The minute you get a good review
is the moment your album is gonna flop.
Career over.
So you sort of want to try and get it where the critics don't like it as much as the audience.
That's the sweet spot.
They are the Hercules and Goliath of Australian electronic music.
For more than a decade the Presets have dropped dance floor bangers
and blown minds the globe over.
What they've never done though, is open the door to their secret backyard studio.
Now for the first time, Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes
take us inside their self-built music making man cave.
Take a seat Pat, this is where the magic happens.
It's been a long four year wait for the new Presets album
but it's here.
And today the boys are about to pull apart their latest single "Downtown Shutdown".
As with all our music
we will sit up in a room like this
we'll plug in a bunch of instruments
and we'll just start jamming.
First of all we'll start will the kick,
Oh god, that's loud.
and then we add some more beats, cymbals and snares.
Can you hear the vinyl crackle?
Hats.
Synths.
Guitars.
Crazy effects.
Claps.
My wolf.
I'll play you the chorus with just me singing.
And then we went to Shepparton
and we recorded the kids down there.
I remember when we were in the room recording this with them
and Julian was teaching them the lyrics and the melody
and they were just automatically copying his Australian accent
which was the completely wrong reason we'd come down to record them.
So we had to encourage them to like, can you just sound more like yourselves?
Then they'd stop and they'd have a little break and they'd start singing to themselves
their own songs from church.
-And we were just like wow. -Do it like that.
So why an African Choir?
The most important thing for us, is that we were trying to make a really joyous
uplifting party song.
Essentially it's just about people power
and getting together and having a good time.
So how many other versions are there of Downtown Shutdown?
Well the Downtown Shutdown that you hear has probably been made up of about sixty different versions.
But inside of that is also maybe another ten other folders with another sixty versions each.
What do you do with them, all those other versions?
You know what you use them for?
When The Feed comes around and wants to know how you made the song, they come in very handy.
Kim, if you had to describe Julian's personality to a stranger?
Julian to me is hyper-organised and both of us are really fun loving.
Both of us love to be silly.
We've always been sort of clowns together.
So to make a career together, to be sort of bros' like that is a really special thing.
And that's probably why we're still working together twenty years later.
What's the thing that annoys you the most about Julian?
-That's hard. -That you've never told him.
Oh yeah he hasn't before.
-I guess, okay. -Now's the perfect time.
Well, okay when we're working together and you know, he touches the computer screen with his finger
it really gets my goat.
Sometimes it sounds like there's quite a lot of aggression in your music.
Frustration is a powerful energy and blowing off some steam is a great antidote to that.
Yeah totally.
Just the fist pump.
-Jumping around on the dancefloor. -Just walk a little closer.
Is there a deeper message to what you guys do?
Getting down on the dancefloor and having a great time with your friends.
That is deep.
I feel like we provide a service for people to like, lose themselves.
There's one line in one of your biggest tracks, If I Know You.
You kind of like, wail the lyrics, I'm always learning things the hard way.
Is there some truth in that for both you?
Yeah, failure is the best way to learn.
Until someone has a hardship or has to struggle through something, you know
it's really the point when the penny drops and they do learn something valuable.
What would today's Kim Moyes say to Kim Moyes ten years ago?
I'd tell my younger self to get to yoga pretty quick and stop listening to my mind.
Stop buying into my thoughts so much.
Over-analysing everything is just a source of misery
and it creates problems in your own relationships with other people
So yeah, just like chill.
-Chill a little dude and like. -Chill a little Kim.
Looking back, are there things that you would change if you could?
I really wish we'd done that co-write with Will.i.am.
Yeah the Will.i.am co-write.
Was that a real thing?
Yeah it was a real opportunity.
And you turned that down?
Well we didn't turn it down, we just didn't chase it very hard.
Why?
Oh you stop it.
-Stop trying to cause. -You brought it up.
I'm just giving you some entertaining content.
We've worked really hard the last few years to make a really great record that we're both really proud of and
feeling great about it all, you know.
Julian and Kim, I really enjoyed chatting to you.
-Thank you so much. -Thank you Pat.
Thanks Pat.