Peking Duk On Choosing Dogs Over Otters, Rats And Goats As Their ARIA Dates

Peking Duk, Canberra's house music mavericks, have become infamous for their playful stunts. At the 2016 ARIA Awards, Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles swaggered down the red carpet with celebrity mini dachshunds Maluka and Avalon as their "dates". 

"We were gonna get a bunch of goats - a bunch of farm animals like goats," Hyde says from his Sydney base. "We wanted to get some otters... We tried a bunch of things. We were thinking about rats as well, goats — lots of animals. But then we thought, 'Hang on a minute, if we get a goat, he's gonna go and eat Jimmy Barnes' suit or Tina Arena's hat.' So we thought it would be best if we pulled it back a notch and got some beautiful little sausage dogs such as Maluka and Avalon - and they were the perfect fit." Everyone from Barnes to Jessica Mauboy to Flume were snapped petting the pooches. 

Peking Duk broke out as DJ/producers in 2014, with the future-garage single High (featuring Nicole Millar) eventually winning an ARIA for Best Dance Release. Late last year they issued Stranger with Swedish femcee/singer Elliphant (aka Ellinor Olovsdotter). It's now double-platinum and placed at #9 in triple j's Hottest 100 poll. Peking Duk performed Stranger with Olovsdotter at Newcastle's This That festival. Today, Hyde describes the star as their "ride or die". "She's like our big sister, you know? It's so 'family love' with her. We've done a lot of work together, a lot of play together. We've partied in Los Angeles, in Stockholm... She showed us all around Stockholm - or 'Stocktown', as it's referred to - and we fell in love with that city. We fell in love with her."

"It's been a taste of a lot of different places. It's pretty much us accumulating all the different shit that we've experienced along our travels, such as in India."

Peking Duk have established an international profile. They've toured the US playing 2015's Coachella. The duo even launched their own clothing line with Kappa. Nonetheless, as producers, they're seen as a singles act.

Signed to Sony Music, Peking Duk have long teased an album project. They've made successive songwriting trips overseas. "We've been in some wild spots - like [The Who guitarist] Pete Townshend's boat," Hyde, a music nerd, enthuses. "We got to record on his boat, which is sick!"

But, as of 2017, there's still no release date. Indeed, Peking Duk's debut might be the ADM (Australian Dance Music) equivalent of Frank Ocean's Blond. "I'd say that the date would be early next year at this point, because we've literally been writing for it for the last four years and we've accumulated over 250 demos for it - if not more," Hyde says. "Over this last year we've been cutting it all down [and] writing some new [songs], which we've found are better than any of them."

The album will have an international orientation. "It's been a taste of a lot of different places. It's pretty much us accumulating all the different shit that we've experienced along our travels, such as in India. When we first started writing for the album, we spent a lot of time in Mumbai. We were doing a lot of recording over there. We were really getting into psychedelic rock, and obviously India is the perfect place to really immerse yourself in that. So we linked up with some very amazingly talented local musicians over there. 

"We got a sitar solo from a sitar king himself - which was a majestic, amazing thing within itself. But then we spent a lot of time in New York and LA after that and we really got immersed in hip hop and doing a bunch of experimentation with that and blending it with our sound. And then we went over to Stocktown and London. We got a lot of inspiration from Britpop in London and tried to fuse that with our stuff... We like to grab little bits from our travels."

Beyond the pranks, the Duks are ambitious musically. Yet Hyde senses that it's decision time. "I think now we're at a point where we've got enough in the bank - way more than enough, I should say. We could have released four albums with the amount of shit that we've got. But what we're trying to do is [to] make a perfect [album] - as perfect as it can be from our end. So we're not gonna rush it 'cause it is our first album."

This July, Peking Duk will return to Splendour In The Grass. Before that, they're hitting the road nationally with their Clowntown tour - dates already selling out. Hyde isn't about to supply spoilers for any antics. However, Peking Duk will DJ some unreleased music and preview their next single. Hyde is unsure as to whether Maluka and Avalon will join their entourage. "Hopefully they actually can come to the Sydney Enmore [Theatre] show, but we need to give them some beautiful little dogger earplugs and maybe some clown outfits or something."