“We had a song called Sitting With A Duck On A Bay, and a song with the title Duck’s End. We thought, ‘Are we writing an album with a story here?’” The Aristocrats’ new record is many things, but it’s not The Wall

The Aristocrats.

The Aristocrats’ fifth album, Duck, might be conceptual, but bassist Bryan Beller warns fans that it isn’t your archetypal affair. “This is an Aristocrats concept album,” he says with a smile. “It’s not The Wall; it’s about a cartoon duck that gets kicked off an Antarctic island by a malevolent police penguin and then travels the world!”

Out on February 16 via Boing Music, the bassist explains its story was a happy accident: “Marco Minnemann wrote a song called Sitting With A Duck On A Bay, which had a 70s R&B vibe to it, but we also had a more complex song with a parenthetical title of Duck’s End. Then we thought, ‘Are we writing an album with a story here?’”