assembles the major structural elements of a wood-framed building. Framers build walls out of studs, sills, and headers; build floors from joists and beams; and frame roofs using ridge poles and rafters....
, gardener and construction
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
worker.
Early career
As a child Duke played the piano at the behest of his mother. He then quit playing and picked up guitar at the age of 13. The guitar was his mother's '70s PencoPenco Guitars
Penco was a brand of guitars manufactured circa 1974 to 1978 in the same factory in Japan as the Ibanez guitars and was distributed by the Philadelphia Music Exchange. The Penco brand was of relatively high quality and part of the "copy guitar/lawsuit guitar" craze of the 1970s. Penco made Martin...
and she left him to teach himself, after he had quit playing piano she said she would not pay for lessons lest he quit again. The next three years Duke spent learning to play the guitar, from internet tablature
Tablature
Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....
and playing along with the radio to bands like Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1987 by guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell and original lead vocalist Layne Staley. The initial lineup was rounded out by drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Starr...
and Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
. By the time that he was sixteen he started to play live shows at a local coffeehouse
Coffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
in Collingswood, New Jersey called the The Living Room, doing a mixture of original material and cover songs. He also performed at open-mic nights at The Point
The Main Point
The Main Point was a small coffeehouse venue on Lancaster Ave. in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The club was famous for its small intimate atmosphere and inexpensive ticket prices...
in Philadelphia. For his 18th birthday his family gave him a present of recording time to record the songs he had written for prosperity. Duke and a friend recorded six songs in two hours at his church, and CD copies ended up being passed around to friends and family.
Mad Dragon: XYX & Winter Child
One of the CDs ended up in the hands of his friend who was a student at the newly-formed Mad Dragon Records, which is a student-run record label operating out of Drexel UniversityDrexel University
Drexel University is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees...
. The CD was played in an A&R class at Mad Dragon, which then lead to Mad Dragon asking Duke to sign a one-year promotional deal with them, with the intent of using students for all aspects of the process like recording and promotion. Duke, along with two other artists, Julia Othmer and Trisha O'Keefe, were asked to contribute songs to a compilation record, which became XYX. XYX was the first CD released by Mad Dragon and featured four songs from each artist, with O'Keefe and Duke using the Drexel recording studios in the fall of 2004. Jim Klein, a professor at Drexel and part of the Mad Dragon program, handled production for Duke's part of the album. Duke, O'Keefe and Othmer supported the album with a small tour around Northeast.
After the tour was over, Mad Dragon wanted Duke to sign a deal to produce a full-length album. Winter Child
Winter Child
-Musicians:* Matt Duke - Vocal, acoustics, electrics, keyboards, percussion, piano* Steuart Smith - Acoustics, electrics, keyboards, harmonica, percussion, bass, vocals* Stewart Lerman - Percussion, acoustics* Steve Holley - Drums, percussion...
, the next album released by Duke, was recorded on-and-off over the next year. Half was recorded in Drexel with Jim Klein, and it was finished in a New York studio with Stewart Lerman
Stewart Lerman
Stewart Lerman is a Bronx born, New York-based music producer, recording engineer, who has worked with The Roches, Antony and the Johnsons, Jules Shear, Marshall Crenshaw, Crash Test Dummies, Nellie McKay, Loudon Wainwright, Black 47, David Johanson, David Byrne, Willie Nile, Soulive, Darden Smith,...
and Steuart Smith
Steuart Smith
Steuart Smith is a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, writer and producer currently working with American rock band the Eagles. Smith is from Arlington, VA.]].-Current work:...
. During the making of Winter Child, Ryko became interested in using their distribution company, Ryko Distribution, to handle distribution of content from Mad Dragon and other student-run record labels. This deal lead to Ryko Distribution distributing the Winter Child record. A student-made music video for the song "Oysters" was also made and the song was treated as the single from the album.
Kingdom Underground, Acoustic Kingdom Underground and TFDI
After the release and tour to promote the album, Ryko took interest in Duke and asked him to sign a record deal with them, to produce the full-length album that would become Kingdom UndergroundKingdom Underground
Kingdom Underground is the second studio album of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his first major-label record. It was released by Rykodisc in the US on September 22nd, 2008, and featured the single "The Father, The Son and The Harlot's Ghost".-History:...
. Using a demo of the song "I've Got Atrophy On the Brain" that was recorded with students at Drexel, Ryko got the interest of producer Marshall Altman
Marshall Altman
Marshall Noah Altman is a Nashville-based record producer and songwriter who owns the Galt Line studio in Nashville, Tennessee. He was formerly an A&R person for such labels as Capitol Records, Hollywood Records and Columbia Records, as well as the former frontman for the alternative band Farmer...
and Altman agreed to meet Duke in Los Angeles to see how the two would work. After the meeting in Los Angeles, Duke and Altman agreed to work, leaving Duke to head back to Philadelphia to prepare and write songs for the release. With the songs written, Duke traveled to Burbank, California to record with Altman and finished the production of the album in just four weeks. Kingdom Underground was released later that year on September 23, 2008.
Months after the tour and release of Kingdom Underground Ryko asked Duke to record a supplemental EP of acoustic tracks to the Kingdom Underground album, called Acoustic Kingdom Underground
Acoustic Kingdom Underground
Acoustic Kingdom Underground is the first EP of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his second offering from Rykodisc. It was released in the US on June 30, 2009.-History:...
. This was to match the feel and sound of Duke's live shows, as he was touring solo without a band. The producer of that EP, Jason Finkel, would later become the producer of Duke's next full-length release. After recording Acoustic Kingdom Underground, Duke was invited to be the opener for a co-headlining tour featuring Jay Nash and Tony Lucca
Tony Lucca
Tony Lucca , is an American singer, songwriter, producer, and sometime actor. He is perhaps best known for starting his career on the Mickey Mouse Club. After the Mickey Mouse Club, Lucca went to LA for a brief career as an actor, then became a full-time musician, releasing over seven studio albums...
. During this time the three became friends and recorded an impromptu collection of songs during the tour at a studio in Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, calling the collaboration TFDI, they released these songs as an EP with the same name.
One Day Die
Following the tour with Jay Nash and Tony Lucca, Duke returned home and began to focus on his next full-length album, One Day DieOne Day Die
One Day Die is the third studio album of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his second major-label record. It was released by Rykodisc in the US on March 29th, 2011, and featured the single "Needle and Thread".- Background :...
. Duke asked Finkel, who had produced his acoustic EP, to be the producer for this album and the two began work in September 2009 on material. The album was then pushed back indefinitely, when, on November 1 of that same year, Duke suffered a hand injury in an accident, breaking two bones near his pinkie on his right hand. Duke was unable to play the guitar after the surgery and during his rehabilitation, but he worked on writing during his downtime, and was successfully able to play guitar again a few months later. Well enough to play, production for the album began again, and the direction of the album changed as a result of the accident. The album was released on March 29, 2011, two and a half years later than Kingdom Underground.
Style
Duke has said that his musical styling has been influenced by the likes of '90s grungeGrunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
and rock bands like Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
, Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1987 by guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell and original lead vocalist Layne Staley. The initial lineup was rounded out by drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Starr...
, Soundgarden
Soundgarden
Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...
and Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
. Other influences include Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...
and Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Mullen Oberst is an American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes. He has also played in several other bands, including Desaparecidos, Norman Bailer , Commander Venus, Park Ave., Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, and Monsters of Folk.-Musical career:Oberst began...
. He tours primarily as a solo act, with just an acoustic guitar for accompaniment.
As a song-writer, Duke's lyrical influences greatly refer to his religious upbringing and literary references, with many songs either directly based on novels, literary characters and/or religion. The track from Kingdom Underground's "Rabbit" is based on the John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
Rabbit
Rabbit, Run
Rabbit, Run is a 1960 novel by John Updike.The novel depicts five months in the life of a 26-year-old former high school basketball player named Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, and his attempts to escape the constraints of his life...
series of novels, for example. Other songs are based or reference such works as Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
, Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
, John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
and Leon Uris
Leon Uris
Leon Marcus Uris was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. His two bestselling books were Exodus, published in 1958, and Trinity, in 1976.-Life:...
. References to religion can be seen in songs like "The Father, The Son and The Harlot's Ghost" and the title track to Kingdom Underground, which is a song about the story of Adam & Eve
Adam & Eve
Adam & Eve was the name of a major international exhibition of contemporary art held at the Saitama Kenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan , Saitama, JapanOctober 10 1992 - December 6 1992...
through the perspective of Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
.
Discography
- Floating Mass Demo/The Major Joke EP (2003)
- XYX (2005)
- Winter ChildWinter Child-Musicians:* Matt Duke - Vocal, acoustics, electrics, keyboards, percussion, piano* Steuart Smith - Acoustics, electrics, keyboards, harmonica, percussion, bass, vocals* Stewart Lerman - Percussion, acoustics* Steve Holley - Drums, percussion...
(2006) - Kingdom UndergroundKingdom UndergroundKingdom Underground is the second studio album of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his first major-label record. It was released by Rykodisc in the US on September 22nd, 2008, and featured the single "The Father, The Son and The Harlot's Ghost".-History:...
(2008) - Acoustic Kingdom UndergroundAcoustic Kingdom UndergroundAcoustic Kingdom Underground is the first EP of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his second offering from Rykodisc. It was released in the US on June 30, 2009.-History:...
(2009) - TFDI (2009)
- One Day DieOne Day DieOne Day Die is the third studio album of singer/songwriter Matt Duke and his second major-label record. It was released by Rykodisc in the US on March 29th, 2011, and featured the single "Needle and Thread".- Background :...
(2011)