Ducks Ltd. When You’re Outside

About

Ducks Ltd. have shared a chiming new single “When You’re Outside,” produced by Dave Vettriano (Dehd, Deeper, Lala Lala) and out now via Carpark Records. Recorded during the same sessions as their acclaimed recent album Harm’s Way, the song is anchored by a soaring chorus that sees singer/lyricist Tom McGreevy backed by harmonies from Julia Steiner (Ratboys) and Margaret McCarthy (Moontype). “This was one we wrote pretty early in the process for Harm’s Way, which was a period when a lot of country-leaning ideas were working their way into our arrangements. I’d demoed the harmonies in the chorus (badly), and when we were working on backing vocals with Julia and Margaret they immediately understood what we were trying to do and really elevated it,” he explains. “The song didn’t end up quite fitting in the sequence for the album, but it does a couple things we’ve never done before in a Ducks song so I’m glad we’re finding a way to put it out. It’s about trying to support someone who is making that difficult to do. Unconditional love in a sense. Or at least love with limited conditions.”

Artist Bio

Ducks Ltd. are a Toronto band featuring Australian lead guitarist Evan Lewis and U.K-born, U.S.-raised singer, bassist, and rhythm guitarist Tom McGreevy. As Ducks Ltd., the two thrive on skirting the edges of buoyant jangle pop and driving power pop. Their latest album, Harm’s Way, contains anxious songs that McGreevy explains are “about struggling. About watching people I care for suffer, and trying to figure out how to be there for them. And about the strain of living in the world when it feels like it’s ready to collapse.”

Harm’s Way is an undeniable evolution of Ducks Ltd.’s songwriting process. Where their critically acclaimed 2021 debut Modern Fiction and 2019 EP Get Bleak were self-recorded and self-produced in a Toronto basement, here, they made an LP in Chicago with producer Dave Vettraino and some of their favorite musicians. These collaborators include Finom’s Macie Stewart, Ratboys’ Julia Steiner and Marcus Nuccio, Dehd’s Jason Balla, Moontype’s Margaret McCarthy, Lawn’s Rui De Magalhaes, Dummy’s Nathan O’Dell, and Patio’s Lindsey-Paige McCloy. Ducks Ltd.’s touring drummer Jonathan Pappo also appears on the LP. 

The band first showed this collaborative streak on a 2023 covers EP, which featured guests like Mo Troper, Ratboys, Illuminati Hotties, and Jane Inc. that boasted renditions of songs by The Cure, The Feelies, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Where those songs started as ideas on days off from tour, Harm’s Way is also a product of writing on the road while supporting acts like Nation of Language and Archers of Loaf. “When we got signed, we had played maybe five or six shows ever,” says McGreevy. “After last year, it’s well in the hundreds. Those things change your perception of your own music and songwriting.” 

This well-earned and road-tested confidence made the making of this LP their most intuitive and organic yet. “Our relationship is built on trust and we don’t let our egos come into the creative process in any way,” says Lewis. “We have this really great thing where every decision with the band is filtered through both of us. Here especially, we really figured out how to make something that truly sounds like us.”