Peter Duffy is the keyboardist for upcoming London pop duo Man Like Me. You’ll usually find him in the kitchen at parties…

I Googled “Man Like Me” and what comes up is a country album by Bobby Pinson and a rom-com movie. So which are you named after?
Neither. It comes from pirate radio. You’d always hear the MCs on pirate radio shouting people out or mentioning people and so it would be “Man like Peter” or “Man like Johnny” and I always thought 
it was a weird thing to say, instead of just saying Peter or Johnny.  It was just like slang, which I think originates from Jamaica but I really don’t know for sure.

Your song Single Dad is like a tenties version of The Specials Much Too Much, Much Too Young. Was that writtten from personal experience?
Johnny [Langer, lead singer] had just had a baby before he wrote that song. He’s not actually a single dad though, he’s one half of a functioning parenting couple. He was 22 when it happened. It was a turn up for the books – it caused a bit of a stir.

You feature in an advert for IKEA kitchens singing Jona Lewie’s classic hit tune You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties. And Jona’s in the advert. How do you get a gig like that?
We got this breathless message from our manager saying we had an audition. We turned up and made a real pig’s ear of it. But I think we made enough of a mark to get invited back for a second audition and we spent the next 24 hours properly brushing it up.

Was it fun to shoot?
There’s a bit where me and Johnny have 
to be in the fridge at the same time and they’re pumping steam in there so when they open the door it looks like an icy fridge but there was also loads of dry ice on the floor as well. We were told: “Ifyou touch it, you’ll have to have it surgically removed from your skin.”

What’s Jona Lewie like?
A really nice guy. We had to study a load of videos of his, and he looks a bit moody and pretty unapproachable. We shot it in Romania and just found him to be really nice. I thought he might be a bit cagey about us performing his song for him but he couldn’t have beeen more friendly about it and really not-up-his-own-arse. 
It was almost like having an uncle on set.

So are you two always in 
the kitchen at parties?
Yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time 
in kitchens at parties … I was talking to Jona about it and he said that [in the 80s] it was the uncool place to be. All the cool people would be upstairs 
dancing in the sitting 
room but everyone 
you speak to now spends loads of time 
in the kitchen at parties – it’s the hub.
Did you get a free kitchen from IKEA?
He [Jona] did. We didn’t.



So you don’t feel soiled by using 
your talents to sell kitchens?
I dunno. I know other bands got asked 
to do it and turned it down – we didn’t think like that at all. It just seemed fun more than anything else. We only thought about the implications afterwards, that if it was really cringeful, it would be terrible but we really didn’t think about it in too much depth. I’d do another one to be honest.


What song is guaranteed to 
get you on the dancefloor?

Return Of The Mack, by Mark Morrison.

Biggest phobia?
Giving blood.

What did you have 
for breakfast?
First was peanut butter and honey on toast with a banana then I had my special seed-mix muesli.


» Performing at XOYO, 32-37 Cowper Street, EC2A 4AP  Old Street (0207 490 1198). Wed, Jan, 26. £8.

 

Alison Grinter