Cuff the Duke’s Wayne Petti likes to imagine he’s the Band’s Robbie Robertson

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON OCT. 13, 2005

By Steve Newton

The last time Oshawa alt-country/roots-pop quartet Cuff the Duke played Vancouver, it was both opening act and backing band for downbeat anti-folk icon Hayden. CTD singer-guitarist Wayne Petti really appreciated that setup, because it gave him the opportunity to imagine he was Robbie Robertson.

“We’re all huge Band fans,” says Petti, on the line from Toronto, “and I’m a big Dylan fan. So it was kinda cool to sort of pretend to be The Band, and he [Hayden] was Bob Dylan.”

On Cuff the Duke’s new self-titled CD, Petti put himself in the shoes of another Canadian rock legend by recording the vocal for “No Sleep, No Heat” around a campfire, where you can hear the occasional crackle of sparks.

A similar backdrop worked well for Neil Young on “Will to Love”, the emotive ballad from his underrated American Stars ‘n Bars album of ’77. The outdoorsy vibe of “No Sleep, No Heat” was caught on tape while the band was doing some overdubs at drummer Matt Faris’s Ontario cottage.

The foreboding tone of “No Sleep” is a stark contrast to that set by the rocking opener, “The Future Hangs”. But even that bouncy number bears hints of darkness. “My dear friend no longer by my side,” sings Petti in the chorus, “if only you could see what you meant to me”. The album is dedicated to guitarist-keyboardist Jeff Peers’s father, Dave, who passed away while it was being made.

“I wrote some of those songs about that situation indirectly,” reveals the 24-year-old tunesmith. “A lot of time we write songs together as a band, but generally I’m the only guy who writes the lyrics, so I try and write words that we can all relate to.”

One Cuff the Duke tune that Petti didn’t pen is “There Was a Time”, which includes the line “Mom I’m not gay, Dad I’m not gay”.

“We’re actually straight,” notes Petti, whose group plays the Lamplighter on Wednesday (October 19). “But oddly enough, our bass player Paul [Lowman] wrote that song, and he showed it to us at rehearsal one day, and we were like, ‘What the hell is that about?’ He said that he was just writing about when he was a teenager and at one point both his parents asked him whether he was gay.

“So we just thought that that was pretty brilliant, and decided that there’s probably indie-rock kids all over North America who could relate to that.”