Tangled Magazine

Apocalypso: Kim from The Presets on Touring, Curdled Milk and Billy Corgan

An Interview by Laura Hartley and Jamie Evangelista

Written by Laura Hartley

It’s been almost three years since their debut album Beams was released, but the Presets are – not surprisingly - back with a hot new CD, Apocalypso.  Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes have spent the last two years travelling and touring, playing in places as far off as Barcelona, New York and Istanbul.  To spice things up a little, The Presets have even performed at the world’s largest leather festival, The Folsom Street Fair in San Fransisco, where attendees dress in their “most outrageous leather/rubber/fetish attire”.  It’s seems they live a rock star lifestyle playing pop techno music.  
 
Julian and Kim first met in the early 90’s at Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music.  “[Julian and I] were both studying music. I was majoring in percussion performance and Julian was doing a bachelor of music majoring in music education, so he was studying to become a teacher”.  If you believe their MySpace story, they had heated discussions about music at the back of Julian’s work, Luigi’s Linguini, and discussed ways to keep Kim out of the hands of the Child Protection Services, who wanted to send him to an orphanage in Mongolia.  “It’s funny”, says Kim.
 
Kim and Julian both became part of a 5 piece instrumental band, Prop.  “I think Prop was on its last legs, it was this big band with these big instruments, and we could really only tour between Sydney and Melbourne if we drove.  There were a couple of people who were interested in taking us overseas to do some festivals, but we thought about it logistically and we [realised] there’s no way we could tour this band.  We survived on Government funding for a lot of years, it was pretty popular in its little circle but there came a time that it just wasn’t sustainable.

“Musically, we were moving away from it.  Julian and I were experimenting with drums and synthesises and doing much more break dance sounding stuff, whereas Prop was a bit more thoughtful and music school inspired.  It was very ambitious but by the time we finished University we just wanted to get our party on”.

The Presets certainly did get their party on with their new album, Apocalypso.  “It has a sharper sound, it’s more upfront, more direct, more techno inspired.  It’s more melodic, the lyrics are more meaningful, it sounds better, it is better.”  It’s first single, My People (which reached number 19 on the Motorola Aria Chart), has been said to “aim squarely for the dance floor jugular”.   

Kim explains, “Musically, The Presets has always been about getting two different ideas and bringing them together or two or more ideas and bringing them together.  We’re pretty obsessed with juxtaposing styles, or what the kids like to call mash up”.  Hence, where the title, Apocalypso, comes from.  Kim says, “[you get] something dark and intense and brooding like an apocalypse, you can’t get more scary than an apocalypse, the end of life and time as we know it, and you put it smack bang on a word like ‘calypso’, which is a Caribbean style of music – all Pina Coladas, big booties, and coconuts.  What you get is a really fantastic, juxtaposition of light and dark and we thought it was a great idea, a party at the end of the world!”

The video for Apocalypso’s second single, This BoysiIn Love, was shot in Sydney by Danish director, Casper Balslev, and featured dust, ash and milk wrestling.  “It was shot over two days, we were only there for one day [to shoot] the bit with dirt pouring into our eyes.  The second day was two models wrestling in slowly disintegrating, curdling milk.  We weren’t there for the shooting of milk stuff, but we saw them making a large pool for it, and there were bags of powdered milk that they hadn’t made up.  I know when they poured [the milk] down the drain at the studio it curdled and blocked the drain and they had to get plumber out to fix it.  It was stinking.  By the end of the day the two models were wrestling mad to shoot the [scene] where the man drowns in the milk but they kept pulling away big chunks of yogurt, and grossed curdled shit, from the guy’s mouth while he was drowning in off milk.

“That’s just the milk bit!  We had sinus infections for a week from the dust going into our eyes.  We were driving home, and we spent two hours in peak hour traffic, sneezing constantly, with a dribbling nose.  I had to go straight to the chemist and get a Zyrtec!”

Listening to the band’s songs, which consist of emotive techno, funk and synthesised pop, it is hard to hear their classical roots.  “What we have learnt has become a basis for the way we do stuff, it might not be super obvious to people that listen, but it becomes like a second nature to you. We have a really good understanding of music and how it works, of how chords and sounds and melodies work.  Whereas most people would use pretty stock standard sound to get their point across, we have a much more interesting palate to choose from, with interesting percussion sound or an understanding of how trombones work. On Beams we used a mini orchestra on one of the songs.  The [Classical base] is certainly there…it’s an undercurrent”.

The Presets have come a long way since their first EP in 2003, but not without rough patches.  “[Julian and I] do clash sometimes, a lot more when we were younger.  When you work with someone pretty intensely, [especially] on something like music, where you get very attached, it’s hard to separate your emotions.  It gets a bit tough and a bit personal, not personal like people attack you personally but the way you feel stuff is personal.  It’s very hard to separate the logical brain and emotional brain from the work environment. There are some situations where you have disagreements but over time and experience you begin to realise what to say and what not to say.

“I was watching Some Kind of Monster, the Metallica documentary, and I could see myself saying a lot of the stuff these guys say to each other, and it is said out of insecurities and rejection and all that crap which has nothing to do with the band.  When you are touring with someone…and touring is tough, why would you want to make their life and your life any harder by being asshole about stuff that doesn’t really matter? You learn when to step back”.

The Presets have now toured extensively across the globe, at one point playing to over one hundred thousand people at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.  Their songs have also been featured on countless hit TV shows including The OC, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York.  “I’ve always wanted to do music since I was a little boy”, says Kim. “I always thought I would get to this point, if you have a vision then that is what you get.  I can’t be bothered to say ‘No I had no idea I would get here’.  We are here because Julian and I worked hard to be here and we both had the vision to be here so I’m not so surprised if you know what I mean.  We are very glad and lucky to be [where we are].

Whenever a new band arrises, that plays something truly new, there is always debate over what genre they are.  The Presets have been labelled as everything from electroclash to nu-rave, but according to Kim, The Presets music is simply, “…Fucking great, its just Fucking great, its really cool”.

As part of 2008’s V Festival, The Presets have spent the last few weeks touring with countless bands including Duran Duran, Queens of the Stone Age, Smashing Pumpkins and fellow Aussie Band Cut///Copy.  “It’s been really fun.  Although, the other day on [when we performed] on the Gold Coast, we were playing at the same time as the Smashing Pumpkins.  Every time they finished a song, they could see our crowd at the other side of the festival, with their hands in the air, having a great time and Billy Corgan stops and says to his crowd, ‘I reckon all you guys should go over and bash all of those guys over there’.  I’m serious.  I think its all out war right now between me and Billy Corgan.”

The Presets new CD, Apocalypso, hits stores April 12. 

For a free MP3 download of the previously unreleased My People (Mouse On Mars Terror Pretz Remix) visit: http://www.modularpeople.com/thepresetsdownload/?utm_source=online_media