Any other Saturday night plans look like a bullshit bologna sandwich next to the club sandwich of a rager taking place at the Rock and Roll Hotel. The main ingredients: The Presets + Disco City between layers of bodies slathered with booze.

Since we hear Chris Burns talk about himself all the time (btw I hear he is going to run for MAYOR next election as a member of the Cosmic Party)….. we are going to give this prime post real estate to Kim Moyes from the Presets.

Where are you right now?

I’m in a cab in New York coming back from shopping.

Did you get anything good?

Yeah, a couple of shirts. I went with my tour manager.

Did you guys get matching outfits?

No, but we got matching tattoos yesterday!

What of?

Well it’s kind of like a visual gag. It’s in braille and it spells CUDHINTB. Which means cheer up darling I’m not that bad.

Hahahah… how cute. It’s like Elvis and his bands’ “TCB” tattoos. Ok let’s get down with this interview. You guys are from Sydney

yeah…………..

What’s the music scene in Sydney like?

Australia has quite a big rock scene and then Sydney and Melbourne have a club scene- there’s a big gay scene so there is a big club culture. I haven’t spent so much time there recently cause we’ve been touring so much. They have great DJs but beyond the music scene Sydney’s got a great art scene and this feeling of energy that’s like ‘we’re young, we haven’t quite established who we are yet’. There’s kind of this fire brewing cause everyone feels like we can do whatever we want.

How did you and your bandmate, Julian, meet?

We were both studying music at the University and we meet in the common area balcony between classes. We hit it off as friends and after a little while started a band.

What were you studying in specific?

I was studying for a bachelors in music, a classical degree in percussion. It was a lot of orchestra stuff and modern classical music. Julian was also studying music but also a degree in education cause he wanted to teach music.

So with the background in classical music, does that explain the opening of your song, “Talk like that”.

Yeah, the organ sound does lend from the drama of classical music.

Speaking of that dramatic sound, the entire album has more of a dark feel to it unlike your first album.

Yeah, the album does sound different than our first. They’re still rocking and partying songs but they’re still these weird moments where they’re a little bit country and western.

Do you think touring so much has had an effect on your music, and might explain why the tone of this album is a bit different?

Touring is just fine it’s helped us become a much better band. When we wrote our first record we hadn’t played live that much. Then we went on this MASSIVE tour and figured out what works well and what doesn’t. So when we worked on Apocalypso we deferred to a lot of those things that we learned on the road.

Tell me about the Presets writing process and rehearsals.

Well the song writing is 50/50, but Julian writes the words since he has to sing them. Some people in bands are really intense but when we get together we are really jokey and have a lot of fun.

Do you two ever think about returning to more of your classical roots and composing more traditional or avant garde orchestral pieces?

Well we have done a lot of studio arrangements for other bands. When we get to that point financially, where we have that freedom, that would be great but even now we are never far from our classical roots. I mean a lot of that stuff is just entrenched in what we do: relationships with harmonies, writing melodically, using different types of melodic sounds. That’s all stuff that we were exposed to in “Uni”, we always played with that stuff. That really helps us out.

So you think it’s that background and the drama inherent in classical compositions separates you from other electronic bands.

Yeah, we’ve never been afraid to combine traditional electronic sounds with more traditional sounds and string instruments. In “are you the one” we had a trombone. All these weird and wonderful things that aren’t new but aren’t commonly used together

That massive touring schedule you spoke of has taken you to a lot of huge venues. What’s the emotional difference you feel playing on stage for a trillion people at a festival versus playing at a smaller venue like the Rock and Roll Hotel? How does this affect your performance?

At a smaller club like Rock and Roll Hotel that we’ve played there twice, it’s more intimate and you can see the people’s faces and maybe are at eye level the intensity is much more heightened. When you are doing a big festival you feel a bit disconnected but at the same time when a big moment happens everyone is in synch and jumping at the same time and punching the air it can be quite overwhelming. The differences are obviously huge but both have their definite payoffs as a performer.

What’s next for you guys? More non-stop touring?

Well we finish our US tour in your city and go back to Australia and then Europe and pretty much don’t get any time off until December and then pick up again January.

You guys are warriors.

want more (of the warriors?)
myspace them right here
and check them out on the main floor of RNR on Saturday.
Epic is what they aim for.

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