The Sonic Billboards of Duplexity

Duplexity is an Indie Rock duo from Beverly Hills, CA. Formed by teen siblings Savannah Judy and Luke Judy, their music is inspired by 90’s alternative rock, channeling a hint of metal mixed to have a modern feel. With amazing songs such as Billboards and Tolerant plus a tremendously solid live show, Duplexity is ready to rock an entire world with their sonic entreaties!  Highwire Daze recently caught up with Savannah and Luke of Duplexity at a Jack Lue photo shoot to find out more about their songs, live shows, acting careers including a movie with the legendary Nicole Kidman, and more!

We’re here with Duplexity. First, introduce yourself and tell me what you do in the band.
Luke: I’m Luke, and I play rhythm guitar and sometimes lead guitar and I do vocals.

Savannah: Hi, I’m Savannah, and I’m the bassist and lead vocalist through Duplexity.

What do you think of our local Los Angeles / Orange County music scene?
Luke: I think it’s awesome. I loved it. Loved all the venues that we play all the time. It’s freaking sick.

Savannah: We’ve been connecting with a lot of Orange County bands lately and we love everybody, and the scene is so cool and so edgy, and we really enjoy it.

Your latest single is called Tolerant. Is there any story or background behind that song and the lyrics?
Luke: We just wanted to call out, just all the bad things that are going on in the world today and just stand up for what you believe in. Everybody has their own opinion, and you shouldn’t have to be scared to address it. You should be able to fight for what you believe in.

Billboards, the “Walking down Sunset Boulevard” song. Tell me about that song and the EP title.
Savannah: That song is a little nod to our child acting background. We came out to LA when we were really young. I was seven and Luke was…

Luke: I was six.

Savannah: Six, yeah. He got a commercial, and we just started acting and doing a lot since then. Luke’s been on TV 30 times.

Luke: We’ve both been on TV.  We’ve both been acting for 11 years.

Savannah: We’ve always loved music and then more recently we decided to really jump into the music scene, so that song’s a little nod to like, “This is who we are, and this is where we’ve come from, and this is us now.”

Let’s talk about another song, “Demons.” Give me a background on that song.
Luke: Personally, one of my favorite songs of ours. This one’s about people struggling with mental health and the lyrics are, “I got these demons deep inside, they come alive at night.” Yeah, it’s really just people. Really, we wanted to write a song that’s relatable for people that are struggling with mental disabilities. So, we wrote that hopefully to just comfort those people.

Savannah: Yeah, because everybody has their struggles, and everyone can get in their head sometimes. So, it’s a song addressing that and that’s what’s happening and it’s more of a song of like, “Okay, this is happening. But I’m okay with that and I’m going to accept that part of me so then I can become better.”

What could one expect from a live Duplexity show?
Savannah: Tons of energy. Luke is more of a talker. He loves addressing with the crowd. Sometimes he cusses depending on the venue, and yeah, Luke’s got a lot of energy. I feel like…

Luke: We both do.

Savannah: We both do, but I feel like I’m more of the sly, “I’m there” and…

Luke: Well, you’re there, yeah!

Savannah: Yes, I’m there. We have a ton of energy and yes, we do have some calm songs. But the energy…

Luke: But expect a lot of guitar, and lot of bass, and a lot of drums. We love all rock and roll loud music. That’s what we love.

You did a movie with Nicole Kidman called Bombshell. What was that experience like and what was it like working with Nicole Kidman? She’s awesome!
Savannah: It was really amazing. I’ve never seen acting like that before. The first day that we met her, it was like she knew us her whole life basically. She prepared for the role and everything. Before we did our scenes and stuff, she was like, “Can I hold you guys and hug you?” And stuff like that so that I guess she could get the connection. The next day, she had to do this really emotional scene and she did it like 20 times. And every single time, she was emotional and cried every freaking time.

Luke: Yeah, knocked it out of the park.

Savannah: I see why she’s an Oscar winner. It was an amazing experience. It was really awesome to watch, and the director was amazing, too. And he knew exactly how to place us and how to direct us.

What are some best and worst parts about being in a band with your sibling?
Savannah: The best part is that we can both really rely on each other.  There’s not a lot of drama that happens. We get each other and we can both criticize each other in a friendly way of like, “Hey, bro, I think you could do this better.” And he’s like, “I think you could do this better too.” But we do get on each other’s nerves quite a bit. We like to talk on each other.

Luke: But we know each other more than we know ourselves in a way. We’ve been together our whole lives. We’re like one and the same person. We have the same brain.

What has it been like playing legendary venues here in town such as the Troubadour and The Viper Room?
Savannah: It’s been amazing.

Luke: The Troubadour was so awesome. We had a giant crowd, and the sound was fantastic. For Demons, I played a solo and that was the first time with the guitar because for some reason my guitar’s always too quiet, but at The Troubadour it sounded amazing. Yeah, it was great, and the sound guys were awesome. The whole venue was just an amazing experience.

Savannah: We’re super excited to be playing The Viper Room. It’s our first adult crowd venue – 21-plus. So, we’re really excited.  It’ll be a different scene for us, because we usually have a lot of teens in our crowd. But now we’re moving up.

You did a show in New York City.  What was that experience like?
Luke: We did two shows in New York. We did one for a party, and then we did a fashion show. The fashion show is really cool, but we didn’t bring our instruments. So, we were just singing to a track. That was super cool because we were like on a runway, and we did Billboards. But yeah, that was a great experience. The party, mostly the same thing, it was to a track, but we weren’t lip syncing or anything. We were singing. But that one is super cool. The sound there was awesome. They had some awesome PA systems there and there’s a nice crowd. So that was pretty cool.

Savannah: The New York music scene is really cool. There’s a lot of goth scenes there which is really cool. We went to one of our friend’s shows and it was just like this gothic venue. It was very, very cool. It was just completely different. Rock and folk scene, just really cool.

How close are you guys to releasing new music? Anything on the way?
Savannah: Yes, we will be releasing a new single perhaps in the next few months or even at the end of April. So, stay tuned.

Luke: Then we’re coming out with hopefully a new EP.   That’ll be a little further down the line, but we have them almost all ready. So, it’s exciting.

And then acting-wise, what’s coming up?
Savannah: It’s pretty slow in the industry at the moment, but we do have some music videos that will be coming out, and we shot those with one of our favorite directors, Michael Feifer. So, we’re really excited about that. We did a few movies with him. So, it’s pretty cool that we went from little kids on camera to what we are now.

Luke: Yeah, musicians.

Then anything else happening in the near future.
Savannah: We’re just going to keep playing shows, keep doing what we’re doing. And we’re just really excited for what the future holds.  We’re having a lot of fun.

(Interview by Ken Morton – Photos by Jack Lue at Dystopian Studios)

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