“[We] don’t wanna use the word underground, cos that makes us sound like dickheads.”
Peking Duk might make us wait ten years for an album. Or they might not even do an album, ever – that’s the answer Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles gave me to the question of when we can expect an LP. That is, when they could get a word in over each other, in between their own uncontrollable bouts of laughter. A couple of mates from Canberra who grew up partying together, it was clear these guys put having a great time before sweating out the small stuff. When they came offstage after their set at the Sydney Big Day Out – please excuse the pun – they were totally peaking after the experience.
A light rain on the day had timed itself perfectly, sending thousands of punters running for cover into the boiler room,where the boys did a smoking hot set that had every last person going nuts. “It’s a proper boiler room in Sydney, it’s amazing,” said Styles. “Like the other shows have been incredible, but that one was outta control,” agreed Hyde. Styles even dared to say it was “the best set of our lives – 100 percent” – although that’s only one of many hyperbolic sentences that were thrown around in their elated state. It’s probably best not to pin them down to anything they said that particular afternoon.
Proving that what they’re best at is having fun, even Peking Duk’s recent smash hit ‘Mufasa’ – from which they’re still riding high on a wave of success, including their national tour of the Big Day Out – was conceived in a jam session where they were just mucking around together. “It started for laughs pretty much,” said Styles. Hyde described it as an afternoon when they got out “a huge kick drum, and this massive synth,” which very soon took a promising shape: “…straight away [Reuben] had the drop, and he was like ‘dude check this out.'”
‘Mufasa’ (and yes, that’s a direct reference to Simba’s Dad from The Lion King!) is not only a massive success – it’s also the result of a collaboration with one of the boys’ personal heroes, renowned Dutch dance music maestroe, Laid Back Luke.
Hyde described the experience with relish. “This dude is crazy, he’s a proper pioneer in dance music…we were stoked, he wrote back in like a day or something.” This, when only a year ago – actually, to be exact, “60 weeks ago” according to Styles – they had “fan-boyed out on him.” Hyde remembered ecstatically: “We literally ran up to him, we were like, can we get a photo please? And he was like ‘oh i guess’…and then we released a song with him!” Well, they’re definitely justified in their excitement with a story like that.
“He’s such a great dude,” summed up Styles, of working with Luke.
“He’s a really, really nice person. A really good dude,” confirmed Hyde. Even after this achievement, they’re not above being Luke’s ‘fanboys’. “We’re actually gonna head out to his show in Adelaide before Big Day Out next week,” continued Hyde. “Yeah, it’ll be sick,” said Styles. And just like that, the two went into fits of giggles and wisecracks again.They were holding beers that hadn’t even had a chance to cross their lips yet – these guys were a scream.
But apart from messing round together, is there any method to their musical madness? Although it was difficult to pry from them, in fact there is.
Hyde explained that they have quite defined roles within the duo.”Reuben always comes up with chord progressions and stuff on his guitar. I’m more of a sampling kind of guy, but we’ve always got our own beats going around, on our laptops, and then we come together at the end. It usually starts [with us] both sorta jamming on our laptops. [Later we] mix it all up and have a bit of fun with it.”
Styles explained the reasoning behind this a little further. “Everything starts separately, [because] before an idea is accentuated, you’re just gonna fight over the stupidest little things. It’d be like ‘i want to do this’ and then ‘nah i want to do this’. Once you’re at a point where there IS an idea, that’s when you can be like ‘Whatta ya reckon.'”
On this they firmly agreed – amazingly, letting each other finish a sentence for a brief period.”It’s a waste of time otherwise, it’s all in your head,” said Hyde.”You know, we both do our thing, and then we come together in the end.”
The duo have been highly successful with each of their singles since coming together in 2010. Even right now, their latest tune ‘High’ is just that – on high rotation with many stations – but they admit they’re only at the tip of an iceberg.
“I think we’re just getting started right now…we’re still very under the radar, sort of,” said Hyde. Does that mean underground? “I don’t wanna use the word underground, cos that makes us sound like dickheads,” he clarified, with the ear to ear grin he’d been wearing just about permanently.
“Yeah, we’re very new to it all,” said Styles more euphemistically.
And on the elusive question of when we might see an album? “We wanna wait until the time is right…so everyone listens to every single song on that album,” Hyde said.
“Singles are working great for us at the moment,” Styles confirmed. “Maybe in a year we’ll be able to answer this better. Or maybe 2 years. Maybe we’ll never do an album.” (Insert more wise guy laughter here.)
Clearly they can’t be forced into timelines. At that moment there were more interviewers lining up waiting to fan-boy them, and they still had those beers to attend to. Good times prevailed, and that may just be what makes Peking Duk so loveable.
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