The Presets On The Most Unexpected Moments Of Their Career

The best moments in life are often the most random or unexpected ones. Just ask party whisky, J&B. To celebrate the launch of J&B Mash-Up, we caught-up with The Presets to talk about some of their most random moments.

–

2013 marks ten years of The Presets. Since they first signed to Modular in ‘03, Kim Moyes and Julian Hamilton have put their name to three killer albums (Beams, Apocalypso, and Pacifica), played alongside the likes of Daft Punk, won more ARIA Awards than they can carry, and gone Platinum a few times over. No one could have predicted The Presets would get this big, but some moments have been even more unexpected.

To celebrate their big decade, we quizzed Kim and Julian on some of the less-publicised surprises.

–

1. That time Nick Cave and Beth Orton danced to ‘Steamworks’ at Club 77

“It was pretty early on in our career, around maybe 2005. There was a festival going on in Sydney, and they had Nick Cave and Beth Orton and Jarvis Cocker and Rufus Wainwright and all these people coming to play.

The festival finished the night I was DJing at ‘Club Kooky’, which was an old club inside Club 77 that we used to play. Lo and behold, I was on the decks playing ‘Steamworks’ and there on the dance floor, Nick Cave was dancing with Beth Orton. Nick Cave was one of my teenage idols, so my jaw dropped. It was exciting to see people legitimately dancing, not forcing it, and guys like them in the wild having a good time.”

–

2. The whole red carpet thing 

“When everything went crazy a few years ago with Apocalypso and we were winning awards and all that kind of stuff, finding ourselves on red carpets and being photographed as sort of celebrities was definitely a strange feeling. We were used to being inside studios in our pyjamas, making beats and writing songs; not being on red carpets standing alongside Pink and Rove. Being surrounded by people like that was nice, but very weird.”

–

3. Iva Davies from Icehouse joining the fan club

“You’re always meeting new people, you know… The Black Eyed Peas would be coming up after a show and saying how amazing it was. But no one really blew my mind until Iva Davies from Icehouse came up to us after we played at Wave Aid, a big charity show at the Cricket Ground. We were really thrilled when he came up to talk to us… and then he told us that his son really liked our music. So we were kind of blown away, but a little bit crushed at the same time.”

Can you spot any Presets albums on the shelves?

–

4. Playing at San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair

“We got invited many years ago to play at a thing called the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, which is like their huge annual pride festival. We saw a lot of naked dudes walking around, just wearing Reeboks and carrying camcorders; it was an awesome party. I saw a lot of things on the street that day that I probably don’t need to see again. A couple of years later they asked us back, and we did go to play again. Sometimes with even the most random things, you have to go back for a second look, just to make sure it really happened.”

–