Duels - Pistols At Dawn

The five members of Duels have lines running through the whites of their eyes that match the blood red paint on their dressing room walls. They’re tired and slightly confused. They have travelled five hours from Leeds to get to Koko in Camden where tonight they will play one of their biggest shows yet. In the dressing room, there’s no sex and no drugs. “This is rock and roll. We’re knackered,” says Bassist, Jon Maher, slinging his white leather slip-ons over the edge of a sofa.  “I’m not even sure how we got this gig to be honest.”

Indeed, their tiredness is fully justified. They’ve been busy since forming in August last year, supporting the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and embarking on their own extensive dates. They've even managed to wedge in a smattering of live dates culminating in an appearance at London's TDK Cross Central on the August bank holiday.

Somewhat intriguingly, on the band's website they attempt to spread their influence and attitude by inviting fans to become Young Believers. “It comes from a song of ours. The whole song is based around not being cynical about things,” says frontman Jon Foulger . “ If you’re a Young Believer then you share our ideals.” Judging by tonight's gig, there's going to be no shortage of believers in Duels in the ensuing years. These ideals are important and the band believes they are what gives them soul. “I do think commerciality is getting to dangerous levels,” adds Jon. “It is becoming a little soulless, but if you have a strong idea as a band what your ideals are and what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do then you’ll be ok.”

According to the band, flirtations with commerciality is not all bad as it gives them even more motivation to do their own thing. “I think it’s always been acts that have values and stick to them that last,” says Jon Maher. “There’s always been crap pop music, that’s what The Beatles were at first and in any given decade it’s been the same, but I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about. If anything it gives alternative bands a push in the right direction.”

And that direction is their own. They admit to wearing their influences on their sleeves - especially music from the seventies - but they have a clear vision of what they want to achieve with their music. “Songs are songs it doesn’t matter what era they came from. We’re like magpies. We’ll listen to a lot of stuff and whatever we like about those tunes we’ll put into the music we’re making,” says Jon Foulger. “We’re big fans of light and shade, making records that have ups and downs, not something that sounds consistent all the way through and is just one sound. To do that we need to show the breadth of what it’s about.”

Duels achieve that 'breadth' by telling stories through their songs. Something Jon says they did learn from their influences, though they weren’t all musicians. “I was listening to The Pretty Things, Arthur by The Kinks and probably a bit of ELO and I really liked the idea of albums that have a thread to them, that had a story running through the whole thing,” he says. “I was also influenced by Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. The character in Steppenwolf summed up where a lot of the songs came from. He sees himself as separate from society and is quite pretentious about the way he sees himself. All my songs are just the naffy aspects of me coming out in various different forms.”