Peking Duk: trippy name, trippy dudes, trippy songs with trippy videos. Australians Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles burst into the EDM music scene three years ago, and have since had millions of streams on Spotify and a bunch of hits on ARIA, Hype Machina and Shazaam. The tongue-in-cheek grooves, the electro bangers and the dreamy remixes have captured listeners who’ve catapulted their tracks to the top of Hype Machine, Australian Shazaam, ARIA singles & clubs charts and Triple J's Hottest 100. Peking Duk have also performed at SXSW, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Electric Zoo, TomorrowWorld, and Life Is Beautiful.
Currently on their North American "We Are All Animals 2017 Tour," Reuben and Adam talk to Myspace about what their name means, sharing girlfriends and making music. “We're just two Aussie lads that love creating music and dancing to it.”
Hop to the next page to read the full interview.
Hometown:
Reuben: Hometown is Canberra, Australia. It's where Adam and I both grew up, went to school, discovered music and became what we are. Not going to recommend visiting, unless you like skateparks and war memorials.
Homebase: We live in Sydney, Australia! Home of the ibis bin bird and lots of bats... Absolutely stunning.
How did you two meet?
Reuben: Actually we met at the skatepark. I was waiting for my mates to rock up and ended up spending the morning with Adam and his mate whilst my boys slowly woke up and made their way down. I realised Adam had been dating the same girl that I was dating so we had lots of laughs and things to talk about. Before too long we were at the age of going to parties, then our crews eventually connected and we were all hanging out.
Why call yourselves Peking Duk?
Reuben: It's a long story, we used to party a lot and when one of our mates was "peking duk" they were absolutely PEAKING at the party, but in a less conventional way. It's when you are so buzzed from all the beers and spirits that your face can't maintain clarity, so your instinct is to squeeze out a duck face. It was great laughs when someone was peking duk. Anyway we had a song ready to whack on iTunes in 2011 (called "Bingo Trippin") and thought Peking Duk would be a fine name for the first song, and we could change the name for the second song if we needed... It stuck and we still haven't changed it.
Were you in other bands before? What were they like?
Reuben: I was in a bunch of bands and Adam was rapping in hip hop crews... Lots of different styles and genres throughout our years as young musicians. We never really liked dance music til we heard Crookers/Beetroots, so this all happened quite coincidentally!
How would you describe your music to someone who's never heard of you?
Adam: Sweaty, sensual, banging and euphoric.
What influences your music making?
Reuben: Almost anything. Sometimes it will be a movie that makes you feel a certain way. Most recently the TV series Black Mirror had me inspired above and beyond to create new sounds and ideas. Sometimes when something is so visual you here your own melody ideas that you think might suit the tone and textures in the visual mood. Other times we are influenced by music and sounds.. The other day an elevator was squeaking significantly at each floor so we recorded it and created a sample out of it which was a great starting point to create an entirely new track. A lot of melodies and rhythms are inspired by rock and hip hop, we tend to not listen to much dance music.. Style-wise we've always been fans of trying to not sound like anything else, however we can guarantee would not be here if it weren't for Crookers, Bloody Beetroots, Justice and Fake Blood.
Your singles are huge hits, are you working on an album right now?
Adam: Thank you (laughs). Yep! We have an arsenal of songs we've been working on for the last couple of years from around the world... we can't wait to show everyone what we've been cooking.
How did your collaboration with clothing line Kappa come about?
Reuben: About a year ago at the APRA Music Awards in Australia Adam attended wearing a full Kappa tracksuit. I wore a boring old suit like everyone else but it was a great contrast between the two of us. We went on to win APRA's Song of the Year award which no one - especially not ourselves - expected. Following the Australian press surrounding that award we were approached by Kappa asking if we were interested in free Kappa gear, we said "Let's collaborate."
Adam: I had a vintage Kappa banda tracksuit in my closet at my cribbo in Sydney and thought "Fuck that'd be funny if I got that tailored and wore it to the APRA awards." So I did. I woke up the next morning completely hungover at 2 p.m. (yet stoked cos we won two awards!) with the thought on my head that it would be next level if we got a sponsorship deal with Kappa. Crawled over to my phone on my bedside table to see an unread text from our manager that said, "Kappa wanna work with us." So one thing led to another and we designed the tracksuit with them. They are legends. Iconic.
What about the Elliphant collab?
Reuben: It came from a bunch of studio sessions and a growing friendship with her. We met her at SXSW in Austin and then again at Coachella. She was in Australia and we had some ideas for her to sing on, all sounded good so we went months after to Sweden to really nail something special. So happy we did because "Stranger" is our fav song to date.
Who else would you love to collaborate with?
Reuben: Kanye, Julian Casablancas, Kano, James Blake... oh this list could go on forever.
What were your day jobs before making music for a living? Did they help you make music for the band?
Reuben: We both used to work at McDonalds, and then at cafes for years.. They helped us buy more equipment and support our addiction for making music. Cafes were great for helping us enjoy the company of different faces. Some musicians go straight from the bedroom to a stage of 5000 people, all the while more and more people are wanting to talk to you. Kurt Cobain was severely affected by this and many others are to this day. Lot's of people in turn become more introverted and start hating the company of people they don't know. Our years of cafe jobs were great training for meeting people and learning to enjoy talking to people we don't know.
Do you have a cool story about being on Myspace as a musician?
Reuben: I played in a band called Rubycon for a few years and Myspace was our main platform for uploading music. It was such a fun time as a young musician, to have a platform where anyone in the world could come and listen to your music. The first of many exciting new ways for young musicians to bypass the old monopolised radio system. Peep Rubycon's music on myspace, my fav song was and maybe still is "She Went White"
If you were a hashtag what would you be?
Adam: #clowntown
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from Myspace - Editorial http://ift.tt/2mtPSU0
