Forming after twin brothers built a makeshift studio in their Scotland family home, five-piece Duck Wax is brimming with high-energy musicians, bringing together saxophone, guitars, bass, drums and three lead vocalists. Selling out shows across London at venues such as The Windmill, MOTH CLUB, Jaguar Shoes Collectives and the Oslo in Hackney.
Duck Wax‘s latest single is the ear-catching rawness of ‘Haircuts’. Something about the thin guitar licks, bizarre lyrics and saxophone honks come together for a truly charming arrangement. The bank professes to have attempted a blend of punk and funk, and influences from both these genres are undeniable. Swapping out the usual roaring guitar solo for an equally dynamic horn feature, and leaving gritty riffs behind for rhythmically-fuelled twangs and colourful percussive chords, the band crafts a uniquely easy-going, endlessly positive and cheeky atmosphere. Summed up in the repeated cry of “mullets” in the final moments, this unique approach is spectacular.
Diving into the new single, Duck Wax add, ”We set a target of writing a song that treads the balance of punk and funk, the two genres that we draw a lot of inspiration from at separate points. Our guitarist, Hector, had the song formatted and structured before he brought it to the rest of us, with all the lyrics too. When playing it together, he was very firm on stopping anyone from trying to play any fills or flourishes as we tried to work out our parts. His aim from this was to get everyone to really feel the rhythm of this song, and then work backwards from there. It was a new approach to writing that we hadn’t tried before, and it all really paid off. We were then able to find the spaces/gaps for fills a lot easier, and keep the drive of the song going.
The song was recorded in our homemade studio in Scotland, the 3rd year we have gone up there to record. Each time we go up to Scotland there is a strong conscious effort to build from the techniques we did the time before and make sure we improve each time. This time round we stepped away from our “everyone in the room” live-style recording, which we had done before, and recorded each instrument in stages. This gave us a lot more clarity in the takes, giving us a much better sound. It took a lot more time than our previous techniques, but the production sound we got from it massively outweighed all of our previous releases.”
