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CHUCK PARKER
Vocals/Bass
SHANNON HAWORTH
Drums
RON REUST
Guitar
ZOE MADISON
Guitar/Backing Vocals
Since 2011, Duke City Riots have been serving up an original and highly combustible blend of hard rock, punk, and rockabilly, earning multiple New Mexico Music Awards (NMMA) nominations with every release—-their debut EP OK to Burn in 2013; their first full-length album, Land of Entrapment in 2015; and in November 2023, Worst Case Scenario, arguably their most sophisticated and butt-kicking release to date.
The group started out as a jam session between vocalist and bassist Charlton “Chuck” Parker, who covers all the territory between head-exploding rage and disorienting heartbreak, and Shannon Haworth, who thought he’d be playing guitar until Parker parked him behind a drum kit belonging to Haworth’s wife. The two of them worked up an EP’s worth of original material and, on the advice of NMMA founder Jose Ponce, contacted John Wall to record their tunes. Just days before their recording date, Parker and Haworth decided bass and drums needed a guitar, and Haworth contacted Ron Reust, a veteran rockabilly guitarist who hadn’t played for a couple of years. “I’ve known Shannon. I met his brother in art school and met Shannon a little after that,” says Reust. Through the years, Shannon and I have always joked, ‘Someday we’ll be in a band together.’” A week later, the three, who jelled immediately, were in Wall’s studio, and they’ve been at it ever since.
They recently added rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist, Zoe Madison, a longtime fan. “I met Chuck three years ago,” says Madison. “He showed me his music, and it was the best thing I ever heard.” She started jamming with Parker and hanging out at practices. “We did one practice with her—-“ says Parker, “—-and we were sold,” finishes Reust.
Parker, the band’s songwriter, is intimately acquainted with life’s difficulties, having escaped his family’s suffocating expectations, only to disappear into “an existential doom spiral” fueled by alcohol and drugs. “I describe it as a slingshot of dysfunction,” he says. He survived and funnels his despair and rage into the music, his vocal performances, which recall the raw, exasperated energy of the late Shane MacGowan of The Pogues, and his standup comedy routines.
With Worst Case Scenario, whose songs the group started developing as far back as 2017, Parker would bring “the skeletal structure” of a song to practice. “I have the chords, the arrangement, and all of that stuff,” he says, “and then everybody puts their—-“ “extra sauce in it,” adds Reust, a graphic artist whose extra sauce includes the album’s artwork.
Maintaining that sort of collaborative approach for 13 years requires commitment and a sense of humor. “From the very beginning, [Chuck] and I said let’s just keep it fun. If there’s a part where it feels like too much work or too businessy or whatever, we’ll take a break, and we’ve never had to do that,” says Haworth, whose degree in business management from UNM has made him the band’s numbers nerd. “That’s always been in the forefront. Let’s keep it fun.” Fun it may be, but in the studio, the band is focused on every detail and ready to do take after take to get exactly what they want. That approach results in music that gets to the heart of the matter without a wasted note.
Right now, the band is focused on getting its music to the ears of an audience that they believe is looking for what the band has to offer. See if you’re a member of that audience by heading to dukecityriots.com or the band’s Facebook, Instagram, and Bandcamp pages. Head to the Launchpad on July 18 for the vinyl release party.
Mel Minter of Albuquerque The Magazine
and Musically Speaking (melminter.com)
