Stephen Duffy

Stephen Anthony James Duffy (born May 30, 1960 in Birmingham, West Midlands, England) is a British songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist. He has recorded as a solo act under several different names, and is the lead singer for the group The Lilac Time. He has also co-written many songs with Robbie Williams, and Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies. Names he has used, both as a member of a group and solo, include: Steven Dufait (on posters advertising gigs by a pre-signed Duran Duran), Stevie Duffy (on the The Hawks' single, "Words Of Hope" (1980)), Stephen AJ Duffy, Stephen "Tintin" Duffy, Duffy.

Duran Duran & Other Early Work
While attending Birmingham Polytechnic (now University of Central England), he and school friend John Taylor formed an obscure, arty new romantic group called Duran Duran, along with Taylor's non-student friend Nick Rhodes. Duffy was the lyricist and vocalist, but left both the school and the band in 1979, well before their 1980 signing with EMI.

From there, he formed the band Obviously Five Believers, sometimes known as The Hawks, and did his first four-track recordings. Their only single, "Words of Hope", was released in 1980.

Tin Tin
In 1982, he created the band Tin Tin with Mulligan and Dik Davies [deceased] (both formerly of Fashion), Andy "Stoker" Growcott (of Dexys Midnight Runners) and Bob Lamb (original producer of Birmingham band UB40). The band was signed with WEA Records in the UK, and released the song "Kiss Me", which went to #155 on the UK chart. By 1983, Tin Tin had signed with Sire Records in the US, and "Kiss Me" hit the dance charts there as well. Another single, "Hold It", was also released in 1983.

After a long stint working in the US, Duffy returned to England and signed another deal, this time with Virgin 10, and worked on recording his first full album, The Ups and Downs (produced by Stephen Duffy, Booker T. Jones, J.J. Jeczalik, Nicholas Froome and Stephen Street), under the name Stephen "Tintin" Duffy, a nickname parodied by BBC Radio 1 DJs as 'Stephen "Duff-Duff" Tinny'. A re-recorded "Kiss Me" single was released in 1984, this time only in the local West Midlands area, followed by a nationwide release of "She Makes Me Quiver".

At the end of 1984, Duffy recorded a third version of "Kiss Me" with Nicholas Froome and J.J. Jeczalik (a programmer at Trevor Horn's ZTT Records, who was also a member of Art of Noise). The new version of "Kiss Me" was released on February 25, 1985. It debuted at Number 22, peaked at Number 4, and stayed in the UK top 10 for 5 weeks. It was the last song played on the medium wave service of Radio 1 before it became an FM only station, at 9am on July 1, 1994. The third single released from the Ups and Downs album was "Icing on the Cake".

"Unkiss That Kiss", released in September 1985, was the first single from the album Because We Love You released in early 1986; additional singles from the album were "I Love You" and "Something Special". He was then dropped from the Virgin 10 label.

He also recorded an album in 1986 called Designer Beatnik with Roger Freeman of Pigbag, released under the name Dr. Calculus. The album's two singles were "Programme 7" and "Perfume from Spain".

Reference to The Adventures Of Tintin
Stephen Druffy decided to name his band in honour of a Belgian Comic character, Tintin who was created by Herge'. He even went on to name the Tin Tin group single 'Kiss Me' Tintin. The name was forced to be dropped due to copyright restrictions set by Moulinsart and The Herge Foundation. He even had Tintin as his nickname and released an album under the name of one of the characters in The Adventures of Tintin, Professor Cuthbert Calculus. The album was Dr. Calculus.

The Lilac Time
In 1986, he began writing and recording music that would become The Lilac Time's first album, released on Swordfish Records. The album, entitled The Lilac Time, came out in November 1987 and was subsequently reissued in remixed form by Fontana on February 8, 1988.

The group originally consisted of Stephen Duffy, his elder brother Nick Duffy, and friend Michael Weston, who recorded the first album together; Michael Giri and Fraser Kent joined when the band was ready to go on tour. (See The Lilac Time for more detail on the band's history.)

In 1991, the band split up (temporarily, as it turned out) and Stephen Duffy subsequently pursued a solo career.

Solo
The 1993 album Music In Colours (Parlophone) was recorded with Nigel Kennedy, and featured the singles "Natalie" and "Holte End Hotel".

During this period, he co-wrote several songs that appeared on the 1994 Barenaked Ladies album "Maybe You Should Drive": "Jane", "Everything Old is New Again", "Alternative Girlfriend", and "The Wrong Man Was Convicted."

The next album was called simply Duffy, released August 1995 on Indolent Records. "London Girls" and "Sugar High" went to the top 10 on the UK indie chart, but "Needle Mythology" did not. ("Starfit" was also released as a single in the US.) The album was reissued on CD in 2000 by BMG Fun House.

He participated in a temporary supergroup called Me Me Me, consisting of Duffy, Alex James of Blur, Justin Welch of Elastica and Charlie Bloor. The one-off single "Hanging Around" was released August 5, 1996 and reached Number 19 on the UK chart.

Duffy then left Indolent Records in the summer of 1997, just before the album I Love My Friends was to be released. The album was picked up by Cooking Vinyl Records, which released the singles "17" and "You Are".

Virgin released a compilation album entitled They Called Him Tin Tin in 1999, with tracks chosen by Duffy.

The Devils
In 1999, Duffy found a tape recording of 1978-1979 (pre-Simon Le Bon) Duran Duran music in storage; shortly after, he had a chance meeting with Nick Rhodes, Duran's keyboardist. Reminiscences led to a desire to collaborate, and they ended up re-recording the music on the tape. They did not change any of the lyrics, and used only late-70s-era instruments, but brought modern production techniques to the project. The result was the quirky album Dark Circles, released under the name The Devils.

Return to The Lilac Time
Finally, Duffy reunited with other members of The Lilac Time, releasing Looking For A Day In The Night in 1999, and lilac6 in 2001. Compendium - The Fontana Trinity, a collection of tracks from their first three out-of-print albums, was also released in 2001.

The album Keep Going was released in 2003 under the name 'Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time', to the usual critical acclaim and limited commercial success.

Work with Robbie Williams & Steven Page
Duffy's songwriting ability earned him his first Number 1 in October 2004 as the co-writer of the Robbie Williams single "Radio", one of two new tracks recorded for Williams' Greatest Hits album. "Radio" was released at exactly the same time as "(Reach Up for the) Sunrise", the comeback single from Duran Duran after the 2004 reunion of their "original" line-up (or at least the first line-up to gain massive exposure). Duran Duran peaked at number 5 in the official UK Singles Chart the week that the Williams/Duffy collaboration went straight in at number 1.

In October 2005, the Robbie Williams album Intensive Care was released. Fully co-written and co-produced by Stephen Duffy, it gained him much exposure and critical acclaim. Duffy went on to work as the musical director and guitarist for the Robbie Williams Close Encounters world tour in support of the album.

In 1987 Duffy was contacted by Steven Page, then of the band Scary Movie Breakfast, and was impressed by his writing and demo tape. Duffy and Page began co-writing songs. Their work together produced popular Barenaked Ladies songs like 1994's "Jane", as well as much of the material from Page's solo album "The Vanity Project".