Lucky Duck Knows the Mess Is Part of the Personality
Punk Head: You call SANITY “mixtape-y,” but six years is a pretty long time to make a mixtape. When did you realize the chaos was actually part of the identity of the record?
Lucky Duck: I feel like the chaos is all over the record! Each song is a different genre, we got indie pop rock, orchestral cinematic r&b, metal-infused crash out rock, ABBA-dupes, and country rap. I feel like the record does feel a little all over the place but also, that’s me! I do have my shit together most of the time, but there’s always a lot going on, so I wanted the album to represent me. My personality and who i actually am is woven into the record.
Punk Head: You say you’re a “serve the song” person. What’s the fastest way for you to know what a song is asking you to do?
Lucky Duck: I’m a big “song moodboard person”. Like, i don’t produce, i don’t know how to do that. but i creative direct / produce records. I make an inspo playlist, i type out buzzwords and themes of what the song is giving and what i want it to embody, ill screenshot pictures and colours, i’ll journal out the song like what it means, and that i put all that in a package and send it off to the producer. My vision is usually the final product, but it often changes. Like “only 1 me” started out as this jack “johnson, jason mraz sunny west coast guitar” bop called “all i want is everything” but then my producer denise was like, “I’m seeing trip hop and kendrick lamar on this. can you rap it?” and i tried it and it turned out dope, and yea it took a minute to crack the code on that one, but the end product is so fire.
Punk Head: You can move between singing and rapping pretty naturally. Do those two modes feel like different versions of you?
Lucky Duck: Great question! I think it goes back to serving the song. If the song calls for more rap style, i’ll do that. but if a song like “fadin” is being made, then that’s a singing record. we’re singing that one! I’d say rap on this record, comes out in more of the boisterous and confident moments like “only 1 me” and “mama disco”, while singing is more of the emotional and softer moments like “fadin” and “moonlight”.
Punk Head: Queens is all over the way you talk about this record. What does “Queens music” mean to you personally?
Lucky Duck: I mean Queens is the best borough. Queens get the money! Queens is hella diverse, so I feel like Queens music to me is like a rich mish mosh of sounds that make you feel good, and I hope my album serves that!
Punk Head: Looking at the album as a whole, what do you think you were trying to prove to yourself over those six years, and what did you discover that you weren't actually trying to prove at all?
Lucky Duck: This album took my 6 years to make. Like sometimes i was working on it, sometimes i wasn’t. You have to get to a certain level of confidence, self-belief, self-esteem to put yourself and your art out there and at certain points, I didn’t have that. At certain points I was like, “fuck this i’ll just do something else. why am i even doing this?” but thank GOD I stuck with it and stuck the landing. I’m so grateful I put out this set of songs with the team I made them with. I’m so proud of this project. It really felt like a race against time, I was like “It’s gotta come out, it’s gotta come out!”. I just wanted to prove that I could do it, and make something I was proud of, and I think I did that. I let the album fly, I let it go.
