🎧 Approved: Ruby Duff

Ruby Duff is a lively, luminous presence on stage and off. Pop often comes with a sugar crash, but her version stays buoyant. Writing songs since she was six, she now makes eclectic alt-pop with a sharp sense of humour and a big personality. 

New single ‘Kill U While U Sleep’ is undeniably infectious and tongue-in-cheek, but still manages the heart-swelling quality of a coming-of-age film soundtrack. It’s an unconventional love song about murder, with a twinkling glockenspiel hook up front and sweeping strings behind it.

“This is basically about loving someone but also finding them so annoying at times that you could happily kill them in their sleep - comedically, of course!” she explains. “They snore, steal the duvet, get on your nerves over the smallest things, and yet you still absolutely adore them”.

She rediscovered the song’s original demo this year and decided it was the right one to start a new era with. After road-testing it with her live band, affectionately known as The Party Band, the audience reaction convinced her to record it properly, with her dad on keys. 

To launch it she played outside the window of the Famous Cock pub in Highbury & Islington, drawing quite a crowd, and the visualiser, the first in a series of short-film-style visuals, follows a drag wife trying, with great determination, to smother her snoring husband. It’s camp, cinematic and cheerfully homicidal!

Duff supports Tom A Smith on a UK tour from 11 Nov and plays The Money Trench showcase at The Victoria in Dalston on 17 Nov. Don’t snore on Ruby Duff!

🎧 Watch the video for ‘Kill U While U Sleep’