Flying South with The Duhks
Local folk outfit makes dedicated fans in the U.S. with endless touring
Jen Zoratti


Five tattooed 20-somethings — and a banjo.

Winnipeg outfit The Duhks is no stereotypical folk band, and the genre-bending quintet has been reinventing the way people think about folk music for several years now. Seamlessly blending everything from old tyme bluegrass to soul to country to straight-ahead pop, banjo player Leonard Podolak, singer Jessee Havey, guitarist Jordan McConnell, fiddler Tania Elizabeth and percussionist Scott (Senor) Senior have successfully proved that different is good in their genre.

Kicking folk ass

Now, a little over a year after the release of the band’s self-titled first album for legendary neo-folk label Sugar Hill Records of Durham, N.C., the band is gearing up for the Sept. 12 debut of its latest outing, Migrations.

Over morning coffee, Podolak and McConnell say they have trouble knowing exactly where to start when it comes to describing the past year.

“It’s been crazy,” Podolak laughs. “We’ve been home for a few weeks at a time, but generally it’s just been criss-crossing the country.

“Really, this year has been about making the transition from unknown band to a band with a bit of a following. Everything has improved a few steps.”

While the group was busy touring in support of The Duhks, the record itself was quickly generating buzz among fans and critics alike. The band snagged a Western Canadian Music Award, a Juno and two Folk Alliance awards. At the latter gala, the quintet interestingly scored wins in both the best emerging artist and band of the year categories.

“Those aren’t typically two awards you’d get in the same year,” McConnell says.

“It’s cool ’cause it’s like saying you’re a young rocking band but you also kick ass,” Podolak adds. “That’s pretty hip.”

‘We have three albums? Really?’

Though their eponymous album would probably have held them for a while, Podolak and co. found themselves back in the studio a lot sooner than anticipated — and all members felt the strain of making an album that was on equal, if not better, musical footing than the last.

“There was a lot of pressure,” McConnell admits. “There is a lot of pressure, not really in a monetary sense, but the last album got a lot of attention. And they asked us to record this one a lot sooner than we thought.”

“We took a month-and-a-half off and sat in our drummer’s attic and went, ‘What the hell are we going to do?’” Podolak adds.

Ultimately the songs that became Migrations took off in the group’s hands, and the record takes all the good things from the self-titled disc and amps them up into a tuneful and expressive performance that’s more reminiscent of The Duhks’ live show than past recordings. Tempered with gospel and soul, Migrations is an album that really sings out strong.

“Releasing a second album is always hard,” McConnell says. “I mean, technically this is our third album, but it’s the second on Sugar Hill. The best you can hope for, really, is you maintain some credibility.”

The infamous sophomore syndrome didn’t have too much of an effect on McConnell’s bandmate.

“It never really came into my mind,” Podolak says. “We had a list of songs we knew which needed to be on there. When you haven’t started, it’s this big mound — but we all made it the priority to sit down and make music.

“You know, this was the first time I’ve made a third record with a band before,” the former Scrüj MacDuhk frontman says with a laugh.

The same but different

While the new album is an improvement, The Duhks didn’t stray too far, so don’t expect any crazy artistic departures. This time around, the quintet focused on creating and strengthening a sound that is distinctly Duhks.

“I didn’t think that sonically it would be that different,” Podolak says. “It’s very similar to how I’d expect it to be. I would say that it met my expectations — high expectations — because the people I work with are so damn good.”

McConnell says the band did consciously try to capture its live sound.

“That’s always the biggest challenge,” he says. “The studio is such a sterile environment, and I have a hard time even feeling comfortable in it, let alone playing in it. Just the fact that it’s being put on any other medium than air.”

The Grateful Dead Theory

It’s not unheard of for good Winnipeg bands to make good albums, score Juno wins and generate buzz, but more often than not success for locals stops at the Perimeter Highway. Rarely does it mean inking an American label deal and selling 40,000 records south of the border.

In fact, The Duhks have a harder time garnering attention in Canada than in the States. When Podolak refers to criss-crossing the country, he’s not referring to his own.

Why is that, you ask? Blame the Grateful Dead.

“We struggled in Canada, and we still do. But I have a theory about that,” says McConnell, pointing his salad fork into the air. “There’s this whole Grateful Dead culture down there that we just don’t have. I mean, I still haven’t heard one Grateful Dead song I can name.”

“Yes you have,” Podolak says after a pause.

“OK, but it’s a lot easier for them to latch on to what we’re doing and get it,” McConnell continues. “We get labelled as a bluegrass band, and (the U.S.) is where bluegrass started. It’s a draw for us down there — even though it’s not really true (that we play bluegrass). Our record label is also based in North Carolina, and no one up here has ever heard of Sugar Hill, so there’s that credibility in the States.”

The Duhks and Sugar Hill found each other literally through the most tried-and-true method of music promotion: ‘You’ve got to listen to these guys.’

Steve Fishell, an A&R rep for Sugar Hill, says that when a co-worker passed him a copy of The Duhks’ first record, 2002’s Your Daughters and Your Sons, he was blown away by their musical prowess.

“It’s just a great mixture of music,” Fishell says simply. “You can be overly eclectic and be a mess, but they pull it off. It sounds new, fresh and strong. They just don’t sound like anyone else.”

Though The Duhks have established themselves as a really good band that makes really good music, its members remain humble.

“We believe all our own bullshit now. We step on everyone. Fuck you,” Podolak jokes. “Seriously, though, being a band from Canada, we’re very, very lucky. I believe that you meet the same people on the way up as you do on the way down. We don’t want to lose where we came from.

“Believe me, we know how lucky we are.”