Haiku Hands

Your new single 'Kicks' is a real banger. What was the inspiration behind the track, and how did the collaboration with Julian Hamilton of The Presets and Rob Amoruso come about?

We began writing ‘Kicks’ in Bali when we started working on our album Pleasure Beast. We did a writing residency at the studio in W hotel in Seminyak. It was a very lush and fun writing trip.

We wrote the raps from ‘Kicks’ to a completely different style of beat, the track didn’t end up making it onto the album because it went on its own little adventure through so many different styles and genres to end up where it is now.

We performed at the APRA music awards earlier this year. We did a cover of a Troye Sivan song and the musical director was Julian Hamilton from The Presets. He was such a legend and we chatted about doing something together. When we were finishing off ‘Kicks’, we wanted to develop the chorus and Julian is an excellent lyric writer so we reached out to him and went and did a session in his studio in Sydney.

We also met Rob Amoruso this year when we did a verse on a sneaky Baker Boy track that Rob had been producing. We were immediately drawn to his good vibes and we just wanted to send through ‘Kicks’ for some extra production ideas and he came back with this absolute banger. We loved it so much we started working on something new straight away. 

In the production process for 'Kicks,' you mentioned that seeing your mates making "filthy dirty bass faces" was a sign of a successful track. What was the vibe like in the studio when creating this song? Any standout moments?

It’s so weird the things that make you feel satisfied in the creative process or give you the feeling that you’ve nailed it AND playing a new track to my friends or other producers and them dropping a mad bass face is definitely one of those signs. The vibe in the studio with Haiku Hands can range from total chaos to complete meditative calm to crazy concentration. We’ve got all the emotional food groups in there. I think one of the coolest moments was writing those original verses in Bali. We had a bit of a rule that was if a lyric makes you laugh then it has to stay in there. One of the original lyrics was “you can lick the piss from my pants” which made us all have a big LOL, but we ended up changing it to “you can lick the sweat from my pants” but I’ll never un-hear the original line.

The music video for 'Kicks' was filmed guerrilla-style at a busy Sydney shopping centre. Can you share more about that experience?

Recording the ‘Kicks’ film clip was an awesome experience, it was with some of the most open minded and fun people I’ve ever met. Everyone was just up for anything and willing to go anywhere and try things.. It was the kind of energy that you want on every single creative project, it was a real slice of heaven collaborative experience.

Haiku Hands work best when the format is guerrilla-style, I feel like permits and rules block creativity. We have actually used this same location to shoot our ‘Dare You Not To Dance’ film clip, (Bea was on the rooftop with a bunch of skaters). We didn’t get a permit that time either.

The words we used as a jumping board when coming up with ideas for this film clip were unhinged, joy, bold, fun, free, self expression and still, we felt like this location could offer a space to do those things and it did.

Pleasure Beast Deluxe features five new bonus tracks. How did you decide which new songs to include, and how do these additions complement the original album?

Pleasure Beast Deluxe album has two new tracks and then three remixes of tracks from the album. It was so hard to decide which tracks made it on there because we had so many good collaborations. We are so lucky we love all the people we get to work with, and we’ll just have to put all the leftover energy into the next album 

As Pleasure Beast nears its one-year anniversary, how do you reflect on its impact? Has your relationship with the album changed as you've performed it around the world?

Whoa it’s coming up to a year ago!!!! Time is wild. The biggest impact for me was getting to tour it in the US and UK / Europe and those sold out shows and everyone knowing the words and people flying from other countries to get to the shows. It was really special and probably one of the most impactful few months of my Haiku Hands journey. We worked so hard on it and then the Spinning Top team worked so hard on getting it out there and then all the feedback and how it impacted people has been really cool to watch. I love seeing which songs are people’s favourites, it’s always a surprise, heaps of people love ‘All Around the World’, and ‘Grandma’ and ‘Geddit’ really go off in the live show.

Welcome to 2025, what are some of your biggest goals for Haiku Hands? Are there any upcoming tours or shows we might be able to get our groove on to Haiku Hands?

We are about to head off on a national tour with San Cisco which is going to be fun and then we have a club show run in December, that’s the thing I have been most looking forward to. I’ve been really enjoying DJ’ing so we’re doing a hybrid live and DJ show for the first time that’s going to be really huge. We all come from a dance music background and we all DJ so it’s going to be a new level of hype.