President Street - Pete and Ruby - have really seen it all this past year. Stuck in Australia with seemingly neverending lockdowns has led to some of the most creative work the pair have made in their career so far. We caught up with the pop duo to find out more...

Can you tell us a bit about the difficulties involved in being in a band while Australia’s been in (various) lockdown(s)? How has it changed your approach to making music?

Being in over 200 plus days of lockdown in Melbourne in particular has been incredibility prohibitive to being in a band, truth be told. Overcoming the mental health challenges of not being able to really leave the house and finding inspiration to write music has been something that we’ve had to face along with so many others.

In terms of making music, we’re obviously using technology as much as we can in order to overcome the inability to get together in a studio and that’s been great but its not going to overtake the traditional method of sitting together in a room for us. We definitely find that the working in person process is what works best for us.

One of the other challenges for us has been getting our live show ready for touring and, in that regard, we’ve been really going as hard as we can in between lockdowns to spend as much time as possible rehearsing and preparing.

So yeah, whilst technology has been helpful we can’t wait until we can get back in the room together and write, record, rehearse and perform!

You’re gearing up to release your second EP - Heartbreak Player - can you tell us how you’ve grown as musicians since [debut EP] Involuntary Actions?

The biggest growth as musicians has probably been in our song writing. We’re working far more closely together in song writing and production than we did before and it’s exclusively just the two of us now (along with the amazing Ash Howes who puts his magic touch on the final mixes for us).

We also feel more confident to take our songs to the place that feels natural for us and so we feel that we've really organically moved in a slightly more pop direction than where we were.

Our live show has also taken a new direction following our two acoustic tours of the UK in 2019 and we've have been putting far more attention into the performance and stage show side of things too (as much as possible with all our lockdowns!) since we’re gearing up to do some exciting tours in 2022.

We hear you have some very exciting partnerships coming up, can you tell us about them?

Yes! We’re super excited to be touring with the legendary Roachford in May/June 2022 as well as being part of other tours we’re looking forward to announcing soon (covid permitting)!

We’ll also be partnering with the gorgeous, ethereal UK fashion label ‘Temperley’ for a shoot when we’re next in the UK - Ruby is of course is a bit more excited about this than Pete :)

What music did you listen to whilst recording your new EP, Heartbreak Player?

As a rule, when we’re in writing mode we try not to listen to too much music to ensure that our ideas are uninfluenced but, having said that, we were really taken by Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia album and we’ve really had that to help us get through our many lockdowns.

If you could only pick one, what’s the album that has saved your lockdown?

Dua Lipa's "Future Nostalgia” for both of us!