Richard Duguay‘s Beautiful Decline
Interview By David Marshall
He’s one of the busiest dudes in rock n roll. Constantly creating and pushing forward with new music and new projects. Never resting on his tattered laurels and notorious rep.
Richard is a punk rock legend. From the early days of Personality Crisis in Winnipeg to the debaucherous rock n roll years in Vancouver; and then the career-defining move to Los Angeles where he’s played with Duff McKagan toured the world, has a platinum album for his recording with Guns N’ Roses, and has been involved in countless other projects over the last 20 years… Richard Duguay has cemented his place as one of the greats.
It’s been almost 4 years since Punk Globe last caught up with Richard. He’s continued to play with his band ‘The Hellhounds’, write music with his ‘Fuck You Fame Whore’ project with a revolving roster of amazing players and continues work on his solo records. He’s also pretty busy being a hired gun playing guitar and doing vocals on other people’s tracks. When he’s not working on making music, he also owns INTO THE BLACK STUDIO in North Hollywood where he engineers and produces for bands in L.A. His last solo album ‘Bad JuJu’ was released in 2019 with great reviews. The newest release ‘Beautiful Decline’ is being released on March 15, 2023, on Cursed Blessings Records. We wanted to check in and talk about the new record and see what life has been like over the last few crazy years.
Punk Globe: It’s been about 3 years since the release of your last solo record Bad JuJu. What have you been up to since then?
Duguay: Well… Covid totally fucked any plans to tour Bad JuJu so I just basically started writing Beautiful Decline. I loved working with Marc Floyd on JuJu so we pretty much did the same with this record. Our process takes a while as the songs are fairly complicated. A lot of back & forth. It’s totally worth it tho.
Punk Globe: You own ‘Into The Black Studio’ in North Hollywood, and are a big part of the L.A. music scene. How did things change in the scene over the last few years of covid, and does it seem like things are starting to get back to normal?
Duguay: Covid killed everything everywhere obviously. Things have opened up again but I’ve noticed that gigs generally aren’t as well attended as they were before. Hopefully, it’ll change for the better soon.
Punk Globe: The new album is called ‘Beautiful Decline’. How is this one different than your 2019 release ‘Bad JuJu’?
Duguay: The main difference is that the songs are different…But seriously… The production is definitely different. The songwriting is darker and maybe more menacing (Thank you, Jeff Dahl!) Each record is really its own thing. Maybe covid had an effect on the mood of the songwriting. I am dunno. It’s impossible for me to be objective about my records. I literally lived the writing, recording, and mixing for 3 years. There were times that I’d listen to the songs and think that it was terrible, then other times I’d think it was the best thing I’ve ever done…hahaha
Punk Globe: Was the writing and recording process similar on this new record?
Duguay: Pretty much the same as the last record except where on JuJu I programmed all the drums, this time I got Brian Irving (The Slamdinistas) to play drums and I’m so fucking glad I did!! He is such a fucking killer drummer…he intuitively knows when to lay back and when to crush it. These songs are not easy ones to learn but Brian always came to the studio completely prepared. This record wouldn’t be what it is if it wasn’t for him.
Punk Globe: The title track on the new record is ‘Beautiful Decline’. Is a beautiful decline really possible?
Duguay: When you’re me… it’s definitely possible….hahaha. Someone on FB commented on a thread pushing the new record and said something like – “Decline? It’s a shear drop off the edge…” To which I replied – “Hey, it’s my decline and I’ll call it whatever I want…”
Punk Globe: That makes sense! haha.. The song ‘Kid Stardust’ has a real ’70s Bowie vibe. What gave you the inspiration for this one?
Duguay: I fucking love Motown and all the older R&B stuff…so one day I thought that maybe I’d try to see if I could come up with something sort of ‘similar’ and see what it would sound like. I used the guitar melody of “My Girl” as inspiration except that instead of guitar I wrote the melody on bass. Then I wrote the piano part and added some guitar etc… The title “Kid Stardust” came from way back in the 90’s I think. John Armstrong (Buck Cherry) and I were going to start a band and I suggested Kid Stardust… He loved it but the band never happened because well…drugs & alcohol… John loves the song tho and said he’d love to cover it.
Punk Globe: Where did the idea for the song ‘Never Ending Parade’ come from?
Duguay: I was chatting with Rod Bruno one day and a mutual friend of ours, Dana Olsen, had passed away way too fucking young. As the conversation went on about all the friends we’ve lost I said to him “I guess we had better get used to it because it’s going to be a never -ending parade until one day it’ll be our turn…” The light bulb went on and I said that I’m gonna use that for a song. So, after that, I asked Marc Floyd to write a song called “Never Ending Parade” he came up with the initial musical idea and some lyrics and we both came up with some really cool things to complete it. A fucking great song. I’m proud of that one as I hope Marc is.
Punk Globe: You did a great cover of Alex Harvey’s ‘Faith Healer’ that made it onto this record. You’ve been recording a lot of cover songs and putting your own dark spin on them… From Alice Cooper to INXS and Soft Cell… Are you thinking of putting out an album of covers?
Duguay: Originally it was going to be an added incentive that would have been included for anyone that pre-ordered Beautiful Decline, but for one reason or another it didn’t happen. I was and maybe will at some point but for now, I’m way too fucking busy working on the new record.
Punk Globe: Your new album is on Cursed Blessings Records. Do you think this association will help the new record reach a wider international audience?
Duguay: That’s certainly what I’m hoping for. Cursed Blessings has been really fucking great with me. I really wanted this record to be a throwback to the 70s…you know what I mean? I still think about the times when I’d hop on the bus, go downtown and buy an album, get back on the bus, tear the shrinkwrap off the record, and study it all the way home. The smell of the vinyl, the gatefold sleeve, the lyrics on the inside sleeve… That’s what I wanted and Cursed Blessings (Al Nolan and Doug Smart) totally understood my vision and backed it up all the way. Beautiful Decline was very expensive to manufacture but so fucking worth it. Hopefully Cursed Blessings European distribution can get it into stores and also get it reviewed as well. Cobraside Distribution is the US distributor and they’ve shown good interest in the record so we’ll see.
Punk Globe: You recently recorded with a kind of supergroup for one of your ‘Fuck You Fame Whore’ projects. You had yourself, bassist Stephen Hamm, vocalist Steven Jack, drummer Bradford Lambert, and guitarist R.D. Cane all recording together. I read that you recorded 5 songs in 5 days up in Ladysmith, B.C… What was that experience like, and how did the songs turn out?
Duguay: It was so much fun. I hadn’t been in a room with a bunch of guys writing and recording in a long time. Pete Vizvari was kind enough to let us come over to his place near Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and put us up at his house and let us use his rehearsal/recording studio for 6 days. I’ve known Rd and Steve Hamm for years but had never met Steven Jack or Brad Lambert before so I knew it was going to be ‘interesting’ for sure. I knew about them but that’s pretty different from the meeting than immediately going into a room and starting writing… On the first day there we got the roots of 2 songs so I knew then it was just gonna be a great experience. We all really just clicked as a band and the quality of talent was amazing. One idea after another…all week. So great. We ended up with 5 songs that are all different but cohesive as a whole. Most importantly tho…I now have 2 new friends for life and Rd and Steven and I are closer than ever. What could be better???
Punk Globe: For your last album Bad JuJu you did a series of one-minute videos to promote it. What’s your plans for Beautiful Decline?
Duguay: Yeah, for JuJu I came up with that idea of a bunch of short promo videos rather than the usual 2 or 3 full lengths to cover more ground musically & visually. Also because people’s attention spans these days are minute…haha. For Decline, we’re doing a few short clips and 3 full videos. One will be a full band video but the other 2 will be the story of 2 characters we’ve created – The Faith Healer & Kid Stardust. Co-Directors Paula Tiberius and Tom Hejda, who did the videos for JuJu, have come up with amazing storylines and are both incredibly talented. They’ve really pushed me to become better as an “actor” and to become those characters. For a knucklehead guitar player, it’s been challenging…thankfully they have a lot of patience, which isn’t my strong suit.
Punk Globe: The new record is being released this month. Any plans for live shows or a tour?
Duguay: I definitely want to tour this record. Hopefully, there’ll be opportunities to get out there soon.
Punk Globe: A couple of random questions… You’ve toured with a lot of bands over your career? What’s a band you’ve opened for that really knew how to have fun? What’s the strangest bill you’ve ever played on?
Duguay: We played Canadian Music Week after Gloriously Reckless came out and we had a great show booked at The Bovine and then last minute we got shifted to the Devo show at a huge outside venue with a decent slot…then the time slot kept getting changed earlier and earlier. We ended up playing at about 1:30 in the afternoon, second on the bill. The opening band was some bigwigs kids or something playing fucking horrible covers. It felt just like fucking Spinal Tap playing after a puppet show. We played about 4 songs and I just said “fuck this, this is ridiculous, we’re outta here.” I was none too pleased.
Punk Globe: I read that when you were playing with Duff McKagan, you all toured Europe with The Scorpions. How did that go??
Duguay: I went from playing to 40 people at The Press Club in Vancouver to playing arenas to 15,000 people basically overnight. From sweaty, crowded vans and sleeping on floors to 5-star hotels and a double-decker tour bus. It was surreal. It was a dream come true. Maybe I’ll write a book someday…haha
Punk Globe: The music industry has changed astronomically since Personality Crisis put out their debut in 1983. Do you see the changes as a good thing or bad? And have the changes hurt the quality of music coming out?
Duguay: There’s always been great music and shitty music. Always was and always will be. I’ve met many A&R people who wouldn’t take a shit without enquiring up the ladder if it was ok. My favorite was always – “You’re too punk for rock and too rock for punk..” What the fuck does that mean? I remember being in a big-budget studio on Polygram Records’ dime and being told – “Make it more like Sweet Child Of Mine”… I knew right then it was over. Fuck that shit. It’s not what I do.
Punk Globe: You’ve got a pretty big guitar collection. If you could only take one on tour with you, which one is getting packed?
Duguay: No question it would be my 1980 Heritage Gibson Les Paul Standard. First year they reissued the ‘59 flame top. I’ve had it for 43 years and it’s the best guitar. Heavy as fuck tho.
Punk Globe: You’ve got a real arc in your music that goes from punk to straight-ahead rock n roll – to the newer stuff with more complex arrangements and production. Where do you see yourself going on your next solo record?
Duguay: The next record is gonna be a straight-up rock-n-roll record. Cut live in a studio with a full band with minimal overdubs.
Punk Globe: Thanks for taking the time to catch up with us. What’s going on with the rest of your day?
Duguay: Learning how to play my new songs for the video shoot on Thursday…
