I am Duckeye are a comedy rock band from Melbourne who are also celebrating their 5 year anniversary this month. It’s hard to gauge who’s had more success in that time, a revered and informative website or a band that sing short songs about dicks. Only time will tell.
We’ve played countless shows, toured all over, released 4 EP/DVD sets, 5 videoclips, a debut album and nearly 100 Duckisodes on YouTube and now interest from Europe and America beckons.
What have you done AU Review? Lucky its your birthday and we like reading the site or we’d totally pull your pants down!
– I am Duckeye.
Top 5 moments of last 5 years.
Punching Dicks being voted Rage’s “Indie Clip Of The Week”.
This was a big boost in the arm for us both for giving us some sort of cred and relief that someone has finally got the joke. Especially after a few days before Triple J ‘Unearthed’ banned most of our tracks for inappropriate and offensive content. Its schoolboy humour, its meant to be naughty, but offensive? Lighten up, they’re songs about penises, everybody’s got at least one.
The best part was the clip was filmed around my house in about 2 hours with no budget harmed. Big hit on YouTube too!
Girls actually flash bands at rock shows!
We’ve all seen it in movies and some live footage of hippies, but we were playing a show at Pony, possibly the dingiest, dankest, dirtier dungeon of a venue in Australia and during one of our last songs a well dressed, very attractive girl just ran up and flashed us. Its happened a few times since too. It’s a strangely flattering display of inhibition and inebriation. Thanks ladies!
Touring is hard slog, but big fun!
Loading up a hire van with gear, snacks, bedding and ipod mixes to share, enjoy and argue over; there’s nothing like it. Travelling for 10+ hours, playing for 45 mins, seems stupid but to a muso, it makes sense.
We’ve been pretty lucky except for the last tour, Sam (Vocals/my brother) was reversing the van out of a parking lot smashing the tow ball right into the grill of a little Mazda. The couple within freaked out, we exchanged numbers and Sam hung his head. Later, Sam went to film Jules (bass) get a tattoo, so Sean & I got a drink. While sitting there the couple from the car prang walked in and we bought them a beer. Anyway after a few too many they felt sorry for us poor pathetic musicians and said “Don’t worry about the car, it’s a good excuse to sell it!”
However, playing with an on-coming evening hangover after an afternoon session is something I hope to never experience again. The show was flawless though because I’m hardcore.
That moment when you find your voice.
All bands start off sounding like other bands, but then find their own sound, well some do. We have a pretty unique sound, a funny lead singing voice, simple but tough riffs, blasting bass and impressive drumming, but our live show didn’t really find its feet until one fateful night I couldn’t play the intro to a song properly (all too common sadly) but just kept trying while Sam egged me on, Jules joined him and Sean got pissed off all while the audience started cracking up. So we started messing around more, getting the audience to join in. Usually the ladies in the audience are the most vocal and surprisingly vulgar! They all seem to know what “Tea-baggin” is that’s for sure…
Releasing our debut “Husband”, getting rave reviews from around the world and the biggest review of all, someone illegally uploading it to numerous internet sites.
We spent years writing, gigging and honing the 13 songs and taking close to a year recording and mixing (due to living so far apart) then organised to have the launch at one of Melbourne’s premier venues only to find out that someone with an advance copy uploaded it to torrent sites. Its bittersweet, on one hand its lost revenue but at the same time “Husband” is going to reach a wider audience who may be intrigued to see a live show.
Ultimately, it’s nice to know that people think we were good enough to be stolen.
Top 5 Albums of last 5 years
5: The Nation Blue – Protest Songs (Jules’ pick)
4: L’enfant Sauvage – Gojira (Sean’s pick)
3: Everybody Loves Sausages – Melvins (Matt’s pick)
2: Nana’s photo album (Sam’s pick)
1: Husband – I am Duckeye (Earth’s pick)
Top 5 songs of last 5 years
5: Gangnam Style – Psy
4: Like A Boss – Lonely Island
3: Punching Dicks – I am Duckeye
2: The Riff – I am Duckeye
1: Anything not in a hottest 100…
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the AU review are celebrating their fifth birthday by throwing a bunch of parties around Australia. All the details you need for all events are here: https://www.theaureview.com/party
Thanks to the band for writing us the fantastic introduction to this article.
