Dead Boy Productions

 

The Kings of Pornobilly or the Spinal Tab of Rockabilly, these are some of the many names given to this sex crazed rock‘n’roll band from the Great Northern Frontier we call Canada. They’re called the Alley Dukes a band that’s has been very innovative with their own brand of rockabilly music, forget the Matadors or The Royal Crowns. Who else could say they’re the only Rockabilly band to tour Canada coast to coast. Whether its sex or traditional style Rockabilly these guys really do put on a show. 

So tell me how the Dukes started and what makes the Alley Dukes different from any other rockabilly band? 

 What makes us different....well that's pretty easy, not too many rockabilly bands these days have any individuality or rebellion in their songwriting, it's all safe PG-rated rockabilly-by-numbers crap regurgitating 50 year old themes that may have been relevant then, but are just boring "retro" crap today. We try to inject some vitality into the genre without changing turning it into neo or psycho, and remind people that rock'n'roll was once a slang term for fucking.

Very interesting how you guys try to be different, so was this out of the blue that you guys decided one day like “hey lets write about fucking” or did it took a while to figure out hey lets just do this anyway?

 No, I think we all pretty much agreed that although we all love 50s rockabilly and enjoy playing it, there was no point in starting a band with the goal of sounding exactly like thousands of other bands playing rockabilly. Fucking is something everyone can relate to, regardless of what decade they're living in or what part of the world they come from - it's a universal subject that can be written about in a thousand different ways, kind of like fart jokes or funny expressions for jerking off - you know, like "flogging the Bishop" and shit like that - the possibilities are only as limited as your imagination.  

So have you offended any of your peers or your audience with your music? 

Of course there's always people that take it all a little too seriously and get offended. That's ok with me, I always thought that if you're playing rock'n'roll and not offending anyone you're doing it wrong. But most people laugh at the jokes and have a good time and enjoy it. Every now and then we get an angry feminist or something, one time in Aleberta some "Christian rockabilly club" members drove down from some hick town to "kick our asses" but aside from failing to intimidate the girl that sells our merch - all 5'2" of her - and walking around trying to look "tough" they obviously didn't do much of anything aside from talk. 

Is the rockabilly scene different in Canada than here in the States? 

In many ways it's the same deal, same scene as anywhere else, there's a bunch of kids that think "rockabilly" is Brian Setzer and flaming dice and cherries and spiderweb elbow tattoos, and all these bands everywhere trying to sound and look like Rev Horton Heat, and then there's these 50s purist types who treat rockabilly like some kind of religion - the "brown pants" crowd - they have long angry debates on what rockabilly is or isn't on internet message boards and their girlfriends usually look like a librarian that's been hit with a whaling harpoon.  
I think the scene here is a little different in the sense of being isolated, mainly because very few bands tour from coast to coast, there's just too much land and not enough people to be able to make it financially viable for most bands. I think we're the only Canadian rockabilly band to have actually toured the entire country from coast to coast more than once. 
I don't really pay too much attention to it because we've never really considered ourselves part of the rockabilly scene, we're just a dirty nasty drunken rock'n'roll band that happens to have upright bass. If we were really worried about being a "rockabilly" band and being part of some kind of "scene" we'd be playing to 40 people in most towns.  

Some of the songs from your current album "Go Back To College" are very funny not to be a sick fucker cause 15 gives you 20 to life. (haha) songs like "Jailbait" and "I Broke Your Hymen, You Broke My Heart" and ...On My Face. I think us guys could relate to that what do you think? 

I guess we all have a pretty warped sense of humor. We're nice guys in "real life" hahaha I promise. 

Is there any plans for the Alley Dukes coming to the states anytime soon specifically in Southern California? 

We were planning a US tour and it fell through TWICE. We couldn't get our work permits in time and our booker blew it both times getting the paperwork for our work permits through. I don't know what's going to happen now, we're probably going to stick close to home for a while because the past two or three years have been pretty hectic. 

Have you gotten praises from your peers or other bands in the whole Psychobilly/Rockabilly scene? 

There are some bands in the scene that like what we do, and we like what they do, so over the years we've played with them many times. I don't want to blow my own horn too loud, but we put on a show. A lot of rockabilly bands I see just stand there and play their instruments, and sometimes they'll have a frontman that practiced some Elvis moves in front of his mirror, but when we play we do our best to be visually entertaining as well as musically solid. Some bands dig the hell out of it, and some are intimidated by it and their reaction is disgust, but that doesn't happen too often. There are other bands we've played with that probably thought we were a bunch of assholes mocking everything they believe to be "cool" but I always thought if you can't laugh at yourself you probably shouldn't be on a stage where other people can laugh at you. 

Are you guys big hockey fans? 

Personally I am not a big fan of hockey, I never played hockey and I don't watch hockey because I haven't owned a functional tv since the mid 90s. But Danny is a big hockey fan, you should probably talk to him if you want to talk hockey. 

So what type of equipment do the Dukes have? Describe? 

Apparently we have very large equipment, that's what the girls keep telling us. Or did you mean musical equipment? Danny plays an acoustic guitar that he found in the garbage, and Buck plays drums that look like they came out of the garbage too. Mo plays some kind of upright bass, I have no idea what kind of bass it is, they all look the same to me. Big fiddle lookin' thing. I play a '59 Gretsch that I bought in a paper bag, in 5 pieces, for $50.  

Has there been a major out cry and support from the States for you to do a show here? 

People have been asking us to play in the States for a long time, and there was quite a bit of grumbling when it fell through. 

 What rockabilly and psychobilly bands have you heard from the states and have  actually like your music and communicated with you guys? 

Some bands from the States I like are 13 Stars, I think they're a great band...and Mack Stevens, he's got some of the best lyrics around. Love Mack Stevens. I'm on some kind of split 7" with him, there's a Bloodshit Bill song I play electric guitar on, and on the other side there's a Mack Stevens song. It's on Hog Maw records, I think. But to be honest with you we don't listen to much modern rockabilly bands. I guess our bass player listens to some psycho bands but he's very young and he'll grow out of it haha. We have a rule: "no rockabilly in the van" when we're on the road. I get a lot of mail from other bands but I usually don't remember who the hell they are 5 minutes later. I have a lousy memory haha! 

Has My Space help the band a lot meaning touring and getting the word out? 

I don't know to what degree, but MySpace has definitely helped with advertising. It's a good resource for bands, but you have to deal with a whole lot of crap to reap the benefits. 

Any chance of you guys leaving Canada and making the U.S. your permanent home? 

I think there's not much of a chance that we'd ever relocate to the States, life is just so much cheaper here and the beer is WAY better. Forget liquor stores, you can walk into any convenience store on any corner and buy cold beer - out of a fridge - from morning til night 7 days a week. And some of that beer will have as much as 10% alcohol content. 

Is there any new material you guys are working on? 

I keep promising people I'm going to do it, so this year I'm going to try and finally get a Zak & His Unhappy Guitar CD done, and I'm supposed to be doing another Treblemakers CD this year - that's my old surf/garage band from the 90s that got back together last year. 

If you could do a show with anyone, who would it be with? 

If I could pick any other act to play with...I guess David Allan Coe would be an obvious choice. I'd drop everything to do a show with Coe. 

What’s the Alley Dukes signature song? 

I guess if we have a "signature song" it would be If This Ain't Rockabilly You Can Suck My Balls. It pretty much sums what we are. "Don't wanna be part of your fashion parade, leave me out of it cause you're all gay" haha. 

 How long have u been into the rockabilly scene? 

I've been listening to rockabilly for over 20 years, I got into it as a teenager in the 80s, because for a while when I was a kid I would buy any record that had a guitar on the cover. I ended up with piles of crap, and a few good records as well. I found Duane Eddy and the Ventures and Link Wray and eventually got into looking specifically for 50s and early 60s records. Now that wasn't really "hip" for a 14 year old kid to be into in the 80s, it was a pretty shitty decade and old music kept 80s music from ruining my brain. I guess the Stray Cats were happening at the time but I didn't really connect them to rockabilly, I thought they were part of that whole Adam & the Ants makeup and earrings 80s thing. I thought Johnny Burnette would have kicked their asses if he heard their covers of his songs. 

Nowadays it’s not weird for a rockabilly kid to listen to 80’s music now. But i guess the 80’s were a lot different era especially in Canada. 

Nah I don't think there's any difference between what kids were listening to in the 80s here and in the States. Same shit, pretty much. And there was a huge country scene here in the 50s and 60s, and naturally some rockabilly came out of that too, you'd be amazed at how much actually. Anyway...back to your questions: 

Who are your influences? 

I can't speak for other members of the band, but most of my influences are guys that the original rockabilly artists borrowed from - guys like Joe Maphis and Merle Travis and blues guys like Lil' Son Jackson or Lightnin Hopkins or Pee Wee Crayton. These days I'm really into this Japanese guitar player called Takeshi Terauchi, he was like Nokie Edwards on speed. 

What is the biggest show the Dukes ever did, that one show that sticks out in the mind of the entire band? 

We've played all kinds of shows with big crowds and we've had the opportunity to share the stage with acts like Billy Lee Riley and Joe Clay but I think my favorite shows have been for our local crowd here in Montreal, we've sold out pretty much every local show we've played in the past few years here. 

Are there any goals in the future for the Alley Dukes and can I get the phone number of the girls that appeared on your Back To College album? 

I don't know about phone numbers...I'd have to ask the girls hahaha...but you can go to www.yumi-u.com - that's the Asian girl in the photos. As for future goals - our goals are actually to take a break and devote more time and energy to our other bands for a while. For me personally, this year I am supposed to collaborate with a guitar player who was a really huge influence on me when I was a teenager in the 80s, he's probably not very well known outside of Montreal, but his band back then was a major motivating factor in me wanting to get up on a stage and play music. So that's kind of a kick, to work with this guy 20 years later. 

What other side projects are u guys doing? Is It Rockabilly related? 

Mo is in a band called Oscar B which is psychobilly and Buck is in the Hypnophonics which is kind of a psychobilly/garage mix so I guess those are rockabilly related. Danny is in the Vulgar Deli which is a hardcore band and I've got the Treblemakers who were actually around from '95 until 2000 or so, and started up again last year - that's a surf & garage band with loud Farfisa organ and fuzz guitar and I suppose those two bands are really not rockabilly related at all. I also play alone as Zak & his Unhappy Guitar and that's like 20s and 30s blues stuff, lots of slide guitar, not really rockabilly either. 

Does Rockabilly pay your bills or do you have day jobs? 

I don't think rockabilly is going to pay anyone's bills any time soon. I'd say that we'd probably be able to survive if everyone was willing to quit everything they were doing and go on tour 10 months a year, and unfortunately this isn't going to happen. Some of the guys have jobs and one of 'em has two kids, so it's complicated and not really feasible. Otherwise I'm pretty confident that we'd be able to get by...miserably. I've done nothing but play music for a really long time so I don't think I'm really employable doing anything else haha. 

Any hobbies, any classic cars that you work on?

 
We're not really car guys. Mo is a film guy, he just got out of film school, and Danny's just really into porn. I'm more of a music nerd, records and old guitars and amps. Cars don't really do anything for me, beyond going "ooh look, that's a nice one" or "that looks like shit" ya know what I mean? 

Is this the pinnacle of the Alley Dukes? Have you guys accomplished everything or is there still more to be done and how long have the Alley Dukes been around? 

Pinnacle...I don't know...there's always more to do, depending on where you set your sights. I mean we could become the first rockabilly band to feature not one but two midget tuba players if we chose to. I don't know if anyone would actually like that or even find it mildly amusing, but it's just one of a million possibilities. Either that or two CDs is all we're good for, the joke's been milked dry, and it's all downhill from here. Maybe a meteor will wipe us all out next month, or in the summer when the water is hot a giant prehistoric crayfish with an exotic sounding Japanese name will crawl out of the ocean and demolish the city, laying waste to our rehearsal space and all our gear. Only time can tell. The band has been around for about 5 and a half years, has been through 4 bass players, 6 drummers, and I'm actually the second guitar player although I've been there since the band's 3d or 4th show. We're like Spinal Tap with drummers, only ours don't blow up. And come to think of it, in the early days Danny actually quit for a few months and then came back, but that was really early on. 

I guess the song if this Ain’t Rockabilly pretty much explains your rebellion to old school rockabilly right? 

It's not rebellion against "old school rockabilly" - nothing wrong with old rockabilly, it's the fashion show/predictable formula of a lot of modern rockabilly that we're laughing at.  

I bet it was Danny’s idea to add the girls on the Go Back To College album right? 

I don't know why you'd think it was Danny's idea to put girls on the CD cover...we all like girls! 

I thought it was Danny’s idea to put girls on the cover cause of the C.D. layout with his credit? 

Haha well Danny did actually do the CD packaging layout, the lettering and all; he's quite good at that actually. 

You guys have any ink? 

Actually I'm the only guy in the band that doesn't have any ink. Everyone else does. 

Have any major label looked at the Alley Dukes? 

There was a certain label that was interested in signing us and we met with 'em but it was kind of a waste of time. 

And have u been ok with every promoter or have they ripped you off? 

No one's ever tried to rip us off, we're not the kind of people you'd want to rip off haha. 

And is there anything else you would like to say to our readers or anything else you would like to add? 

Is there anything I'd like to add? Well...I guess that pretty much sums it up, I should probably add that Danny recently converted to Boobism, you can send donations c/o the band so that he can spend more time in strip bars and fulfill the solemn vow of decadence his newfound faith requires.