Project Spotlight #20: Who Are The Duke Boys

By the early to mid 90's, Harry and Jason had been involved in several music projects. But not since their earliest days had they done anything with just the two of them. So as the band The Spartans came to an end around 1993, Harry and Jason continued playing together in garages and bedrooms for the next couple of years. They rarely played any original songs, almost all of the music from this time was cover songs from the bands that influenced them the most.

They had an occasional drummer sit in (Shawn or Danny) but most of the time they used a drum machine or had no drums. Harry played the guitar and sang while Jason played bass or drum machine.

Several of these jam sessions were recorded on video or audio but have never been released. Bootleg copies of some of them have turned up over the years. The Duke Boys slowly evolved into their next project, Isthmus. On February 5, 1995, Isthmus had their first jam session which led to the release of their first album, Electric Field Donut, in 1996. With that jam session and their new name, The Duke Boys was officially finished.

Where did the band name come from? The Dukes of Hazzard of course! Until recently, this period of their music career was considered to be early Isthmus. But all of their fans know that Isthmus wasn't created until the Electric Field Donut session in February 1995. So recently the pre-Isthmus era band was finally named. The final three choices for the project name was Outpatient, Lonely Minstrels, and The Duke Boys. The Duke Boys seemed the most appropriate since deep down inside Harry really is Bo and Jason is Luke.