Keanan Duffty is a multi-talented man. A stylist to rockstars (including Bowie, and The Pistols), and creative mastermind behind glam-punk alternative project, Slinky Vagabond (with Fabio Fabbri). Below, he talks us through his new album, ‘The Eternal Return’ (listen below), his personal inspirations (including Doncaster and the North of England), and much more!
Slinky Vagabond
S] Thanks for taking the time to answer these – how are you today?
I am appreciating the chance to converse with you. Thanks for letting me take up some space on Soundsphere – I am a big fan and the content and aesthetic of the website are really great. Growing up in the North of England was a brilliant experience for me because, as you know, there was, and remains, a vibrant music and arts scene… Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, being cities with great places of higher education and cities with very good music venues, nightclubs and football teams (Doncaster, not so much when I was growing up, though the football team is much better now). Those were great places to be inspired by music, style and culture. There used to be an excellent punk store called X Clothes on Call Lane in Leeds, which was one of the first and only places outside London where you could see Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s designs. They ran ads in Sounds and i-D Magazine, though it sadly closed a long, long time ago.
S] Talk to me about how the ‘Eternal Return’ pushes you in new ways as an artist?
My band Slinky Vagabond is me and my songwriting partner Fabio Fabbri. We met in 2017 and began writing together for fun. We’ve both been making music since the late 1970s. Fabio is an excellent musician, producer and guitar player, and we are, first and foremost, friends. Fabio lives in Italy and I live in New York, and we met when I was giving a lecture at a fashion school in Florence. After two years, we had written twenty songs and decided we should do something with it all, so we prepared an album. Then the pandemic forced us to hit the PAUSE button. I suggested that I call some musician friends to ask them to contribute to the tracks. Knowing that everyone was on hold, I thought at least some of my contacts would be happy to participate but, to my surprise, everyone said “yes”. That included: Midge Ure, Dave Formula (Magazine), David Torn (Bowie), Richard Fortus (Guns N’ Roses) and my former producer Martin Turner (Wishbone Ash). Fabio’s friend Tony Bowers (Durutti Column/Simply Red) kindly played bass on most of the tracks. Of course, bold-face names add a marketing aspect to the project, but the assembled musicians are all part of a similar lexicon of sounds and styles, and I believe it worked.
S] What is driving you visually – outside of music – think people, places and films, for example?
I was very sad that David Lynch passed away. He left us a truly inspiring, horrifying, perplexing and amusing body of work, which will live on. Park Chan-wook is another film director whose work I admire. In terms of places, I was recently in Guadalajara, Mexico for work. What a great city. Fantastic culture, amazing food, very warm people. I hope to return very soon to work with a university there. I was in Liverpool last year, performing at the International David Bowie Fan Convention which took place in St George’s Hall and I was blown away by Liverpool’s rejuvenation. I hadn’t visited for 25 years and the Albert Docks, the Museums, the Open Eye Gallery, great restaurants-fantastic people!
S] With everything you have achieved in music – how do you define success now, what does it mean to you, as an artist and as a person?
For me, success means the freedom to create without too many barriers. As a young person, music opened so many doors for me. It was the conduit to getting into an art school in London and being able to immerse myself in what was happening in the early 1980s in design, night life, DJ culture, clothes and new styles. Getting noticed, meeting my first manager Falcon Stuart (X Ray Spex, Adam Ant, Amazulu), getting my first small record deal, recording a session for Janice Long’s BBC Radio show made everything seem possible. I believe that ultimately the true reward for any creative pursuit is finding the freedom to keep doing it. A creative life is not an easy one to choose, but I think it chooses you.
S] You made this album with a bunch of friends – tell me about some of the best experiences you had?
I honestly believe that collaboration, reputation and network are very important elements of the creative process. For The Eternal Return, and our previous album King Boy Vandals (an anagram of Slinky Vagabond), Fabio Fabbri and I wrote the songs and then I contacted some key collaborators whom I either new well, or at least well enough to approach and who I felt would add something significant to each track. The best experiences are when someone says ‘yes, I’ll do it’ and then they deliver exactly what you want, but you didn’t necessarily know it at the time!
Keanan Duffty
S] What about some more challenging ones?
The most challenging thing is a logistical one. I live in New York and Fabio lives outside of Florence, Italy. His Wolf Mountain Studio is based there. We have to grab days here and there when I can get to visit him to record. But that challenge is a good one as it enforces deadlines. We can’t drag our feet. We tend to work quickly and decisively, because we have to. But the distance makes live shows challenging to plan. We’re trying to find some time when we can rehearse a band and play shows in New York and in the UK, before the end of this year.
S] Do your roots in Doncaster inspire you at all?
Yes, absolutely. I lived in Doncaster until I was 18 years old, so all of my formative years happened there. The lyrics of our song “Lady Bump Discoteque” are derived from my experiences growing up in the 1970s in what was a coal mining and Market town where kids were either into the ‘Northern Soul’ scene or the punk movement. So, these lyrics refer to that:
“She’s got some soul,
His mohair jumper’s punk rock
He’s on the dole.
She’s working in the shoe shop”.
At school the playground was divided into kids with Oxford bag trousers on one side and skinny drainpipe pants on the other. A famous bit of schoolyard graffiti said ‘Simple Minds’ to which someone added “You have to have one, to like them”. Hilarious! There were always duels over who got to play their favourite tunes on the communal record player. But that’s what made it interesting and we were all on the same side really.
I have extremely fond memories of that time. In February 1981, I was sixteen and part of an electronic music band called Wonder Stories. We were rehearsing in my mum and dad’s house for our third gig at the New Outlook Club on Silver Street in Doncaster one night. We took the practice sessions very seriously and dressed in full stage gear, cranking up the volume until the house shook. My bandmate Dennis Sheldrick would flap his arms like an angry bat in a black cape. Meanwhile, our keyboard player Nick Woodhead would be stabbing at the Korg MS10 with one hand, whilst holding his velvet sash in place with the other. We even tried to set the mood with a strobe light, though it was often ruined by my parents flicking light on, mid-song. “Would you like a cup of tea, lads?” they’d ask. With a groan of “Mum! Switch the light off!” we’d start up again, racing at 120 beats per minute.
Doncaster’s Outlook Club had been a mecca for punk’s first wave, hosting legends like the Sex Pistols, Generation X, The Clash, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Nestled in a seedy part of town near the railway station, it was the perfect home for punk rock. By the time we came along, the New Outlook had moved to a slightly more upscale part of town and advertised the third appearance of our band with a modest ad in the local paper boasting, “The area’s top electronic group: Wonder Stories.” We were like Billy Elliot with synthesizers, and our name was in the Doncaster Evening Post. “Fame at last” we thought. Throughout 1981, Wonder Stories graced numerous stages, securing favorable reviews and gaining support from BBC Radio One DJ Peter Powell. We were featured in i-D Magazine, issue number four. We forged a friendship with Marc Almond of Soft Cell after a chance encounter at Primo’s Nightclub in Leeds. This led to a proposed role as Soft Cell’s supporting act. However, the mounting popularity of ‘Tainted Love’ which saw Soft Cell skyrocket to stardom, while we remained earthbound. By late summer in 1981, Wonder Stories’ ascent ground to an abrupt halt and I headed to London to study fashion at Central Saint Martins. It was a very naïve and innocent time, but it left an indelible mark on me. Lots of precious memories and dear friends.
S] ‘Ad Astra’ is a beautiful track, and a personal favourite – do you have one or two tracks that are special to you, for a specific reason?
Thanks, ‘Ad Astra’ is also a favorite of mine. Bowie’s piano man Mike Garson played his signature style on that one and lyrically it channels Philip K Dick, and is also about Bowie’s passing. I worked with Bowie in the mid-200s on a fashion collection and knew him well enough. So, it was really special to have Mike on that track. Perfect World is a co-write with founding Sex Pistol Glen Matlock and End of the Show is a co-write with Earl Slick. Both are good friends of mine. We were in a mid 2000s version of Slinky Vagabond with another great friend Clem Burke on drums, whom my mum describes as having “arms like an octopus” when he is playing drums. What I like about all the tracks is my bandmate Fabio Fabbri’s guitar playing and production, which unifies everything really well. This album is more unified than our last one.
S] Anything you’d like to add that I might have missed?
In the future, I would love to record with other singers: Catherine Anne Davies aka The Anchoress, Gail Anne Dorsey, Richard Butler from Psychedelic Furs. Also, Barry Adamson, Peter Hook, Martin Gore, Marco Pirroni…the list goes on. They are all musicians I admire and I think we could create something great together.
