Since forming in 2010, Peking Duk have established themselves as dance mainstays in Australia, playing every festival thrown at them with anthemic, pop-friendly bangers that were made for mass shirtless sing-a-longs.

Their signature single ‘High’ earned triple platinum certification and an ARIA Award, while they also inadvertently revived Darude’s career after dropping ‘Sandstorm’ at Stereosonic 2014. The notorious loose units also have a reputation as dance music’s long-haired larrikins, and as you’ll see in the interview below, they’re definitely not short on banter. With a new single ‘Stranger’ featuring Elliphant currently taking over the airwaves, we got the duo into the office for a chat and a quick photoshoot.

Peking Duk will be performing at FOMO Festival come January – read below for their thoughts on twerking, The Meeting Tree and their upcoming collaboration with Kappa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ONjcyE1wOc

You’ve just dropped your latest single ‘Stranger.’ How’s the reception been so far?

Adam: It’s sick, it’s been so long since we’ve actually put out some music. We’ve been working on music the whole time but it felt right for this to be the first taste of what we’ve been working on.

Reuben: There’s a lot in the pot to choose from and that one definitely felt right – we’re leading into summer and it had a bit of a summery feel.

Adam: The reception has been very pleasant to say the least. We were unsure of what the vibe would be because it has been so long, so it was good to get some love, for sure.

Elliphant is the guest vocalist on ‘Stranger’ and I heard you met her at a DJ Snake party. What exactly goes down at a DJ Snake party?

Adam: Lots of twerking. Heaps of twerking. There was so much twerking going on at that party.

Reuben: DJ Snake had like 13, 15, 20 girls to have a twerking competition on the stage.

Adam: But there was also chicks everywhere twerking, having little twerk-offs amongst themselves. It was “lit” as they like to say on the Interwebs.

Reuben: One of our friends nearly had a heart attack. Too much fun. Too many beers, burgers and everything that starts with ‘B’.

Adam: It’s open to interpretation. It’s like Goosebumps, choose your own destiny.

Aside from the music, Peking Duk also have some aesthetic trademarks like Kappa tracksuits and being shirtless. What other style trends would you like to see come back?

Adam: Fuck yeah. We got some wild shit coming up, we’re doing a collaboration with Kappa. We designed these jackets and t-shirts with them, it’s really exciting, it’s all coming together. More style trademarks? I’d also like to see people taking their shirts off. I mean, why not?

Reuben: We need more socks and slides. We need more people with face tattoos.

Adam: People take their tattoos too seriously. They need to loosen up a bit.

Reuben: I’m going to get an AK47 on my cheek this year.

Adam: Flare pants. I never had a pair, but they’re sick. I wanna see some wild shit. Some Pirates of the Carribean drapes that people wear on their heads.

Reuben: Let’s take it back a bit further to what Mozart and Beethoven were wearing. Blonde, curly wigs. They were pretty cool, the bastards in court that are on my case still wear them.

Who do you think are The Godfathers of ADM now that The Meeting Tree have retired?

Adam: I don’t think The Meeting Tree can ever die. I think they will forever live on.

Reuben: In fact, they’re more alive then ever now that they’ve killed the project.

Adam: Exactly. They’re with us. They’re with everyone.

Reuben: I’ve not heard The Meeting Tree more than I have in the last 7 days, because it’s just exponential now. The rate of growth is ridiculous. When they come back – am I calling it too soon? I reckon they will come back, and I’m just gonna be like, ‘Fuck!’

Adam: Those Godfathers of ADM – the proof is in the pudding with those guys. The work speaks for itself. We were lucky enough to collaborate with them and it was a huge honour. In the words of Celine Dion, ‘My Heart Will Go On’.

There is also a Peking Duk plaque down at Kings Cross where SOHO used to be. What are some of your favourite SOHO memories in the formative years of Peking Duk?

Adam: There were some great, great times.

Reuben: It was moreso where we’d play and clown afterwards. Once we had the whole building evacuated because one of our mates lit a cigarette and the smoke alarm went off.

Adam: We had some great times at SOHO but it was just Kings Cross in general. We had just moved to Sydney at that point and everything was still new and exciting. It still is, but Kings Cross especially was so much fun and there was shit going on everywhere. It’s so sad to see it now literally dead. Shouts to SOHO and fuck Mike Baird.

What’s on the cards for Peking Duk for the rest of 2016?

Adam: More music. Just more for the people. Just more, you know? More music, more good times, more goofs, more spoofs, more gags. We got the Kappa collaboration coming out and a lot more music to share.

Reuben: We did our first pizza collaboration with Crust. We’re collaborating with anything.

Adam: We made these beats loops that you can play on pizza boxes. It was really funny, they posted a thing on Facebook saying that you can win tickets to see Peking Duk. And all the Top 3 comments were saying “Fuck, you were getting my hopes up, we thought you were bringing back the peking duck pizza. This sucks, I don’t give a fuck about that.” But you get a box and you get to play some beats, it’s like a sampler or MPC.

Reuben: It’s pretty rad. I really wanna crank that box in every way, shape and form. Every part of my life needs to be able to adjust the volume.