HYDE AND PEK

The boys from Peking Duk sure know how to party, but they also know how to work hard, and that hard work is paying off, as Shaun McManus reports

CANBERRA party-starters Peking Duk have been on the rise for a number of years now, but if you ask Adam Hyde, they are still a long way from hitting the ceiling.

Hyde is one half of the electronic duo (the other is Reuben Styles), and the pair will be in Tasmania next month for the Falls Festival at Marion Bay.

Peking Duk have taken Australia by storm in recent years, headlining major festivals across the country and racking up three hits — High, Take Me Over, and

Stranger — in the top 10 of the Triple J Hottest 100 since 2014.

And they’re nowhere near being done yet.

“We’re just getting started right now to be honest,” Hyde told Pulse.

“There’s moments where we pinch ourselves and go ‘Holy shit, we are so lucky to be even living off doing what we love’, but there hasn’t been a moment where we’re like ‘This is it’.”

Hyde and Styles met about 10 years ago in a Canberra skate park, but their relationship didn’t flower immediately.

“We were actually dating the same girl at the same time, and he was a rollerblader, I was a skateboarder, and he was at a different high school, so there was a bit of maybe tension, but I think our taste and personality similarities definitely overrode any hatred towards each other,” Hyde said.

When their friendship eventually reached full bloom, the music quickly followed suit.

Take Me Over and High introduced Peking Duk to Australia in 2014, and Say My

Name (2015) and Stranger (2016) built on their profile.

To date, Stranger has racked up nearly 30 million streams on Spotify.

The duo have released two songs this year, Fake Magic and

Let You Down — the latter featuring Hyde’s vocal debut — to further consolidate themselves as one of the biggest acts in the country.

Their debut album is set for release in March.

“We never really were like ‘Let’s write an album, this is for the album’,” Hyde said.

“It’s just been an accumulation of songs that we’ve written in India, all over Europe, in America, South America, all over the world pretty much and just working with different musicians and lots of different styles and sounds.

“The whole process has been fun. We’ve never stopped and thought of it as work at all.”

Hyde and Styles have developed a reputation as heavy partygoers, but Hyde said that was only one side of the duo.

“We like to have good time,’’ he said.

“I think too many people take themselves too seriously, to be honest, and we definitely don’t take ourselves seriously.

“People think that all we do is party. We love to party as much as the next guys, but we also work really hard too, so it’s a good balance we’ve got going.”

The duo will take their passion for partying back to where it all began next month — the Falls Festival was one of the first major festivals they played at four years ago.

Hyde said fans could look forward to special guests and unreleased music, and he also can’t wait to take in some of the other acts live.

“We’re going to try and see as much as we can — with a line-up like that, there’s no way that we can’t,” he said.

Peking Duk have visited Tasmania twice, and Hyde is already a proud “Salamanca boy”.

“We had a great time,’’ he said. “We’ve play at the Odeon Theatre and that was actually one of the most fun shows on our

Clowntown tour. “We’re looking forward to coming back in a festival environment.”

Peking Duk are playing on December 31 at the Falls Festival at Marion Bay.

A two-day ticket is $249 (plus fees) and a three-day ticket is $299 (plus fees) from fallsfestival. com

Local discounts apply if tickets are bought from local retailers, which include Centertainment in Hobart and the Derwent Entertainment Centre in Glenorchy.