Introducing: Matt Duke

Altman, who immediately liked the “quixotic” aspects of Duke’s songwriting style, was able to help shape Duke’s musical and thematic gear-shifting into a cohesive, artfully sequenced album. Duke admits, “When I first started out, I didn’t know what style I was --I still don’t and I probably never will. That’s why it was so important to find a producer who could cater to the dramatic raw energy but, at the same time, hone whatever musical style it was and not make it sound all over the place.”

Duke has always been drawn to music as a means of self-discovery. As a teenager, Duke initially picked up the guitar for a time-honored reason: “solely for the purpose of getting girls,” figuring out how to play the instrument on his own. When a coffee house in Collingswood, New Jersey, started offering open-mike nights for local talent, Duke decided to get a little more serious about his burgeoning craft.

The coffee shop proprietors, recounts Duke, “were always good about letting local people come in and perform. Ninety percent of the time they sucked, but it was always endearing to go in and watch people go up and play. For me, it was perfect because I sucked too and I had virtually no songwriting experience. I would do these shows with my friend Brendan, who played a hand drum, a djembe. I started writing more because he and I were hanging out a lot. Most of the songs weren’t very good initially, but they started getting better and better.”

Duke’s parents eventually surprised him with a gift of some recording time – a live session at his parents’ church, helmed by Duke’s childhood piano teacher. There was magic in the studio even then: a copy of the resulting demos made it into the hands of a grammar school buddy, then a Drexel University student enrolled in the college’s innovative music business program, and the friend brought it into his A&R class for critiquing.

The class instructors urged the student to bring in his talented friend – they wanted to feature Duke’s songs on the first compilation from Drexel’s in-house record label, Mad Dragon. That led to an acoustic-based, full-length album, Winter Child, on Mad Dragon, distributed by Ryko. The folks at Ryko were as impressed as those Drexel professors, and Duke was quickly offered the opportunity to join the label’s artist roster.

Music lovers in Philadelphia have proven to be staunch supporters of Duke, as has influential radio station WXPN-FM. Now it’s everybody else’s turn to discover the mysterious, compelling, emotionally charged world Duke has created with Kingdom Underground.

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