BENGALURU: Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles of Peking Duk, an indie electronica band from Canberra that are all the rage in Australia currently, are in the country to perform at the Bacardi NH7 Weekender, set to take place in Bengaluru on November 7 and 8.
Having been voted No. 5 in the inthemix top 50 DJs in 2013, 2014 has seen Peking Duk top the charts with their massive double platinum single High featuring Nicole Millar. ‘The single has so far garnered over 1.6 million spins on Soundcloud and 3 million plays on Spotify and is the artists’ third consecutive ARIA Club Chart No. 1, following on from the success of previous singles Feels Like and The Way You Are.
City Express speaks to the duo ahead of the festival.
Reuben and Adam met at the local skate park when they were still in high school and partied together every now and then since. "We were both making and writing music in high school. Adam was rapping and doing the hip-hop thing and I was in a band, so we were experimenting with all types of music. Then we started getting into the nightclub scene and a friend introduced us to some heavier dance music. As soon as we heard this, we knew that we wanted to go down that route," says Reuben. The duo then bought some music software and started producing some tunes together.
Their latest single, Take Me Over features SAFIA, the electro-indie three piece band, also from Canberra. "SAFIA are family to us. They are making some incredible music right now so we reached out to Ben (their lead singer) and asked him if he wanted to come and jam on some ideas. All of us got together in the studio and wrote the melody and lyrics together and the results sounded beautiful, that we had to put it out," says Adam.
The duo usually work on their music separately and then come together when either of them needs help with a song or they want to polish a song off. "It means we get lots of different styles throughout the song writing process," says Reuben.
Having been constantly touring over the years, the duo have had some crazy experiences along the way. In July this year, Peking Duk played at 'Splendour in the Grass', one of the big music festivals in Australia, that runs for three days. "We were lucky enough to be able to play on one of the main stages, so we invested a heap of money into the show and brought along pyrotechnics, confetti and co2! On top of that we had some other musicians’ join us on stage to sing live," says Adam.
The duo arrived in Mumbai a few days ago and they reportedly are already having a blast here. "We started off by having a North Indian feast. Over the last few days we have been doing some song writing with some Indian musicians such as Filter Coffee. Everyone has been telling us Bengaluru has really nice weather, so we are looking forward to it! Then we are off to Kolkata and Delhi," says Reuben.
They also tell us that Indian musicians are quite popular back in Australia. "A really popular track in Australia is Mundian To Bach Ke by Punjabi MC. Lots of musicians use Indian instruments in recordings' like tablas and sitars. A R Rahman is really well known," says Adam.
Peking Duk will play on November 7 at Embassy International Riding School.