Wayne Petti Doing Double-Duty These Days

When Wayne Petti picked up the phone, there was a nerve-rattling din of disconnected voices and instruments clattering about, all of it firmly in the foreground. I was struggling to figure out if I even had him on the phone.

"It's just chaos here," he explains. "I'm rehearsing and we were about to take a break, but where we rehearse there are other bands that are rehearsing. I'm trying to find a quiet spot."

Petti is in the midst of rehearsing with Cuff The Duke, getting ready for the celebration of the re-release of their Three Gut debut, Life Stories For Minimum Wage. It's been out of print for more than a year and has just marked its fifth birthday.

"It's weird," says Petti. "It makes us feel old. It's good though. I'm glad it's finally back out."

While it would stand to reason that they're re-releasing the record because of some sort of anniversary, it was actually Petti's deal for the March 9 release of his City Lights Align solo debut that led to Outside (which distributed Life Stories when it first came out) resurrecting CTD's excellent debut from the now defunct and sorely missed Three Gut.

"[Life Stories] had been out of print for a while, and then Outside actually approached me about putting out my solo record, and I was like, 'Yeah, this is a really good opportunity,'" says Petti. "I said, 'Why don't we work into the deal that you guys re-release Life Stories as well?'

"And they were like, 'Yeah, fuck, totally.'"

In stark contrast to the raucous Cuff The Duke, Petti's solo effort is a collection of soft spoken acoustic numbers that he says "started off when I recorded some songs for my girlfriend, and it grew into a whole album." Petti tapped his Hylozoists bandmate and Cuff producer Paul Aucoin to record City Lights.

"With Paul, we're such good friends, we can be honest," Petti says. "We have a pretty good working relationship just because we play with each other so much."

Faithful fans will notice that the track list for City Lights Align bears a striking resemblance to the self-pressed Untitled that Petti's been peddling at shows since last year. But Petti notes that while the titles are the same, "I actually remixed songs and finished 'All Of The Time.' It's actually completed now."

Juggling different projects doesn't seem to phase Petti in the least. In fact, he seems eerily pragmatic about the whole thing.

"It's almost mathematical how well it's worked out. By the end of March, Cuff The Duke will be done recording, so it frees me up to be able to go on the road to promote the solo record. And then the new Cuff record will come out.

"We have two shows this weekend for the re-release of Life Stories, and we're actually going into the studio next week, so we're gonna play a bunch of new stuff and a bunch of old stuff."

See if you can snag any remaining tickets for Cuff The Duke's re-release party at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern on Saturday. Or if you happen to be in Kingston, Ontario, you can try and catch their show at the Grad Club on Friday.