Duncan Scott Sheik was born on November 18, 1969, in Montclair, New Jersey, to a single mother who raised him and his younger sister with the help of their grandparents in Hilton Head, South Carolina. His father resides in New Jersey. Duncan was raised Catholic, but later converted to Buddhism, a practice he has maintained for about 15 years.
He started playing music at a young age, mastering the piano by age five and the guitar later on. As a teenager, he was in a cover band called Slightly Off and attended boarding school, where he often had his instruments confiscated for playing too loudly. Duncan graduated from Brown University in 1992, majoring in Semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, rather than music.
After college, he drove to Los Angeles, where he shopped around his demo tape, leading to a $100,000 contract with Immortal Records. However, the contract stalled, and he spent two years in limbo, during which he wrote songs to pass the time. In 1994, Atlantic Records recognized his talent and bought him out of his contract.
Duncan released his self-titled debut album in 1996, earning a four-star rating from Rolling Stone and featuring the hit single "Barely Breathing," which became the fourth-longest running top 100 single in Billboard history. His second album, Humming, was released in 1998, featuring the single "Bite Your Tongue" and earning glowing reviews.
In 2001, Duncan released his third album, Phantom Moon, a primarily acoustic project that came out of his collaboration with playwright Steven Sater. The album was released on Nonesuch Records and marked a departure from his previous work. Duncan and Steven, both members of the Soka Gakkai International, started working together when Steven asked Duncan to write music for a play he was working on. They came up with 17 songs, which Duncan decided to turn into a record.
