The Australian electronic music-producing duo, Hermitude, is smack dab in the middle of their tour in support of their new album, Dark Night Sweet Light. Members Elgusto and Luke Dubs made a stop at Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, IL on Memorial Day Weekend 2015 and I was lucky enough to garner a few minutes of their time to sit down and talk about the tour, the new album and upcoming projects. The guys were more than happy to talk and had a lot to say:
How has the tour in support of the new album been up to this point? I know it was just released recently.
Elgusto: Well the album was released back home, but hasn’t been released in America yet, it comes out in America 28th of August.
So I saw you guys debuted at the top of the charts in Australia, how does that feel?
Elgusto: Yeah! In Australia we went to number one, it’s wild. Our last record charted at like number 37, so to go to number one kind of surprised us. But yeah, the tour has been good. We’re kind of just over here not really touring for the new record, but trying to play as much as we can.
I’ve noticed you guys have been playing a lot of festivals, how has that experience been?
Luke Dubs: It’s really cool we get to play some of the new songs and test them, but its great to get out to all of these festivals we get to see the country and get out of the cities, which is nice.
Elgusto: We were just in Georgia yesterday at Counterpoint Festival. The festival just started, like the doors opened, two or three hours before we played so we didn’t get to see too much of the festival, but the spot was amazing, so beautiful. This spot is amazing too, just very different. Much more flat land.
So you guys are going to Australia after this to tour for the new album. Are you excited to play anywhere specifically?
Luke Dubs: We’re doing a really big hometown show in Sydney at a place called the Enmore Theatre and it’s like a really big, kind of classic theatre style setup, very classy. We are excited to play pretty much anywhere in Australia.
Is there anywhere you guys have played in America that you could consider your favorite, or maybe a place where you received the best reception?
Luke Dubs: San Francisco has probably been our best show. Yeah it was sweet, in terms of our own headline show in America it was probably the best one so far. We love that city it’s really cool, especially driving in from L.A. The clouds in the skies create some really cool colors. We’ve had some really amazing shows in other cities as well. We played in New York City at the Webster Hall, which was another cool venue. The Avalon in L.A., which was really cool, with pictures of fucking Dean Martin hanging around, yeah it was pretty cool man.
So do you either of you have a favorite track on the new album?
El Gusto: I think mine would have to be “The Buzz” or “Midnight Terrain”
Luke Dubs: Yeah, mines either “The Buzz” or “Searchlight Reprise”
Do you have any projects coming up, anything planned even though the new album just came out?
Luke Dubs: What are we doing now (laughs)? We aren’t doing anything yet; we’re still getting our shit together and getting ready for the next tour. We are pretty much just gearing up for touring. We will probably do some writing, there might be a couple remixes we put out, but for now we are just basking in the glow of our album release.
Is the fan base in Australia pretty prominent?
Luke Dubs: Yeah, it has definitely grown a lot over the years. Since we put out HyperParadise we kind of just started growing exponentially more.
What is the electronic music scene like in Australia?
Luke Dubs: It’s good, it’s really good, it’s like over the last couple years, 3 or 4 years, its just kid of sky rocketed. It seems like there are a lot of Americans that comment on the Australian sound and like it too.
Both of you have been playing music for a long time. Is there anything you have done outside of Hermitude that you are still a part of? What have you done outside of Hermitude?
Luke Dubs: Up until HyperParadise we both had other things going on, but after the success of that album we just didn’t have time to sustain anything else. I used to do a thing called the Tom Tom Crew with this beat boxer named Tom Thumb and some acrobats; it was like a theater show, it was pretty cool.
Elgusto: I used to do some producing for rappers and also mix records for people, doing some sound engineering, which helps with producing, it kind of goes hand in hand. After we started popping off that sort of all fell to the side.
Hermitude is continuing their massive summer tour in America with a few more stops at festivals, including Wakarusa and Lollapalooza. The duo will also be making their mark in Australia throughout the summer. The new album will be available in The States on August 28th and is sure to make waves!
Image via Hermitude’s Facebook