Five years later, the duo is on the road again, armed with a darkly powerful new album (Apocalypso), touring commitments that will have them headlining shows on several continents, and a devilishly persistent case of homesickness. I caught up with Moyes after a soundcheck in New York last week to talk about the tour, the music, and their masks, and here's what happened...
So first of all, how's your tour going?
It's gone really well, we started in LA about two weeks ago. It's been really great, all the shows have been really great, we've played some shows in some weird and wonderful places, like Salt Lake City and Denver...
OOOooohh, Salt Lake City...
They happen to be really fun, y'know. The kids are kind of starved for bands to come through and when they do, they really appreciate it. But yeah, we've got four shows left in this US leg, and we've all got the flu, and we're about to die, the germs keep getting circulated in the giant sweat chute that we're driving around in, and yeah. It's great.
Is this tour gonna be as crazy as your last one? You guys were on tour for nearly three years last time...
It depends.
On the flu?
On the lot of us, and how willing we are to take crap tours. [laughs] I mean, so far we're booked up for around this time next year, and uh, yeah. It's solid and stuff.
Wow, so you guys go deep.
Yeah, I mean, we've gotta take it while the going's good. And there's certainly lots of really great opportunities this year to take advantage of. I mean, we're not going to do massive stints away from home ever again, I think a lot of that touring we had to do with Beams was to prove to ourselves and everybody that we were a proper band.
Oh, for sure. Plus, you guys must get homesick.
We get incredibly homesick.
It seems, from what I've read, like Julian [Hamilton]'s kind of a homebody. Are you the same way?
I love to stay at home. More and more, in the last couple of years, every time I get home now, I just wanna stay at home. I like hanging out with my friends but, these days when I get home, I just wanna stay there and cook and hang out with my girlfriend and watch TV, and just do stuff in one spot.
Changing gears: I read some other interviews you guys did, and it sounds like you guys do music first and lyrics second. The lyrics always seem to be the last piece of the puzzle.
Yeah.
Going even deeper then, to vocal duties. When you guys started out, Julian was studying piano at the conservatory, and I'm guessing you weren't studying voice, so did you guys just like flip a coin or something to see who would do the vocals?
Nah, it was more like Julian had mucked around recording himself singing a little bit, but deeper than that, he was in the school choir when he was a little boy, he was in St Andrews Cathedral school choir, so he's always been a singer in some capacity. And so when we started the Presets, it was during a time when dance music was all about guest vocalists. Like, dickhead featuring fuckwit, y'know, blah blah blah. And we were kind of in the mind that we were gonna do that, but then one day, we were just like, "Y'know what? You should just sing! It'll make us more unique." And then we just sort of started mucking around, and on the first EP we did, on a lot of the demos, you can hear the difference between the first EP and now, the difference in Julian's singing is so dramatic, because he wasn't really sure what he was doing...
Yeah, he's a lot more confident now, he's got this commanding sound in his voice. Comes from reps, I guess?
Yeah, all the touring, his voice has become really strong, and he's found his voice, so to speak. It's really cool! [laughs]
Also, what were you studying at the conservatory? Piano as well?
No, I was doing a bachelor's of music in percussion. Mainly classical percussion, which is mainly like, contemporary, 20th century classical music, art music, they call it. Modern music, avant-garde music.
Well, that leads into my next question nicely! On Apocalypso, a lot of the drums sound programmed, but when you guys tour, you obviously bring a drum kit with you. Do you bring the drums with you to strengthen the performative aspect of your shows, or is it more of a timbre thing, or...?
It's definitely about performance. When we got into computers and producing and drum machines and electronics and all that shit, that was well after we'd completed our degrees and stuff like that. I mean, we'd dabbled in it a little when we were at uni, but once we'd finished studying our instruments and gotten our degrees, we were like, "Okay, let's move onto the next thing now." And so, I think it's really part of the performance for us, it's so important..
...not to be the guys in front of a bunch of computers?
Yeah, i mean there's also that as well. We love techno, and the world of techno and all that sort of stuff, and we'd always get real excited when a big-name DJ would come to Australia, and then we'd just feel so disappointed because, when you're going to see orchestras, it's about music obviously, but also there's the performance and the drama of it all, and then on the other hand you've got this other thing which is just so bland to watch. And so for us, it's the most natural thing for our instincts as performers, and I think we'd feel like we were cheating ourselves and everybody else if we just stood there and clicked it out, y'know?
Absolutely. Moving on from that, then, do you ever feel sheepish when you DJ as KIM? They're completely different things, I guess, but...
They are completely different things. I don't even necessarily play Presets-type music all the time when i'm DJing. I mean, that's me, not me and Julian. For years, I had to learn how to become a DJ. I think I'm okay now, but for a while I was pretty terrible.
What's your take on playing your own material when you spin? Or is there some secret emissary from the society of DJs who approaches you and says something like "Thou shalt not play more than two of one's own singles in the space of an hour"..?
Boy...I think if you're playing somewhere, and you're billed,and you produce music or you're in a band, people wanna see that as well, y'know? They wanna see a little bit of what your world is. I don't know. I don't just DJ, so if there is that secret rule, no one's told me! [laughs] I guess it depends on what you're playing. Like, not necessarily all of my stuff and the Presets stuff would go together.
Talking about your work as KIM, then, you've done some stuff with some pretty big people already - Cassius and Tomboy. How did those come about?
Tomboy reached out to me. They're really big fans of System Breakdown. Cassius was more of me reaching out to Phillippe [Zdar]...I just bought that new record [15 Again] and listened to it while I was on tour and I really fell in love with that "Rock #1" song. And I just kind of sent him a message on Myspace saying, "Hey Philippe it's Kim from the Presets, we've never met..." I mean, he's kind of part of the Modular family, he's done work with Cut Copy and remixed Bumblebeez and stuff, and he's a really good dude, and he was like, "Yeah I'd love you to do something, I'll send you the parts," and then he called me up as soon as he got it, called me from Paris, and was like, [adopts French accent] "It's fucking amazing! I love eet, eet's a heet, I wish zis was ze original!" He was really sort of stoked. So yeah, that was just sort of a lucky sort of thing. But I don't do that many remixes. I don't really have the time to do that sort of stuff anymore.
On the road, and all.
Yeah, that Tomboy one, I did that one on the road, but it was weird.
Is there an ideal environment for you to work on music? If you could describe your ideal songwriting situation, what would it be?
At the moment, i've got my studio in another room in my house, and I just like being able to be at home, and like, stay in my pajamas, and have all my shit around me, and y'know, just be super comfortable.
So if you get an idea while you're eating breakfast, you can just walk down the hall and try it out?
Yeah, or you know, do a little bit of work, take a break, go for a walk, come back, and y'know, just make it stress-free.
Let's change gears again. On both your album covers, you and Julian are wearing masks. What's that about? Is it just about using consistency to hammer home a contrast (Beams is white, Apocalypso is black), or is it about escape, or fantasy...?
I think consistency's a part of it. Most of the art direction is by our friend Jonathan Zawara, and I think he's got a particular love for certain exotic things, and certain contrasting things. I think the masks were more inspired by this time when we were DJing at this festival in Australia, and we were at the airport waiting for our girlfriends, and we went to this fancy dress shop and found these really hideous masks, and ended up DJing in them, and it kind of sparked this massive reaction when we did it. And then we sort of realized that there's this sort of thing about masks, and putting on a mask, and....I think it's why there're societies of people who get into Viennese masks and stuff. It's like putting on a character and unleashing something within you, and being someone else. And I guess you could draw all kinds of conceptual parallels if you really wanted to, but at the end of the day it was something that we thought was cool, that had a different feeling to it, and also just made us feel funny. [laughs]
It's interesting though, because masks have become a very common accessory to dance music acts: MSTRKRFT, Bloody Beetroots, Toxic Avenger, Daft Punk, even Boys Noize sometimes DJs with his headphone band over his eyes. Do you think it's related to how inhuman most electro is?
I think it depends on the act you're talking about. Like with daft punk, that's definitely the thing, but for us it's more like an exotic thing, and unleashing something inside you is definitely part of the ethos of the Presets. You know, when Julian's on stage, running around and being the man, that's not necessarily him, and so in a way he's putting on a mask when he comes on stage, and when you come into a club, and the Presets are playing, or rather when we're playing, you're allowed to act stupid, you're allowed to have a really great time, you're allowed to get sweaty, jump up and down, and release this shit, or whatever! I guess that's my take on masks [laughs]
...You know what I mean! I just can't explain it very well! [laughs]
Yeah! Apocalypso really speaks to that kind of thing too, I think.
Yeah! Life is pretty fucked up sometimes, life is pretty scary sometimes, and life is pretty uncertain. But maybe, when you put on a mask, you can be somebody else and ignore it for a while.
Okay, one last thing, and then I'm gonna let you go. I recently discovered that [music video director] Kris Moyes is your brother, which, to me, puts you guys in a dead heat with the Mackloviches for coolest family ever.
[laughs] The who?
You know, Dave from Chromeo, and A-trak; they're brothers.
[laughs] Oh man! cool, cool!
What I was going to ask, though, was: Are your parents artists or something, or just really culturally switched-on people?
Not at all! [laughs] Our mum is an accountant! I mean, i guess she's a bit of a fruitloop. We grew up just with our mum, our dad left when we were really young, just when Kris was born, and I think it's more a result of that environment that's made us who we are. We didn't grow up with any fatherly influences, so it was this really different way of taking emotions and feeling and we're fucking, incredibly fucked up people [giggles] but in a really great way! And when we were kids we would just make our own shit all the time, and we were always watching movies and always playing as characters, like every kid did, but i don't think we ever grew out of it. And that is what we wanted to do as adults, is sort of find the thing that made us feel closest to the things that we loved when we were kids.
Is there anything you've wanted to blurt out since this interview started, that I haven't gotten around to?
Naw man, except that I've really gotta go inside and take a piss!
Okay! Thanks again for doing this!
My pleasure, thanks for the interview!
The Presets' sophomore album Apocalypso is available online and in record stores now. If you missed the band's shows at Webster Hall and the Music Hall of Williamsburg last week, well, you're too late. The band begins a slate of gigs in Australia starting next week. |
