“I guess for us, ‘Pacifica’ is the next step in what we wanted to do”, reflects Julian Hamilton, lead vocalist for electronic music duo The Presets, in a phone interview held as the band were gearing up for their show later that night in Los Angeles, California.
“We didn’t have any huge, grand plans going into making this record, it was more just “Let’s just make an album that we want to hear right now! Let’s make music that we think is cool, and sounds good to us.”
Hamilton, along with long-time friend Kim Moyes on drums, have been touring the United States in support of their 2012 effort “Pacifica”, a 10-track, electronics-fused adventure in pop, techno, and indie music.
Hamilton and Moyes met seventeen years ago while studying music in college. That meeting and the shared inspiration of artists like Daft Punk and The Prodigy has led to the duo to creating three full-length albums (including ‘Pacifica’) and an EP since they first released material for the project in 2004. But one of the most interesting things about this duo is that they do what a lot of bands aren’t doing nowadays: they’re making what they want. When they want.
“When we made ‘Beans’ (2005) that was the music we wanted to make at that time. When we made ‘Apocalypso’ (2008), that was the music we wanted to make at that time. And when it came to making to ‘Pacifica’, we really didn’t feel like making any of those previous albums again. We just wanted to do the next thing. And that’s what ‘Pacifica’ is: the next thing for us. We wanted to get better, and clearer, and a bit closer to this honest Presets-sounding music that we’re continually searching for.”
“Every time we put out a record, we are continually getting closer and closer to the most honest music we can make. We try to forget about outside influences, we try to forget about what’s cool on the blogs, what music sounds good on a car stereo. We just make music that feels good for us at that moment.”
In terms of the type of message behind their music? “We’ve never really had any big grand ideas like “don’t forget to smile”, or “remember to fall in love”. I guess we hope that our music really is, hopefully, a small part of the soundtrack to people’s lives. Part of a soundtrack that features many other songs and many other bands. We just hope that people dig what we do, because we dig what we do! We enjoying make [music], and we hope that people enjoying listening to it as much as we enjoy making it.”
The Presets are currently wrapping up a tour with Dragonette, slated to appear at the Fox Theater this Friday, May 24. The show will be covered by Shameless, so expect photos and an editorial on the show to be here in the coming weeks. If you’re already looking for your next fill of Presets material, you’ll be happy to know that it’s in the process of being created as we speak.
“Kim and I are back in the studio making music, and working on the next thing,” Hamilton tells us. “Surprisingly, it’s nothing like ‘Pacifica’ (laughs).”