After living in HyperParadise for just over two years, Hermitude have one last hurrah before closing the most successful chapter of their careers thus far. DAVID JAMES YOUNG speaks with one half of the duo, Luke ‘Dubs’ Dubber, ahead of their appearance at the CoLAB Festival on the Oak Lawn, UWA, on Saturday, November 29.
By the time you read this, Hermitude will be gone. Not for good, of course, but they’re off to the land of opportunity for a month to rock some shows and see if the grass is truly greener on the other side. The US tour marks the final major run of dates in support of their 2012 smash, HyperParadise, and it marks a huge shift in the international market for the band.
“We’ve been to the US and to Japan a couple of times already,” explains Luke Dubber, aka Luke Dubs, on the line from Sydney. “It really is a unique experience to essentially hit the reset button, to go from crowds where people are intimately familiar with your music back home to new audiences that are just discovering what you’re doing. That never gets old – it’s an absolute thrill to be able to do that after so many years. Hopefully, we have a great crew waiting to see us at these shows.”
This may be the umpteenth time the duo have toured HyperParadise, but it should be stressed that the duo have not been twiddling their collective thumbs in the interim. Work is well underway on Hermitude’s as-yet-untitled fifth album, which is set for release in 2015’s first quarter.
“Yeah, it’s come along really far already,” says Dubber on the all-important next album. “We’re really only a few bits and pieces away from completing it, then we move into the mixing and mastering part of it.” As for what we can expect sonically from the album, Dubber is a little more secretive.
“I guess people will make of it what they will,” he says, “but I think you can expect bits and pieces of all of our albums pushed to some new directions. I’ll be interested to see how people react to it.”
2014 has also seen Hermitude hard at work on a variety of remixes. The most recent of these was a spin on Odesza’s Say My Name, as well as a take on Modest Life by their US tourmates RÜFÜS (or RÜFÜS DU SOL, as they’re known Stateside) and their version of Holdin’ On by Flume.
“We love doing them – we’ve actually put out more this year than any other year,” says Dubber. “It’s still fun to us to reimagine and redevelop the ideas of other creative people whose music we love listening to. The best part about it is that the building blocks are essentially already there, as opposed to when you’re working on a song from scratch. It means you get to rebuild it in a way that leaves your own stamp of identity on it.”
RÜFÜS are coming off the back of an incredible year, with a number-one album, sold-out national tour and major inroads from an international standpoint. As people that have seen them go from success to success, Hermitude are thrilled to be along for the ride when it comes to their tourmates.
“I think electronic music in Australia has blossomed again,” says Dubber, with a great sense of pride in his voice. “It’s a renaissance not seen, I think, since the mid-to-late ’90s. It’s really begun to be appreciated properly again, and it’s rewarding the right people. It’s a chance for musicians outside of the realm of rock and pop or whatever else to be exceptionally creative in a climate that allows them to be. So to see acts like us, RÜFÜS, Wave Racer… it’s a great time to be a part of this scene.”
Hermitude return to Perth for one night only as a part of the CoLAB Festival alongside Midnight Juggernauts, The Jungle Giants, The Kite String Tangle and more. It takes place on the Oak Lawn at the University of Western Australia on Saturday, November 29. For more information and tickets, visit colabfestival.com.au
