Having already cemented a name for himself in Belfast, complete with loyal base of adoring fans, Duke Special aka Peter Wilson now has his sights firmly set on the rest of the UK and beyond. Having just embarked on a tour of Ireland and the UK, the Duke has also been spotted on the likes of Jools Holland and Top of the Pops 2 recently. Duke Special makes cutting a style and sound of his own seem effortless, looking resplendent in his vagabond-chic threads, dreadlocks and smoky eyeliner, his sound is equally fuelled with a luscious pomp and splendour wrapped in the warm influences of vaudevillian music halls and strains of traditional Eastern European music.

According to Peter: "When I was trying to form the world that Duke Special wanted to live in I explored the whole kind of vaudeville, music hall thing and that idea of music hall which is kind of like a variety performance, I suppose, with lots of different elements to it ending in communal singing with the audience - and things that like really appeal to me. People keep saying to me that the music sounds like something from a musical film, or Broadway or something. I've maybe drawn some good elements if I could find them, for me I really like the idea of that. I've also been influenced by church music, hymns, harmonies, traditional songs, a huge range of things really."

Before unveiling Duke Special to the world, Peter worked with a number of bands before realising he needed to move along a different path. "It was a difficult decision to leave the band - it was such good fun and it was quite scary to leave that and begin to do things on my own. Creatively it's great because you have a lot of control, things get stripped right back and it's just my songwriting that comes about and my ideas. Having said that, I did collaborate with producer Paul Wilkinson from The Amazing Pilots who is from Belfast as well; he's a great producer. From talks with him about what I didn't want to sound like we stumbled on the kind of ideas I did like."

Peter also adds: "As much as I enjoyed working in a band it wasn't really what I wanted to do, wasn't the direction I wanted to go in.  I wanted to do pop rock as opposed to pub rock. I knew I had to take myself seriously enough as an artist to make a go of it. It was a lot easier in Belfast in the past to make music and just have fun with it and not go anywhere beyond that. It was probably 2001 when I knocked that on the head and decided that I was going to record some demos and a few songs and see what happened - and from there, Duke Special came about."

Now that his name is beginning to mean something and his music to garner a reputation for being opulent, decadent and exquisite pop, does getting to this crossroads meet  Peter's expectations? "The past year has seen a lot of things begin to happen. They wouldn't have happened, though, if it wasn't for 4 years of hard work and 150 shows around the place, sometimes playing to hardly anybody in the audience. It's been a huge number of things. Getting out of Belfast and going and playing for no money and just paying your dues. People around me who have been an influence, I've got really good people around me. Management in England, a really supportive family, but also just dogged determination to just not give up and I just couldn't shake the fact that this is what I wanted to do. If I took myself seriously as an artist - though not too seriously, mind - not to become up myself, but just think, this is what I do, I'm not trying to be a musician, I am a musician and let the music speak for itself and just have a bit of self belief is really important." Quintessentially modest and gentle, Peter admits he still finds it weird to hear his songs played on the radio or TV.

"It's a bit surreal, to be honest. I mean, you write these songs in your bedroom or sitting on your couch or on a bus or train and then for example, myself and Paul Wilkinson (The Amazing Pilots) wrote a song, we had some ideas and were kind of messing about in the studio and it became the B Side for the single Last Night I Nearly Died and I performed it in Belfast and within a week or two weeks it was being talked about, it was listed on the back of some publication, played on Channel 4, and it was so surreal that something with such humble beginnings can just explode like that and get so much exposure. Any song of mine that I hear played is weird to me but obviously really satisfying too! But it's cool too that it's making some kind of impact."

Peter readily admits to surrounding himself with a group of people he has become close to and trusts in order to realise his vision and sound. "This is something I've always made a point of, people that I've worked with from the first EP have helped shape the journey we're talking about now. Obviously financing and publicity in Europe has been a great help but at the chance to use named producers and artists I always stick with the people I've been working with; they helped establish the character of Duke Special and what I'm doing. I was really keen on keeping those people on board. Also because they're just really good! I really trust what they do and we all share the same vision. My sister does my website, Tim Millen who used to be in The Amazing Pilots is actually an amazing painter - he did all the illustrations for the artwork on the record; he and Gary McElwen, who is also from Belfast but lives in London, have done all the artwork for the CDs for the last few years ... those two and another guy who is a friend of Paul's and a friend of mine, he directed and animated the videos for Last Night I Nearly Died and Freewheel."

Staunchly supporting home-grown talent, Peter also explains he has never considered the move to London that so many artists here have made in the past. "You're more likely to bump into the head of a label in London, but there's just so many more people trying to get somewhere. It's like Nashville! You go there and everyone you meet is an aspiring musician or songwriter all with their demos ready to pass on. After a while you're no longer an aspiring singer or songwriter, you're just a waiter or waitress. You have to come to terms with that. Here you can stand out a bit more, there are less people trying to do it. The cons of that though are that there are no role models, no one to show us that it's possible to do this. Brian Houston for me is a great role model; I really appreciate him, and he was always a few steps ahead of me blazing the trail for other people to follow. Snow Patrol have done that, Ash have done it, the Undertones way back did that. It's exciting to see the buzz that’s generated when anyone from here does anything because there will always be a lot of people on your tail thinking that if you can do it then they can do it. That's a cool moment."

So what's next for the Duke? "I'll hopefully get my head around some new songs and that's the sobering thing, you can't go on your old successes, you have to keep writing and growing. I eventually have to focus, otherwise it just doesn't happen! I play piano and it’s not the easiest instrument to access; I don't have one at home so I can't just sit down and have a tinkle on it, I've one in a little studio space around the corner. Often I keep a notebook with little song ideas and phrases or whatever and eventually I'll get to a piano and actually finish a song and as there's always a deadline it's a bit of incentive too!"

Find out more about Duke Special on his website, www.dukespecial.com

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