Dubai: “Don’t you want to be someone else?” quips Peter Wright when asked why he is sporting a fiery Mohawk to match his orange shirt and pants.
It’s a deep conversation for a Wednesday night backstage at the Dubai Duty Free Darts Masters at Dubai Tennis Stadium, but I humour him.
“Are you a shy guy normally? Yeah? Well that’s like me,” he adds.
“I’m normally a shy guy, but when I get all this hair done and everything else I feel really confident. It has worked for me and it might work for you.
“I’ve always been a shy guy and I don’t know why,” says the 47-year-old Scotsman, who goes by the name ‘Snakebite’, and gets his hairdresser wife Joanne to style him in different colours before every match, even matching the sequin snakes on each side of his head to the ones on his trousers.
Dressed normally as plain old Peter he reached his first world championships in 1995 but was knocked-out in the first round and quit the sport because he was not making enough money.
Twelve years later, he returned to darts after realising the people who were dominating the circuit at that time were all those he used to beat.
He began experimenting with his look until he perfected his ‘Snakebite’ alter-ego just before reaching the final of the 2014 world championship, where it all ‘came together’, in the words of his wife.
“He was going to give up again that year,” recalls Joanne. “He either made it or quit, so we can only imagine that it [the look] did give him the confidence, but you can’t say unless it’s taken away.
“Everyone was like: ‘Oh, what are you wearing, you look like a clown,’ but he was like: ‘Yeah, well, I’ll show you I can play darts’ and he did.”
He is now World No. 3 and has just come off the back of his first major event win at the UK Open in March.
“It’s like his war paint,” adds Joanne.
“A disguise that enables him to just go out there, relax, and play darts.
“If you wash it all off and sit him down on a regular day he’s really shy and will mumble his words, but when he’s got it on he’s more clear spoken — he’s like Jekyll and Hyde.”
So now that he is confident, if he toned down his look would his ability stay the same?
“No, I don’t think so,” she replies. “It’s kind of his preparation now, while he’s sitting down and I’m doing his hair we’re actually getting his mental side right for him to play.
“We talk through his opponents and everything he needs to do to get him to play properly on stage. It’s something we do together to get him in the right frame of mind.”
Even if his confidence is at the right level to ditch the look, Peter says: “The crowd would miss it and it would disappoint the kids and the older generation who tune in to watch this crazy guy. Even if I do have to start getting ready two to four hours before every other player, we do it for the crowds.”
