Randy Joe Duke Relentless Demo 1987

I wanted to add this weird vampire song to the archives for several reasons. I'm glad I found a copy of it and it's Autumn (closing in on Samhain) my favorite time of year. So the time is right.

I've not only always loved music but, like most other kids of my era, was a huge horror fan. I especially loved vampires. Anyway, at the age of 16, just fresh from reading Anne Rice's "Interview With TheVampire" I had a very in-depth dream that inspired me to try writing it into a story. Over the next few years, many pages of my notebooks were filled with my ideas, but alas, I was no fiction writer. The idea was very strong, and very fresh at the time but I couldn't put it onto the page in any way I found satisfying.

Around the same time, I began writing songs and trying to learn enough guitar to put them to music. So the vampire idea kept creeping into my songwriting. Before long even as a fledging musician, I started cobbling together an idea of a concept album telling the story I had held on to over the years. The songs spawned from this concept became important in my journey, and led to my first all-original band being named "Nightchild" in 1981 and to the origin of several of our songs like "A Waltz In The Dark", and "Fear No Evil". Nightchild broke up in the Winter of 1987 but the ideas never left me. A few months later I was invited to record on a 4 track cassette recorder and drum machine owned by a friend of mine, Jeff Hoffman. I had never used a drum machine before so I chose this song because it was hypnotic and dynamic, but with a simple rhythm. We worked late into the Summer evening in a garage overlooking a wetlands in Franklin, Indiana with the overhead door open for air. I drove home at 4 a.m. through a thick fog with this blasting on my cassette player in my van. I thought it had been lost until very recently.

On the idea for the concept album (which I called 'Embrace The Night'), this was meant to be the last song on side 1 of the vinyl. I had many musical influences over the years but I think my love of Alice Cooper really shows through on this one, at least that was where my head was.

I have uploaded this here more for myself and for my archive, but I sincerely hope others will enjoy it. It is what it is, a recording digitally salvaged from a second or third-generation cassette dub. Still, I can attest, it was created in pure, honest, joy and love.

RJD
October 1, 2023