When we sat down to do the interview, Julian Hamilton was rifling through the cold ones for a soda, but all he could find was “diet pop.” His bandmate, Kim Moyes, offered him his own Coke, freshly opened. Beyond a lesson in being good to your friends, The Presets shared a little more insight into the Aussie electronica duo’s inner workings.

Do you share a lot?
JH: Oh yeah. Life’s about sharing.
KM: You got to have your bro’s back.
JH: You got to help everyone out. Especially when you’re so much better at everything than everyone else.

What else are you great at?
JH: Not much else, actually. I’m only good at sharing. Mildly good at it.
KM: We’re kind of naturals at everything. Naturally good, naturally bad.

How was the photo shoot you just did?
KM: They wanted to style us and they had all these stupid leather jackets so we took our shirts off and really camped it up. No shirts, very rock and roll. Sunglasses. Very tough. Chicks are going to love it.

What do you think chicks love about you guys?
JH: That they think we’re gay. So we’re not a threat. I think they like our music. Our music speaks to them. Maybe chicks don’t really like us, people do like what we do though.

How long have you been working together?
JH: Thirteen years.
KM: It’s almost gone beyond just working together. We’ve toured for so long it’s like family. It’s not even being comfortable around each other anymore.

Do you find the Coachella crowd to be similar or different from festival crowds in Australia?
JH: We haven’t done that many festivals in the States, but any festival in the world is the same. People congregating together to be amongst more people and kind of get buck wild. You’re never going to really have a mellow, subdued festival crowd. Unless it’s a classical music festival or something like that. These things are designed for people to get out, get wasted, and see as many bands as they can.

Most dance music makers were once partiers, but do you have to sacrifice that interest by switching from the dance floor to the stage?
JH: Yeah, I think so. Especially with touring, you can’t maintain that sort of love for partying. It’s not a weekend sort of thing like every other person would do. You’re doing it every night so you have to get smart about it.
KM: We also came at it from a different angle. We were making music together for many years doing different projects. We weren’t necessarily kids in a club saying, “One day, we wanna make this techno music!” It ended up being the music we made because we were musicians.
JH: We were interested in music and geeky about it while we were going to clubs. We were making music in different ways, studying music, and enticed by all different kinds of music, as well. We were more than party animals. We liked the music first almost before the party.

What is the musical beauty in dance formulas and what can be done with those structures?
JH: We write dance-pop songs so it’s very traditional structures. Generally dance music is built on organic sort of structures but it’s a bit more open. It’s a lot like classical music where you have breakdowns or pigs and troughs as opposed to verse and chorus. It’s got a more futuristic scope to it. And the sound world of it is a lot more impossible and limitless.

Are there infinite possibilities of sound? Could every possible sound ever be made?
KM: Every once in a while, bands come up with new sounds, new combinations of sounds and everyone freaks out. Then twenty bands copy them until a new combination gets figured out.
JH: It’s infinite for sure.