The Dynamic Duo Rome & Duddy have been trailblazing across the country on their Winter Moon tour leaving fans wanting more. Well, ask and you shall receive! This week Katastro announced that Rome and Duddy are set to play Kamp Fest 2023.
Rome & Duddy stayed active in 2022 dropping a brand new single “I’ll Be Right There” and their new EP called “Cactus Cool” is on the horizon for early 2023.
The Pier had a chance to sit down with Duddy and talk about all the good vibes coming from Rome and Duddy.
The Pier: “And It Stoned Me” got really positive feedback. You guys followed that up with “Lahaina” which was a whole vibe in itself. At what point did you realize that you wanted this to be a group and not just do singles?
Duddy: It was just right about the timeline of “Lahaina” dropping. Don’t get me wrong I have a great time with the Dirty Heads. Everyone in the band is my brother. I love them, me and Rome also have so much fun together when we’re around. We write really well together and we always have. It was right around the time “Lahaina” was dropping. It was getting a lot of love as well as “Stoned Me”. We were talking about doing another acoustic tour and we were like, you know what let’s take a little step back on this acoustic tour and let’s focus more on what is this project. And that’s actually when we were like, let’s just do another band and that’s how Rome and Duddy started.
The Pier: We want to talk to you a little bit about the studio where you recorded, who helped you guys produce the record, and why that was the perfect environment for the record to be created?
Duddy: Well, we wrote a lot of the songs with our friends, Wyatt Durrette and Chris Gelbuda, who live out in Nashville. We did a lot of the writing old school. We would sit around with one acoustic guitar or two acoustic guitars or we would just sit there with a piano and we would write.
“With this project if we’re not really stoked on it with just a guitar and vocals, or just a piano and vocals, then it’s not a good enough song.”
Let’s not make huge beats and then just sing over them, let’s write the songs like classic songs. So, the writing process was really organic like that. Once we got the demos down that we liked we figured let’s go to Nashville. And we worked with Lance Powell. He helped record and produce the album, as well as Leroy Powell that played all of the slide guitars on the album. We just figured he would be perfect for the project. He does a lot of Chris Stapleton‘s albums. Just a lot of sounds that he’s used on albums in the past is why we thought he would be perfect for this. We were out there for a couple of weeks and knocked it out.
The Pier: What’s the difference for you between writing a Dirty Heads song or a Rome and Duddy song?
Duddy: The process is very similar really. I’ve been writing with Rome all through the Dirty Heads career, as well. So, as far as how me and Rome write together, it’s very similar to how we have in the past. I think it’s a little different when you’re writing for a band that you’ve been in for 20 years. You’ve already sent your standards and your Fanbase. You have your lanes. I’m really lucky with the Dirty Heads. We get to do a lot of different lanes. But with this project, it just felt new. There are definitely parts of this project that we couldn’t pull off with the Dirty Heads. So it was nice. If you do something long enough eventually, you’re gonna wanna try some new stuff.
“So there was a lot of freedom with this project. Kind of like starting over, there are no rules. Just do whatever you want and figure out a new sound and I think we did.”
The Pier: It’s a really uplifting record. Was that the intention going in or did it just come out like that?
Duddy: It kind of just happened. We never sat down and said let’s write this type of song or let’s make sure all the songs have underlined meaning behind them. We just started writing. I think we were having so much fun and it came so naturally, we were enjoying ourselves so that’s what came out, fun, positive songs to listen to while you’re enjoying yourself. I think it was just the vibe and mindset we were in during the writing process is how the songs came about.
The Pier: Talk to us about the single “I’ll Be Right There“. This track has a little of everything, it really feels timeless.
Duddy: One of the things we wanted to do with this album was we wanted all the songs to sound classic. Today’s music tends to do really well and be popular, but years later, you don’t really care about the song anymore, gets lost in the mix. There’s just something about certain classic songs that will just be there forever. I’ll never really go away. We were kind of trying to catch that vibe with this album. I think this song fit it perfectly, like a modern age stand by me. I love that track. Rome had a lot to do with that track. I remember he had the idea. And he showed me the idea. I love that song. Oh yeah. Again, it came out really natural once we had the song idea. The whole vibe we just ran with it.
