It’s been one hell of a ride for Reuben Styles and Adam Hyde, the Canberra-based buddies known to the world as Peking Duk.
Speaking to one half of the electronic duo, Hyde, who is finally lapping up a rare bit of downtime having just finished off their latest sold out national tour, he doesn’t really seem like he’s had time to completely soak up what’s been happening.
“This year has been fucking crazy,” he says with laughter.
No kidding.
A quick check of their achievements over the past year reads like any started-from-the-bedroom producer’s dream.
The unprecedented success of their euphoric, Nicole Millar-sung summer anthem ‘High’ has catapulted the pair into the stratosphere – the ARIA-chart topping, Independent Music Award-winning radio-tailored club cut is currently sitting at double platinum, making it one of the biggest Australian songs this decade.
They’ve recently unleashed the follow-up, ‘Take Me Over’, which features the stunning vocals of their “great friend”, SAFIA’s Ben Turner. The new offering sees Peking Duk flexing their versatility, producing a swirling, cinematic belter packed with more emotion than any of their previous samplings but with “something that still bangs hard on the drop”; which is, by now, undoubtedly Peking Duk’s trademark.
Importantly, the pair have reinforced their verified studio hit-maker status with show-stopping appearances at festivals across the country – we called their Splendour set one of the highlights of the weekend.
Is there anything they can’t do?
“I don’t think there’s a secret to it at all,” Hyde admits.
“We write a lot of music and we sort of try to filter out the shit and put out what we think is the best, but we also like to take our time with it as well. We never try to rush it. You should never try to rush something you want to make just right.”
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One of the reasons Peking Duk have become so ubiquitous is because of their sound’s ability to appeal to different demographics – from the indie scene to the commercial crowd – and that’s something that still blows Hyde’s mind.
“[It’s] really cool to see we’re getting love from the indie kids from Triple J – because they’ve had our back for a long time – and we’ve got love from the club kids because we’ve been playing clubs a long time, and then now we’ve got this newfound love from the teeny bopper kids; the pop kids. Which is cool, it’s crazy to be able to target a demographic like that,” he says.
There’s always going to be a few standout moments that make an artist really realize that they’re blowing up. For Hyde, it was a particularly memorable run in with a young fan.
“I was at the snow when we were playing a show at Mt Hotham in Victoria, and we went down to the restaurant at the Ski Lodge to get some food and there was this like, no shit she would’ve been maybe 15 or 16-year-old girl, and she was with her family in the corner [of the room] and she kept staring and pointing, and her Dad kept looking over and I was like ‘What the fuck’s going on here?’
“Then her dad came over holding her hand he was like, ‘Hey mate, it would really mean the world if you could take a picture with my daughter she’s a huge fan’. And I was like ‘Holy shit, what the fuck?’ That sort of shit was like, woah. That sort of summed up last year, we sort of found a new love from a whole new bunch of people so it was really cool.”
All of the madness thus far has come without an album, although that’s about to change. An LP is the next box Peking Duk are planning to tick off their checklist.
“We just signed a deal with RCA so we’re going to have to deliver an album, or some more, but right now what we’re doing is we’re just working on a shitload of demos – like a lot,” says Hyde.
The only downside to building a reputation for producing consistently hotly-received singles and highly-blogged SoundCloud remixes is that there’s going to be quite a bit of hype chasing the boys in the buildup to their first record’s eventual release.
But Hyde is just excited to give fans a greater idea of who, or what, Peking Duk really is.
“I think with the album that we’re going to do it’s going to be a wide array of different shit and that’ll really show the depth to what we’re actually about,” he says.
“I don’t ever think we’ve worked on so much music in our lives, like we’ve got a shit-tonne of demos that we’re going through at the moment to sort of get a vibe from each other, from the team and from the label, on which they think is the best and which we feel is the best to work with as a direction for the album.
“Right now it’s very, very early stages, but we’ve definitely got the vision in our heads and it’s really exciting. Really, really exciting.”
As for now? With ‘High’ getting prepped for its American release, anything could happen. If what they’ve achieved on home soil is anything to go by, it looks like Peking Duk could be the newest name in the long list of Aussie acts to break big overseas – but let’s not put too much pressure on them.
“That’s the plan but we’ll see what happens, man, we’re ‘gonna take it as it comes. We love America so much and it’s going to be awesome to finally release a song there,” says Hyde.
“It should be out within the next two months so give me a call back then and I’ll let you know how it’s going.”
In the meantime, Peking Duk’s agenda consists of two things: “partying a lot, and studioying a lot.”
“I feel like I’ve been partying harder than ever and I’ve been working harder than ever. It’s all fun, man. It’s a good level,” Hyde laughs.
All work, all play. Peking Duk are doing it the right way.
The guys will be performing as part of Beyond The Valley Festival (30th December 2014 – 1st Jan 2015) for more info visit www.beyondthevalley.com.au.
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