Interview: Slalom D

As I sit and sip a nice, crisp pale ale I wish I could say that this was my first Monday lunch time tipple at Sunderland’s Diego’s Joint. However, as seen as it has become perhaps my favourite hangout in the city since it opened its doors back in 2022, it just would not be true. On this occasion though, I am here not simply to enjoy a beer or two in the Sunniside areas most inclusive, creative community space, bar and cafe, but today I do so in the company of a woman I consider to be one of the city’s most recognisable people. Fiona “Fe” Duncan has been a welcoming face behind many of the city’s bars over the years, a familiar voice at regular pub quiz nights, a frequent presence at gigs across the region, and has worked within her community in more ways than I really have the time to describe. She is an artist, a writer and a published children’s author and illustrator. She is passionate, free-thinking, and is resolute and headstrong in her beliefs and the things that are important to her. Given that her values seem to very closely align with the values of her current employer and the building in which she works, it very much feels as though Fe and Diego’s Joint were destined to find one another. There is no more fitting place to sit and catch up, shoot the breeze, and put the world to rights. 

“I get to do outreach, I get to do teaching, I get to paint the walls. It’s a pretty good gig, really. We did have one of the local residents say “You’re like a little lighthouse on Sunniside, because you’re open every night. So on a Tuesday evening when everything else is closed, your light is on and it’s somewhere to be if we need to be somewhere.” I loved that. 

Of all of her creative endeavours, I am here to talk with her about one of them in particular today. Fe is also the lead singer in the local punk band Slalom D, who are due to release their third full-length album titled, I Choose My Own Way to Burn, via Serial Bowl Records on 11th September. The following the band have amassed over the last seven years has grown and their launch show, fittingly at Diego’s Joint, very swiftly sold out. How we got here and the road travelled however is complicated and wrought with pain. What started with a close friend asking her if she would go and see his band, would result in her fronting the very same band today. When original singer Craig Macbeth sadly passed away in 2019, the remaining founding members of the band Gary Roberts (guitar), Tony Lindstedt (bass) and Iain Murray (drums) would blindside her with a request she wouldn’t have ever seen coming when they asked to continue on – with Fe taking over lead vocal duties. 

“Craig being on my shoulder is never going to go away. I have this amazing opportunity and I get to have all of these amazing experiences and I only get to have them because my mate died. It’s always going to be tinged with that. I’m always going to feel kind of unworthy. I’ll never forget who’s this was. I’ll always feel massively grateful.”

The footprint of punk rock is all over the history of the city and Slalom D joined a healthy stable of Sunderland punk bands such as Red London, Red Alert, Loudmouth and Hifi Spitfires. From the 70s to the current day, punk has had a home in Sunderland. Young bands continue to emerge on wearside, such as Dead Wet Things, Claudia and even teenage duo Trivia. With such young voices making noise on Wearside in 2026 and at a time where Sunderland is undergoing the biggest musical and cultural regeneration in its history, I was keen to know how Fe feels Slalom D fit in to the current climate. 

“I don’t know whether we do fit in. I think we kind of do but it’s that old guard feeling. Do we still have something to say? I think we do. I think we, the old guard, contributed in tiny little ways to keep a very small scene alive, to keep little venues and businesses, like The Bunker and Willies Drum Shop, alive, so that when people were ready, it was all still there. It’s an amazing time to be a mackem.”

Slalom D’s latest album I Choose My Own Way to Burn is lyrically diverse and explores a range of vastly differing topics, from the bravery and the courage of Gisèle Pelicot (Merci Madame), to The White Rose intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany (White Rose), to Fe’s beloved Sunderland (Harbour Walls). Harbour Walls, a lead single from the album, has been called a love letter to Sunderland, which it is, but it also acknowledges some hard truths. 

“Harbour Walls means a lot. There’s this idea, from some, that Sunderland is a shit hole. Believe me, when you travel about, you see that we are doing really well and we have a lot to be proud of. There’s this idea that every brown face you see in Sunderland is an immigrant and is here illegally. All of a sudden, the boat rhetoric felt ridiculous. We have always been a harbour. We’ve been a port since it was three mud huts. You are welcome here. If you have lived here all your life or if you got here yesterday, you are welcome here. That’s it in a nutshell, and it felt important to say that because of all the voices saying something different.”

There is a personal truth and a personal attachment behind most of Fe’s lyrics. On another lead single from the record, Fe has penned what could be her most personal lyrics to date. Same Refrain is a melodic, heartfelt and emotionally-charged song that explores her own fathers suffering with dementia as well as his distress and the toll it can take on those closest to him. It has thus far proven to be a challenge to perform on stage. 

“Most of the time I don’t get through it live. Sometimes I can distract myself and focus on something else but, and I think it maybe goes hand in hand with being neurospicy, I have a little video playing in my head while I’m singing it and so I’m living in the moment. I’m thinking about my dad and I’m seeing my dad and so nine times out of ten I’m going to crack. It’s my own fault for writing it!”

The line-up of Slalom D has continued to evolve, even since their previous offering, 2023s ‘Waltz into Anarchy’. Stepping in to replace Andrew “Goober” Scobie on keys is Lisa Lindstedt and Antony Bircham has taken over lead guitar duties from the departing Gary Roberts. The unmistakable Slalom D sound is still very much alive and well yet the 12 songs on this record most certainly have an audible energy provided by the new blood running through its veins. This is no more obvious than on the biggest vibe shift and the biggest departure from the norm on the album, a track entitled Bloody Mary. A ghoulish and brooding keys-heavy number about one of Sunderland’s most notorious residents. 

“Why would you not want to write a song about Mary Ann Cotton?” Fe asks with an almost giddy enthusiasm. “I love my horror. I’m a massive horror nerd. I’ve also written plenty of songs about women who have historically done something of note, She was the first British female serial killer! I’m not condoning serial killing” she laughs “but Tony was saying we should write something about people of note in Sunderland and I just honed in on her. With that music they gave me, it wrote itself.”

The bands new album has already spawned some live favourites before it has even been released and there are a number of songs I already cannot imagine the band ever failing to include in a set, possibly no more so than Cosmic Light. 

“It’s very Mud, it’s very The Sweet, it’s very Slade. I grew up in the 70s. We are all of that age. That’s who we were dancing to. We all love those bands. We wanted to write a song with a glam vibe, and that idea collided with starting to see more and more transphobic stuff online and hearing it in person. What really frustrated me was that it was people our age. What, did you sleep through the 70s and the 80s? Why are you confused about pronouns and trans when it feels as though we invented it? We obviously didn’t but we embraced it! We lived through that period of chucking all the rules out and getting the dressing-up box out and now, fifty years later, it doesn’t seem to make sense any more. Were you listening to Queen? Were you watching The Eurthymics? It was just there. It was open. It was visible and from what I remember, yes it was a dangerous time for people, but the vast majority of us embraced it.  I don’t understand why we are going backwards, especially people my age. Cosmic Light is for Rocky Horror. I’d run into all these blokes at punk gigs who had regressed and think “I went to Rocky Horror with you, in the early 80s!” We were all wearing fishnets. We were all doing The Timewarp. How can you just forget all of that and dismiss it now? You have been around this your whole life!”

Slalom D are a band with plenty to say. Each album has explored a range of themes, whether it be societal, historical or personal. This new album is no different. I would argue that the range of themes explored on I Choose My Own Way to Burn is the most diverse yet. I would argue that Fe has written her most personal lyrics yet on this album and perhaps that it is also the bands most melodic and tuneful record to date. It can be enjoyed on a surface level but also offering great depths should you wish to delve into the meanings of the songs. The beautiful vinyl release is really the best way to enjoy it, as it comes with a lyrics and photo booklet to explain in greater detail the meanings and the themes contained within. “I don’t mind people interpreting the songs in their own way. It’s not massively important that people know what it is we’re writing about but in some instances it would be nice for those people to wonder what it is we are writing about it. I just hope people enjoy it. We’ve worked hard on it. “