“I never really realized how much I was boxing myself in, basically out of fear and that imposter-syndrome feeling,” Duffy says. The producer’s polished first draft, Duffy says, caused equal parts shock and epiphany. Originally funereal, the first move Ashworth made was increasing tempos - while adding richly textured acoustic and electronic arrangements that firmly pushed the songs toward contemporary pop. Offered skeletal, relatively slow-paced versions composed on guitar, Sasami accepted the bones and started adding flesh. The “Fun House” demos that Duffy presented Ashworth barely resemble the finished product. “Time and time again when I think my identity doesn’t matter, some 16-year-old trans person is like, ‘Thank you for being out.’” While they haven’t wanted to make a big deal of it, they nonetheless understand the importance of trans visibility. It’s not as cut-and-dried for me.” Duffy says they began hormone treatments about two years ago. Do you want to be a man?’ To be honest with you, I don’t know. “My family is always like, ‘So you’re trans. Lifelong Velvet Underground fan Michael Stipe on discovering ‘Loaded’ on an 8-track tape, his friendship with Lou Reed and the pleasures of out-of-tune singing.Īs they were working through those emotions, early in the pandemic on Trans Visibility Day, Duffy wrote a message on Instagram that, while notable, they hadn’t exactly been hiding: “i don’t know who needs to hear this but apparently it’s trans day of visibility i’ve been taking hormones for 8 months i am learning but tbh we are always visible y’all.”Īsked about the decision to publicly acknowledge their transgender identity, Duffy clarified. Music Michael Stipe, superfan, on the ‘beautiful queerness’ of the Velvet Underground And then hearing that she played guitar, that she was often smiling and she also had a really dark side - it was so informative.” “It’s the only object of my mother’s that I have that I know that she touched. I always had ideas or fantasies - and some memories, but memory changes over time, and the void becomes a kind of context.”ĭuffy started emailing a cousin who knew their mom, and soon received a box of things belonging to her.
“I didn’t have a lot of information, and I didn’t have a lot of context for myself as somebody’s child.
It was the ‘90s and mental health was still a struggle.” In the aftermath, Duffy was raised by a few different family members but grew up with this gaping hole. Duffy has become an accomplished session guitarist, having appeared on records by Vagabon, Fruit Bats and Sylvan Esso.Īs they settled into a routine at the Log Mansion, Duffy resolved to explore the biggest mystery of their life, the suicide of their mother when Duffy was 4, both through therapy and introspection. Duffy’s Hand Habits moniker was born the same year, 2017, that their slide-guitar melodies on two War on Drugs’ songs propelled their sound into the mainstream. Born in upstate New York, Duffy received their first attention as the long-haired guitarist in folk rock singer-songwriter Morby’s band. Sasami’s heavy, distorted rock album, “Squeeze,” comes out via Domino early next year.īy then, they needed a break. So, fueled by what Ashworth calls Duffy’s lunchtime “spiritually engaged salads,” they recorded all three at the Log Mansion during the pandemic. Why would I do it anywhere else when the energy in this house is so creative and everybody’s always making music?”Īt it happened - Thomas calls it “a funny alignment” - Ashworth and Thomas had their own high-profile studio albums coming due when the coronavirus hit.
Then the whole world shut down - but there’s a studio here and these are the only people I’m seeing every day.” They had planned to record “Fun House” outside of Los Angeles, “but then it just started to become painfully obvious. “I wanted to live in a house with people I felt comfortable with. “Not to be overly mystical about this, but it all seemed really fated,” says Duffy, who wears their hair in a shaggy “Revolver"-era Beatles bob. They also address their mom in “Aquamarine,” another song on “Fun House.” “I didn’t know she played guitar ‘til I turned 27,” sings Duffy, adding a few verses later, “I never ask for details / Who the hell needs details? / When everything is burning / You light a fire on the grave.”Īn upbeat, expertly arranged exploration of questions that weigh a ton, Duffy’s Ashworth-produced, pop-adjacent album is Hand Habits’ most accomplished and adventurous so far. Like Hand Habits’ surprisingly buoyant new album, “Fun House,” the post typified the depths Duffy had been traveling to understand the foundations of their identity - and the distance that remains.
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