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Hailing from Atlanta, Watch The Duck are a three-piece powerhouse who have been making major waves in the past year with their high-energy, bass-filled hip-hop sound. Spearheading the Trap Step genre — which is described as a cross between trap rap and dub step — Eddie Smith III, Jesse Rankins and Jonathan Wells are doing it their way and there’s no denying that they’re doing it well. Strangely, they are doing it well with the help of a duck.
“He literally showed up and hung out with us. It was kind of weird because we were playing and doing all these cool stuff, but for the whole time everybody was just watching the duck,” they explained about their first get-together. The duck is somewhat of a probing entity and dynamic character who appears in most of their videos and onstage at many of their live shows. Read below as we discuss their journey, their plans for the future, anatidaephobia and the morphology of the ideal groupie.
RESPECT.: If you had to play me one song, and you could only choose one song to introduce yourselves, what song would you choose?
Jesse: ‘Return of the Gangster’ by Outkast.
Eddie: ‘Beautiful One’ by Prince.
Jonathan: ‘Who Dat’ by JT Money.
How did you find your debut show in London? Were the audience any better than those in Atlanta?
Jesse: Our first gig in Atlanta was at a house party. We would throw parties every Sundays and invite people without them knowing that it was an actual show. Our friends would literally come over and we would perform and sneak in our original stuff just to see people’s reactions. And that’s what our show in London was kind of like – our personal friends, business friends and friends of friends – it was probably one of the most intimate shows we’ve had on our whole European run. We saw people who haven’t seen in like seven or eight years. It felt good to end on a high.
What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you onstage?
Eddie: The duck fell over twice in Berlin [laughs]. This was all within a minute interval – we’ve got it recorded somewhere.
Your sound has been categorised as electronic and SoulDubstep. How would you describe your music to someone who’s never heard it before?
Jesse: We cannot even categorise it ourselves. It changes everyday. It started off as soul and dubstep and now we’ve incorporated a lot of trap, hip hop and island influences.
Eddie: I jus think our style is pretty much whatever you want to call it.
I really like “Round Here-Dreams,” from your mixtape, Anatidaephobia. I think the collab with Trinidad Jame$ is quite infectious.
Jesse: We’ve got the video for that coming out after we’ve finished editing it. We shot it with Trinidad in Atlanta before we left. It’s our fourth video that we’ll be releasing and we’re excited about it.
Is Trinidad Jame$ a friend? How did you end up working together?
Jonathan: It was mainly just through mutual friends. He was doing his thing in Atlanta. We were also doing our thing and digging each other’s style and music. I think Twitter also helped– especially with a lot of people sending tweets back and forth to us both.
In it, Trinidad James says he “Always wanted what he couldn’t have.” What exactly does he want?
Eddie: Basically, what he’s saying is that we all have dreams and goals that we want to accomplish. There are different symbols to our dreams – he is saying it from a man’s prospective. It’s kind of like when you reach your dreams you always tend to end up with the baddest women.
The name of your mixtape, Anatidaephobia is defined as “The fear that you are being watched by a duck.” Where did the inspiration for the title come from?
Jesse: That word came up during a dinner conversation with some friends. We have a lot of friends who know random and useless information which are interesting. They brought up the word and were like, ‘Anatidaephobia is the fear that a duck is always watching you.’ At first, we though they were bullshitting, but then we found out that it is an actual phobia which one hundred and ninety thousand people suffer from. It was just so awkward but real to us at the same time. I remember as soon as we heard it – we knew we wanted to do something with it. Usually when we do a body of work and after the body of work, we would then name the body of work. But with this one we had the name first, and all that remained for us to do was to create something which represented us musically and visually.
Manchester United Footballer Rio Ferdinand recently said on Twitter that he really likes your track “Poppin’ Off”. What were your early expectations?
Jessie: Usually we don’t keep our phones connected to our Twitter accounts, but it kept going all through the night, and I was like, ‘What the fuck is going on’? Then we came to find out that he said he liked our track, which we thought was dope. To be honest, it’s exciting because on one hand we maybe poppin’ off, but we didn’t really have any expectations as we literally made the song for ourselves. We were frustrated and that’s how we pretty much made the record.
You repeatedly state in the song, “Somethin’ pissed me off”. Who was it that upset you?
Jonathan: [laughs] I mean have you ever just felt like, you’ve been up against a brick wall and nobody really understands what you’re doing? You’ve got ideas and you want to share it with people – but then they don’t want to acknowledge you? It’s like they always have a reason as to why something is not going to work, why it works better if you did it this way, why you should do it their way? Well, that’s what pissed us off. People didn’t really get us but now we are showing them.
So your name Watch The Duck, is that something inspired from a cartoon show, or a childhood pet?
Jessie: It would have been a way better story if it came from a childhood pet [laughs].
Eddie: It actually came from us being in the music industry and working around different people. Everybody wants to be smooth on top of the water. Nobody wants to show that they are kicking their feet, struggling to stay afloat. It was something we came up with from being in those environments where folks were pretending to be something they were not. We would always say ‘Watch The Duck’ whenever we were in certain situations. And every now and then, we even say it to each other.
Of all the animals in the world, how did a duck wind up in the group?
Jesse: We have been saying that term [Watch The Duck] now for about six years, then coincidently we happen to meet the duck after he came to one of our house parties in Atlanta. He literally showed up and hung out with us. In some ways, it was kind of weird because we were playing and doing all these cool stuff, but for the whole time everybody was just watching the duck. It’s not something you see everyday, but it works because the duck is such a great symbol that represents all of us.
You were signed to Epic Records by L.A. Reid. How did you meet?
Jonathan: Our good friend Dave Picardo, who we have been working with for years, heard ‘Poppin’ Off’ and liked it so much, he started calling all of his friends. One of those friends was Tricky Stewart, who played it to L.A., and before we knew it they both flew over to Atlanta to meet with us. They heard some more of our records and what we were about – from there it was a good match. We met a lot of people along the way but L.A., and Tricky were more in-tuned to how we wanted to push forward. It was a blessing.
In any advice or meetings, was L.A. Reid ever like, “In the next few years, ya’ll might wanna start your own label. That shit will make you a lot of papers?”
Jesse: [laughs] The thing we like about L.A. is that he wants everybody to be as great as they possibly can be. He’s always telling us that he likes what we are doing, and that we should work hard so everybody knows who we are. He also knows we are big fans of Outkast, so he constantly tells us stories about how similar we are, and how revolutionary they were during their time. It’s good to hear background stuff like that especially as he was there with them from day one.
Would you still be doing music if it weren’t so financially rewarding?
Eddie: To be honest, we are not an overnight success story. At one stage, we were doing this and not making any money [laughs]. I am not going to call any names, but there was this particular A&R person, who used to look at us like we were crazy like, ‘Why are ya’ll mixing all these sounds together, ya’ll need to choose a sound and stick with it.” We have spent more years not making money with this sound, than we have been making money. This can be taken away from us today and we’d still find a way to do it. It’s definitely all love.
Has that particular moment happened yet, where you’ve said, “We’re doing great and many people really seem to be admiring our music”?
Jonathan: Everyday. And it is really cool to be flying around the world. We don’t see our shows as normal gigs, they are just parties, and since we’ve been on tour it’s been a party everyday since.
What’s the best Watch The Duck song to make love to?
[They all agree on] ‘Lost In It’ and ‘Poppin’ Off’ from their EP, ‘Anatidaephobia’.
What essentials do you carry with you when on tour?
Jesse: Each one of us carries around a mini keyboard. These little keyboards can fit anywhere – you can throw it in the book bag, and you can whip it out on the plane or on the train. If we didn’t have these keyboards, I don’t know how we’d cope as we spend so much time on the road.
What’s a Watch The Duck groupie like?
Eddie: To be specific – they can have long or short hair, but they must have nice thighs and nice booties.
What’s next for you guys?
Jonathan: A lot more shows and working with loads of different artists.
Jesse: We’ve also got a remix for the EP coming out in July, along with the next two videos for ‘Round Here-Dreams’ and ‘Girlfriend’. But once we complete the video for ‘Girlfriend’ we are going to put it all together and make one short film. All of our videos when you put them together tell an entire story with the ending being ‘Poppin’ Off’ – we’re looking forward to putting that out. And right now we are cutting the album while on the road. Every night, we do something new on stage, whether it is a song or an idea and that’s how we want the album to be – we want it to be born on stage before taking it to the studio.
‘Anatidaephobia’ by Watch The Duck is out now. Click here to download the EP for free.