The house lights dim, and the crowd waiting for what feels like all night is hushed by the abrupt charge of the guitarist into an upbeat, rockabilly riff, soon joined by the bassist and drummer. From the side of the stage emerges a young woman dressed in red and black. She walks up to the microphone, opens her mouth and you are blown against the back wall.
At barely five feet tall, Colleen Duffy, also known as Devil Doll, has a stage presence bigger and more intimidating than the bouncer at the front door of Jambalaya where she and her band performed Tuesday night. She and her band powered through their electrically-charged set of old favorites and tracks from their recently released album, "The Return of Eve." The audience could not remain in their seats and eventually all migrated onto the dance floor.
Devil Doll's mix of rockabilly, old school, outlaw country, punk rock and 1940s burlesque lends something to nearly everyone and Duffy's sometimes growling, sometimes purring voice will leave you wanting more.
The Lumberjack: What brings you to Arcata?
Devil Doll: Well actually the promoter, Norm. He had worked with a couple of friends of mine. They had recommended him. We're doing a California run. We're based out of Los Angeles. We wanted to take more advantage of the fact that we are in California and just decided to do a full California tour. So we came up here even though we got incredible motion sickness! We had to stop four times from Red Bluff to here. We were just barfing on the side of the road.
LJ: How is "Return of Eve" different from "Queen of Pain" for you?
DD: "The Return of Eve" record is a variation from "Queen of Pain" because I made it a little bit more guitar driven and I put some more old-school outlaw country music on there to remind me what country music was all about when it was first written. It was really punk rock actually. It was about telling the truth, cheatin', stealin', livin', dyin'. I don't know what happened to country music, but we really wanted to try to put some songs on the record to really revitalize that old flame of what country music was all about.
There's not as much jazzy, swingy stuff as there was on "Queen of Pain." We did focus more on guitar. But I also experimented with putting other people's songs on there too. "Queen of Pain" is all my music. "Return of Eve" has three covers on it. It has a cover of "Fever" which I put on there because I'm sick of people screwing up that song. So I wanted to be like "This is the way it's supposed to be sung," pretty much, or you know come as close as you can.
LJ: Who influenced you the most on your new record?
DD: I don't know, really. I was so nervous about making this record because the "Queen of Pain" record is so popular and we sold so many copies and people are so addicted to that record. And it had been six years since we put out a record so this record has such a tall order to be compared to that I was really, really nervous. As far as one artist really influencing me on this, it was more about being influenced by what I observed. I was more influenced by my experiences and watching movies than by actual artists because I had to find a certain freedom and allow myself to write different kinds of songs and a different kind of record and not caring if people are going to like it or not.
When I saw the movie, "Walk the Line," it kind of kicked my ass to get my shit together to get this record written.
There are people who continue to influence me. I mean, Joan Jett will always be one of my biggest influences in rock 'n' roll of all time. Janette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde will always be one of my biggest influences of all time. Elvis and Johnny Cash, Etta James. They always influence the way I process music and how it filters back out of me. Those women and those men taught me to take inspiration and make it my own. People can slander Elvis and give him a lot of shit but at the end of the day… He took so much shit. He got beat up for the clothes he was wearing. He did his own delivery. Johnny Cash, are you kidding me? Like anyone still delivers like he did. Joan Jett, are you kidding me? Do you know how many people still try to imitate her? And as far as Janette Napolitano goes, people no matter how famous or established they are, when Janette Napolitano is rehearsing at the studio the most famous of all musicians will have their ear to the door just trying to hear her sing. She blows everyone out of the water. People are in fucking awe of her voice. She has a lower register like I do and she has some similar influences but that whole gang of people always influence in the way I think, in the way I write.
LJ: What are your plans for the future?
DD: We have this tour going through November or December. For this record we're doing a national tour. We're doing a couple music videos at the beginning of the year and then we'll be going back over to Europe to play in some of the pockets in the United States we haven't hit in a while. We just got new management; a lot of good stuff is happening in the band right now. [There has been] some activity on the radio and all kinds of stuff. People really believe in this record.
Printed in The LumberJACK, 10-31-07
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