Tara and Andy kindly gave up their time to answer some questions about the last album and reaction to it, how the band was going and what did they think of their newie 'Childish Behaviour.' It's not a bad album so check out the videos and downloads and make your own mind up. They're also on tour now so check out their Myspace page to see if they're gonna be near you and if they are give them some support.

1. How are things with Duel and what are you up to now and in the near future

Tara: We’re getting by, had a well busy year last year – learnt a lot ! and now this year we started our UK tour last weekend. In June/July we’re doing a tour with LA Guns, looking forward to Rebellion, and so long as the swine flu doesn’t get us, off to Germany in the Autumn and anywhere else they’ll have us.

Andy: Busy touring and the current line up to me sounds the best it ever has in my eyes, it’s a 24 hour a day job wether its gigs promotion artwork etc and generally getting the name out there

2. How was reaction to the first album?

Tara: Reaction to the first album was very humbling and exciting at the same time. Great reviews and new friends made around the globe. People really got us, and they made me v happy inside and confident to keep going. Confident to keep writing songs.

Andy: Pretty good I guess some great reviews and its nice to on occasion be out and about and hear tracks from the album played now and then.

3. The first album had some great tunes on it like The Duel which is a song that I quite often put on. You really set your stall out there… melodic punk, your covers of Dead Boys and Ramones showing your early punk influences, Knoxie from the Vibrators and an undercurrent of sexuality without having to sell yourself. Fair comments?

Tara: The Dead Boys & Ramones still remain big influences in my daily living I just love Joey and Stiv so much,
We loved working with Knox, and we would have done again, on another idea we got brewing - if he was around but sadly he wasn’t. Next time hopefully! We knew wanted to write a song that incorporated our band name and to us, who better than Knox to honour the male part – after all The Duel song is about The Duel.
It was the first duet I have ever written – we had a lot of fun with it.

Andy: I guess so it reflected a fair segment of the kind of sounds we listen to and Knox and the vibrators being heroes of ours. It was also great to hear some great comments about our version of Ain't It Fun from some original Deadboys members which made our day.

4. Long time between albums. By my reckoning the album is a year later than planned. You had problems with recording it. Can you give us some details?

Tara: Lol.. oh yes indeed we did. After Rebellion 2007, we thought, ‘right! go home, write new album, record get gigging again in spring’

This meant we couldn’t wait as long as we did like the first album, we certainly couldn’t go into a pro studio again in a hurry ! we knew even tho the first album was well received by music lovers - we still didn’t have a deal to help us, so it was going to have to be more D I Y .. and live within our means and abilities .. We had no choice really other than to record it at home. Quite an ambitious and hard target to set compared to working with and in Pat Collier’s lovely studio. But with record sales going down , record labels that will help seemed few and far between – we had to just to do it the best we could.

This did mean when there were problems we were scratching our heads a lot at times – like really a lot !! living and breathing it ..come the spring, we tried to back out of a Europe tour because the album wasn’t ready .. but short of hold a gun to our head – we couldn’t really cancel – nightmare stress lesson learnt !
So we did an album launch and tour and the album wasn’t even ready!! Songs had been recorded, but needed re-recording. We got there in the end, it meant a few more songs got written, to the point that you have what we have now – double cd with 25 songs. There’s still songs that didn’t make it on this album – but they just comes a point you have to say stop! Its finished !

Andy: Mainly because of cash and by passing up on  the bullshit that is the record industry these days. Tara and myself are always writing new songs so the track listing changed a few times.

5. Why did you choose to record yourself and would you recommend it to other bands?

Tara: Money really – and would always recommend it to serious bands to record there own work – for sure.

Andy: If it allows bands to explore there creative side more with out being under pressure on the clock and worrying about cash then sure. Guess those are also our reasons for doing it too.

6. How difficult is it for a band like the Duel to survive or progress nowadays?

Andy: Survival is hard and when we live in a musical world controlled by the likes of channel 4 t4 dictating what dribble the a chunk of the masses should be listening to and also dictating what the masses should be thinking and fashion while another large chunk of the population is hypnotized by their game consoles or watching dancing on ice instead of listening to music 

7. Why call the CD Childish Behaviour? Is there any theme running through the songs?

Tara: I blame my dad really, I played him some tunes, – he told me to grow up and get on with real life – cos my music wouldn't get me anywhere. He said I smoke too much and I cant really sing lol So the album in my mind became ‘Childish Behaviour’ ..

Andy: It reflects the world today from the music industry ,war and religion etc

8. If the songs were recorded a year ago is the sound on the cd still representative of the band’s sound now? The live set you did at the launch seemed a lot looser and raw.

Tara: Yes I think, the live sound and recorded sound both have their own unique flavours .. the upside is that at least people will come away feeling we’re better live than recorded ! lol

Andy: The sound is always changing we would all die of boredom if we produced the same sound with the same chords and ideas all the time.

9. You seem to have gone more poppier with the sort of farfisa sounding organ more prominent. The closest thing I can think of is early Blondie (not a bad thing) or even Hazel Connor circa ‘Eighth Day’. More New Wave/Power Pop than Punk. Even some early Ultravox in there at times. How do you view your sound now?

Tara: Erm … our sound sounds like us to me, but more evolved. I know this new album isn’t exactly like the old but that will have a lot to do with recording environments, and it was a decision Andy and I made – not to try and copy the last album – like a lot of bands do. You didn’t see that with The Clash, with their first two albums – and I think the more this world in prisons you – the more music has to liberate you – for us to have complete freedom in a studio to play and explore is paramount. If it wasn’t – I could have had a pop career years ago ..

I definitely think we have always been New Wave, since the first day we met and wrote songs, Punk ‘tag’ in our songs has always been there it never goes away, hopefully it is just popular! Lol

Andy:  I look at punk in the sense if your grandmother had a church organ in the attic back in 77 or so it would have been pulled down and become a sound of your band. There wasn’t the same rules that existed then. The Pistols didn’t sound like the Damned, the Clash like the Stranglers / Blonde like the Ramones /the Vibrators like Devo …guess if we like the sound of something we do it, were influenced by certain people but we don’t always have to sound like them. [eh not sure what Andy is talking about here -  Punk77]

10. What’s your favourite song on the cd and why?

Tara: Hard one, right now - my favourites are Fight on Through, New Dream, Side by Side, Rebels Know how , Lies.

I like them all for different reasons,

Fight oN Through was written after a heck of a lot of s**t had gone down, the music world can be very ugly and I had no idea how to pull thru this time, then in the midst of it, just a few words on a text from a friend .. pointing me to the rantings of a legend poet, a random act of kindness .. did something odd to me and out popped this song! I feel great every time I sing it now and it helped me ‘fight on thru’.

Lies – was just very hard to write – I was really sick and drained after it – but Andy and I are amazed at how poignant the song is becoming. We’d love to do a video for it next

New Dream & Side by Side – are great hopeful songs, tho new dream is just a demo - & side by side has a video for it done by Mat Sunderland a great video artist!

Freeway, is a funny one, another song that just popped out – but it’s strangely stayed a favourate for a while now

Andy: It changes on a weekly basis ,only rebels know how at the moment its fun to sing along to in the car

11. The songs seem more complex than on the first with as I said more keyboards and guitars. How do you think you’ve developed as a band over the last 2 years?

Tara: Well, Andy and I‘s song writing is becoming more maturer for sure – and we’ve worked hard on the new live line up, with dave, pumpy & phil- and I think we sound better than we have ever done – without being a cocky twat – music is what we live for after all !

Andy: That’s a hard question I just hope we continue to develop and still have freedom to in the future (haha cop out )

12. This time round you’ve got members of the Skunks and Tights helping out. How did this come about?

Tara: Rob from The Tights & Frank from The Skunks are friends we have met along the way. Love the fact they are from the 77 era – and love the fact that apart from both being extremely kool guitarists, solid people – they still have that same excitement /spirit about punk, music & life that they had since back in the day.

Andy: I have always been a huge Tights fan “cracked” being one of my all  time favorites. We met at Rebellion a few years ago and the Tights came up and said they liked our band too and I became friends with Rob Banks. After that and it went from there and Frank Cornelli being one of Tara's friends who I liked the sound of his guitaring was happy to join in.

 
13. I’ve still got problems with the sound. You’ll hate me for saying but the production/mixing or mastering has gone astray again. The depth and sparkle of the songs has been flattened. The drums go in and out of the mix and often get lost like on Fight on Through. I’ll shut up shall I?

Tara: Ahh yeah.. you sure its not your stereo ! ;) lol

Andy: we were going for that x-ray spex “oh bondage up yours kinda sound hahaha only kidding. Oh I'm offended if there's something wrong with the production, but yeah fair enough possibly the mixing although it might be your stereo as it sounds fine here ;-)


14. If you were do another cover version what would you choose?

Tara: Oooo.. well we have done a few that you haven’t heard – Wonderful World, I Believe In Miracles, Commando… We did a cover of Ashes To Ashes, cos Andy came over and heard me playing/singing it – I was singing it cos I was pissed off with Doherty and Amy’s persona being in my face 24 7 be it in the papers or in the locality, I found comfort in the ‘coded’ message of the lyrics in this song, when people you love struggled with their addictions not so in a public way, respect .... complicated story – but I’ll leave it there.

Andy: I'm dying to do a cover of Small Faces “Toy Soldier” I can just hear in my head a Duel sound to it /and I'd love to maybe do a cover of the Boys “Turning Grey”

15. What are you listening to at the moment?

Tara: The Addicts new album is great!, Lurkers new album very entertaining, Weird Sin, written by Iggy Pop & David Bowie, loads of different punk tunes on the Ipod set to shuffle , Johnny thunders, Nina Simone, Screamin Jay Hawkins & oh yes Hollyoaks theme tune ;)

Andy: The Ramones / Dee Dee Ramone cus I never get tired of it obvious I know but true  the boys / the Dickies / the Lurkers / keep playing Love In A Lift by the Members a lot  - don’t know what that’s about  but good band though.

Audio    Hey Doll (i think i love you) Download            Jump Download            Modern Day Slave Download            Side By Side Download            Free Way Download            Fight On Through Download

www.myspace.com/theduel