Is There A Doktor In The House?

A caped, hatted stranger sits in a leather armchair wearing a beaked Venetian mask. He writes a spell on a piece of paper, folds it, sets it alight and douses it in a glass of water, which is then drunk by Freder of the 1927 cult German expressionist film Metropolis. 

This is the only introduction we have to the mysterious character that is the Doktor, who has the power to travel through time and cast spells. For good? For evil? Even Daniel Dukovcic doesn't know yet. "There is a back story, we're trying to write a detailed back story. Fuck, I didn't realise you'd ask that question!" he laughs. His idea for the Doktor revolves around the legend of Robert Leroy Johnson, the American blues guitarist, who legend has it met the Devil at a crossroad at midnight, who took his guitar and tuned it. The devil played Johnson's guitar and then returned it, and in exchange for his soul, Johnson went on to create the blues music for which he was renowned.

"I spoke to the manager knowing that in a couple of years I would want to film there. Luckily he was still the manager there when I came back."

"Doktor has the ability to move through time and influence those characters, so it wasn't actually the Devil that influenced [Robert] Johnson, it was the Doktor. The story is like three quarters done," he explains. "We want to display that at [the single launch] so that people can have a better understanding of everything."

In the videoclip for his debut single Wolf Serenade, "The Doktor is making the dude in the bed [Freder] hallucinate, seeing these things coming towards him, so that whole aspect of Doktor being able to go through time is definitely something we're trying to push."

The videoclip is shot using scenes from Metropolis and spliced with black and white original footage of the Doktor, weaving the stories. "A friend of mine, we sat down and came up with the idea with the whole hallucinating thing to make the Doktor be in one room... and then [Freder] would drink the spell and be hallucinating all these crazy things."

The original footage was shot in "an upstairs cocktail function room in Hawthorn... I happened to be having dinner at that place a couple of years ago and I noticed the furniture and the room and everything there and I spoke to the manager knowing that in a couple of years I would want to film there. Luckily he was still the manager there when I came back," he jokes.

With the original line-up dissolved, the now solo Dukovcic has pieced together musicians to record his debut EP and perform live. "It doesn't have a name yet, but hopefully [the EP] will be out in six months!"

Doktor's single and video launch kicks off at Revolver on 22 Oct with Tux - a female fronted Melbourne four-piece - and Katherine Hymer in support. "In Melbourne I find there's a lot more female-fronted [acts] that play darker music... I guess I just found more female-fronted bands that I liked. It's funny, my first four choices included female artist, I didn't really think about it until now!"