Woody Klann, better known by his moniker Duffrey, has become an unassailable pole-bearer for North America’s grassroots electronic music movement. At home, it feels like he’s in every state, every weekend. In recent years, he’s become a known entity across international festivals and massives. For those of us fortunate enough to live in and around Denver, he always seems to be right around the corner.
With a continent-spanning interest in his music undergoing a meteoric rise seemingly overnight, he’s answered in kind by beating feet across the US touring circuit, splaying out a catalog full of novel, whimsical blends that avoids taking itself too seriously. That’s part and parcel of Duffrey’s appeal; his presentation is devoid of frills and oversaturated narratives, and instead relies on true groove theory and a friendly dash of musical sarcasm to power his discography.
In celebration of our unveiling of his Return to Source EP, The Rust was given the opportunity to poke around Woody’s skull and clear the some of the fog around his passions, his creative process, the background history of the Duffrey project, and some of the lore to the infamous UltaSloth producer trio.
Alyssa Barnhill: Where do you come from?
Woody Klann: I was born in Long Beach, CA. When I was about 3 months old I moved to Fairfield, CT and lived there till I was about 14. Went to high school in Olympia, WA, and then moved to the [San Francisco] Bay for a sound-arts college called Ex’pression. It's in Emeryville, in between Berkeley and Oakland. A bunch of [contemporary artists] went there, people like Wolfgang Gartner and a ton of others.
Alyssa: Did you go to Ex’pression right out of high school?
Woody: Right out of high school, yeah. I graduated when I was 20, and then I lived in the Bay from then until 2017. I moved to Oakland after college and did a lot of shit with the Wormhole crew. Then I moved to Australia for a year.
Alyssa: How old were you when you did that?
Woody: 2017, it's 2021 soooo 25?”
Alyssa: Do you mind if I ask you how old you are now?
Woody: 29, I just turned 29.
Alyssa: Did you play music as a kid?
Woody: Yeah, I started playing drums when I was 9. Then I was in like all the bands through high school. Jazz band, concert band, marching band, and pit orchestra.
Alyssa: All on drums?
Woody: All playing the drums. Then I was the drum section leader, and lead drummer for like that whole time. I was the drum section leader for marching band for the last two years of high school. Wrote all the cadences.
Alyssa: Did your school compete?
Woody: We had one of the better bands in the state of Washington in terms of our school band. We did competitions for Jazz bands but we didn't do any for marching band stuff. It was a pretty low-key kind of thing. My school was a football school and we didn't have any budget for band really. It was all going to football.
Alyssa: Did you enjoy the experience?
Woody: Oh yeah! There were days I would do like 4-5 hours of music a day. Wake up and practice, go to jazz band, then go to band. Go to pit orchestra after school and go to marching band after that. Like five hours of drums a day.
Alyssa: So music all day? Did that experience influence the kind of music you like to make now?
Woody: Oh Fuck yeah. Oh fuck yeah, bud.
Alyssa: Is Expression the only musical schooling you have?
Woody: Um, it wasn't really a music school per-say. It was a digital arts college and it was more technical stuff so it was things like recording, post production, some sound classes. There was a music production class but it … actually Vinja was one of my professors, for like a couple labs. Other than that it wasn’t a music school. I did music the whole time I was there and I started Dj-ing and producing while I was there.
Alyssa: How long were you there?
Woody: It was an accelerated program so we essentially didn't have any breaks. So I got a bachelor's degree in two and a half years. Basically you just don't have summer breaks. The winter breaks are like a week and you just continuously go to 8 week courses. I essentially did four years of school in two and a half.
Alyssa: That's a pretty heavy commitment.
Woody: Yeah it was tight. It was actually much better than doing normal school because you don't forget anything.
Alyssa: So what's the story behind the name?
Woody: It’s from a ski-snowboard collab video by Simon Chamberlain and Tanner Hall, and they have this special feature on it where they are outside Mt. Hood and they come down to the bottom. They meet this dude in the parking lot. He’s in his RV and like almost senile.
Duffrey performing at the Swamp Sessions concert series in New Orleans, courtesy of Synchronasty and Cosmic Synergy.
He goes, “ I'm the Duff pirate, I don’t need that fresh fluffy duff, that’s for the youngsters. The only thing I do with the fresh fluffy duff is I skuff it up on the youngsters hoods. I don’t even buy a lift ticket, I just hike up the other side and scrape down the crud. I'm just shoveling that fresh fluffy duff.”
The fresh fluffy duff is fresh, nice powder. My buddy Jeff showed me the video and I was like. “Man I got to go by the Duff Pirate.”
He said, “You can't just steal this guy's name.”
He said either Duffrey or Duffrent. And I thought Duffrent was kinda tacky but let's go with Duffrey. That was when I was like 16.”
Alyssa: So, do you ski? Snowboard?
Woody: I snowboard, I skate a little bit still, not so much anymore. Because I'm afraid of hurting myself. I'm not as limber. Get heavier, you fall harder, it hurts more.
Alyssa: Does having a history with extreme sports equate to the way you approach music?
Woody: I would say so yeah. Take CharlestheFirst for instance. He was a professional skier before he made beats. I have always been attracted to solo sports, fringe sports like skateboarding or snowboarding or bowling. Stuff where you are kind of competing against yourself, developing a style over time. So yeah, those sports heavily influenced my aptitude for music because when you’re trying to master a trick, you have to do the same thing fucking over and over again. It hurts and it sucks, then eventually you do it. then you eventually make it stylish. So like listening to the same shitty tune over and over again and knowing that it sucks, but not knowing how to make it better. It's about pushing through and eventually developing your own style based on your mistakes. Which is just like skating or snowboarding, definitely a pretty big crossover.
Alyssa: What else do you do outside of music?
Woody: I bowl a lot, rock climb a lot with Bogtrotter, disc golf. I like to hang out with my friends. I have got some really good friends. Snowboarding, skateboarding, but bowling and disc golf for sure. Top of the list.
Alyssa: Did you see a lot of music growing up? Was it something you knew you wanted from an early age?
Woody: Oh yeah! There is actually a home video of me when I was like 9 years old. My parents asked me, “What are you going to do when you grow up?”
I was like “I want to be on stage, I want to be famous.” So I always kind of knew, but my dad took me to my first show. It was Derek Trucks Band, when I was 11. He would take me to all sorts of shows. He took me to Linkin Park and Snoop Dogg. All types of shit. My dad is such a badass.
Alyssa: Was he a source of inspiration for you?
Woody: Oh yeah. My whole family is super musical. My mom is a singer, all my sisters play piano. One of my sisters plays the double bass. One of my sisters plays the guitar and fiddle. They are all really good singers. My dad is actually the only one who doesn’t play instruments..
Alyssa: But he likes it?
Woody: He loves it, yeah. He took me to see all the music but there was always music around. LIke always. No matter what. Every second of every day.
Alyssa: Does your family, minus your dad, make music professionally?
Woody: No, just me. My grandfather was a really sick jazz musician too. He didn't do it professionally. He was a superior court justice.
Alyssa: What have you been listening to lately?
Woody: I have been listening to very little bass music, especially over the pandemic. It just kind of felt like it was putting salt in the wound. I also feel like a lot of stuff is getting so overly produced, heavy, and dark. Like RAAAWAA technical sounds.
So I have been listening to things like Mariah Carey, Moonchild, a lot of R&B stuff like that. I have been finding a bunch of old Brazilian jazz like Stan Getz. Also been listening to a lot of Halogenix. I really like drum and bass. I don't really listen to bass music. Listening to some Kyle Watson, Dirty Bird stuff. If I'm trying to party I listen to drum and bass or house. If I'm at home, I listen to old funk records.”
Alyssa: What is your process when creating?
Woody: So, having really strong roots in drums…. I would say most people start with the drums, so they have something other than a metronome to keep them going. I pretty much never do that. I'll either start by just doing sound design, making bass patches, LFO’s, something that changes the cadence. Sometimes a rhythm pops out of a bass patch at you. If I start with drums I end up with some fully produced drum pattern, write something over it, and then I have to go back and change the drums a lot. Sometimes I just end up backing myself into a corner. Now I have drums but nothing else.
I'll either start with chords or chord progressions. I do that a lot. I'll just sit down and flip the switch in my studio, everything comes on. And my synthesizer, the Dave Smith one, flashes on. It's a poly-analog one so you can play chords on it right away. I usually keep it on a preset that sounds pleasant. Sometimes I'll just start playing the piano, a chord progression will pop out at me. After that it's all sizzle and sparkle.
Alyssa: We are all curious about UltraSloth. How did that project come about?
Duffrey and bioLuMigen performing under their UltraSloth moniker.
Woody: Chris [bioLuMigen] and I met, I think in 2015, maybe 2014, I can’t remember, on the way to Stilldream fest. My friend Hannah said to me “I have a friend that needs a ride, if you're going.” I was like yeah sure. Within 15 minutes of meeting him we were talking about how nothing is divine but everything is divine. I was like, “Man, I like this guy”. He ended up crashing on my couch for like months at a time. Not like months at a time but for like a month at a time, like a lot of times in a row. We would just sit around and write tunes. All the time. They didn't sound anything like they sound now. Dubbed out. Real slow, like 100 BPM, glitchy-funky kinda tracks.
We were at this festival called Springfair, in Washington. We were doing this like weird word association. This was a point in my life where I was saying, “Oh that's my new side project” to pretty much anything that was funny. I think he was the one who said “UltraSloth”
I was like, “That’s our new side project.” We both locked eyes and said, “THAT’S our new side project.” we just cheesed out on that for a long time.
Alyssa: So would you say 2015 was the beginning?
Woody: Yeah, yeah. We played some UltraSloth shows for the New Year season in New Zealand. The first show we played was in New Zealand. The second show we played was in Australia.”
Alyssa: Because you were living there?
Woody: No, just our first tour. We had friends that trusted us for some reason. When we came back, Kris [kLL sMTH] sat in with us for a couple shows. Scratching with us. We were at his house, some after party. I was like, “Kris, is this a real thing? Are you fully committed? Are you full sloth?”
He was like, “Fuck yeah dude.” So essentially, I caught him and convinced him to join the band. It's ancient history from there.
Alyssa: I know you have a sloth tattoo.
Woody: I do have an UltraSloth tattoo. They didn’t fucking get it. They were supposed to but they both bailed on the appointment.
Alyssa: What's your favorite part about that project?
Woody: Well, we create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. None of us alone could make UltraSloth. We all have the technical prowess, we all have the ability. No one is better than anyone else between the three of us. We are better at different shit but those tunes have a certain quality that no one could achieve by themselves.
Alyssa: You like to play unique shows at unique venues. Is that something fans can look forward to?
Woody: We have got some sick shit coming for you. If all goes well, we’ll be testing it out at a festival that I won't mention yet, this summer. But next summer get ready for some fun shit.
Alyssa: Unique?
Woody: Yeah, nobody has done this before.
Alyssa: Fun Fact for the fans.
Woody: All three of my legal names have to do with trees. You don't get to know them. Hear that, Of the Trees? I am of the trees.
With his upcoming appearances through Bass Invasion’s takeover at Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom and The Rust x Aspire Higher’s Submersion event set to drive crowds into a nostalgic and frenetic dancefloor frenzy, and with the NYC Sub.Mission show with kLL sMTH this next weekend, it certainly feels like the action is resurging at a rapid pace. Regardless of where and when you catch him next, there’s zero doubt about Duffrey’s inclination to deliver on his name-brand sultry sets, and every indication he’s prepped with enough fresh, fluffy duff to coat the remainder of this year’s appearances.
FOLLOW Duffrey: SoundCloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Webpage / Facebook
FOLLOW UltraSloth: SoundCloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook
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