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Duke showed extreme musical potential at an early age, so his parents got him into piano lessons when he was 5. Although he gave up piano six years later, his interest in music did not stop there. As a musician himself, Duke's father, Don, gave him sporadic lessons on bass beginning at age 8. Duke played saxophone in 7th and 8th grade band, and he started his own rock band at age 13, in which he played bass. The band was called Kingston Image.
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Some time around the death of rock legend, Kurt Cobain, in 1994, Duke switched from bass to guitar and taught himself how to play and sing. His genre focus soon switched from oldies and classic rock to the modern alternative and rock of the 1990s. He began to write songs and sought a new group of musicians.
Duke did not find his next band until 1996, when he was 16. The project was called Project: Malfunktion. It lasted until 1998 and was unsuccessful, not even sojourning from the computer shop to play a show. The next year, in 1999, Duke found another group of musicians and started Salivation Army. This lasted only a year, but they saw several shows around the Kansas City area. After the dissolution of Salivation Army, Duke's talents lay dormant for 5 years; finally, in 2005, he decided to switch back to bass and look for a band. He found a group called Black Attic, which he joined and befriended drummer, Tim Scott. When the project fell apart seven months later, Duke and Tim decided to remain a unit and formed Adamant Eve in February 2006, recruiting Black Attic lead guitarist, Dave Wieser. A year-and-a-half and two albums later, the band broke apart, and all members went different directions; in the meantime, Duke worked with Tim and high school friend, Chris Godbey, on a comedy-rock project, Dark Humor, and released a self-produced album, Idiodyssey, in July 2008. He also spent time working on a solo project under the moniker, Snale. |
After the dissolution of Adamant Eve and the release of Dark Humor's Idiodyssey, Duke spent nine months in Austin, TX playing in a punk band. When he and his wife suddenly became pregnant, he returned to Kansas City in June 2009 and soon joined Tim's band, Collapse, on bass. It was a metal band created in 2001, and although Duke had no desire to play metal, he joined with the sole intention to replace their old bassist until another could be recruited. Nearly three years later, Duke remains in the band, which has become moderately successful and popular on the KC scene. Collapse has won several battles, including Metal Wars 2011; two awards in 2011, including Most Character and Silver Award for Best Video; and created their own annual festival, CollapseFest, which takes place in August. They have been nominated again in three separate categories for 2012, and they have acquired a spot on Rocklahoma 2012.
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