The Presets, Hi-Viz: From 15 minutes of fame to dead broke

THE Presets singer Julian Hamilton says his friendship with bandmate Kim Moyes has stood the test of time because they have forged a brother-like bond.

Speaking to Confidential for the release of their fourth album, Hi-Viz, Hamilton said the key to their relationship was a mutual vulnerability and support.

“If you’re being honest with the music you’re making, you’re putting yourself out on a limb and exposing your vulnerabilities to each other,” he said.

“It can be very confronting to show the other person a lyric, for example.”

While he admitted the pair “butt heads from time to time”, he said they knew how to move on quickly.

“We’re almost like brothers now, we keep each other in check and we know what the other one is going to say before they say it,” he said.

“We wouldn’t keep doing it for so long if we didn’t genuinely love each other.”

He said the band, who will perform at The Tivoli on June 27, had also taken twists and turns the music industry had thrown at them in their stride and had never fallen into the trap of following trends throughout their 15-year career.

“There have been times when we have been really underground and we were really broke and then times when we were the biggest band in Australia for about 15 minutes,” he said.

“But we make music that makes us want to dance and hopefully other people like it too – sometimes in our career that has worked well and sometimes it has not.

“The worst thing you can do in our business is jump on a bandwagon because it’s cool. We forge our own sound.”