Hilltop Hoods interview

Ever since their single The Nosebleed Section became an unexpected mainstream hit in their native Australia in 2003, Adelaide-based Hilltop Hoods have become one of the most recognised exponents of hip hop from the Southern Hemisphere.

Mixing intelligent social commentary with straight up party bangers, they’ve earned a number of ARIA Awards, platinum sales and even a reworking of their 2006 album The Hard Road with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Now promoting their latest album State of the Art featuring none other than hip hop legend Pharoahe Monch, HUCK caught up with Pressure, one third of the trio with fellow emcee Suffa and DJ Debris, to talk touring, starting a record label and why they are not just ‘Aussie hip hop’.

HUCK: You recently toured Europe. How was that?
Pressure: It was awesome, actually. Unfortunately, it got cut short but the time that we had their was wicked. We did an amazing show in Koko in London and sold that out. Also, open air in Oxegen festival in Ireland and Tea in the Park in Scotland.

At your London show, you got DJ Debris to do some push ups on stage? Is that some sort of tradition?
Yeah, it started off as a joke. Every time one of us fucks up on stage we make them do some dumb shit like push-ups. It ain’t no macho shit, we just find it amusing.

Your show pays tribute to other emcees and musicians? Who in particular has inspired Hilltop Hoods?
I grew up listening to hip hop in the late 1980s so I was heavily inspired by Juice Crew, Big Daddy Kane, Public Enemy, Organized Konfusion and just a lot of heads from that era.

You’ve been together for the best part of two decades now, right?
We formed the group in early to mid-1990s but have been seriously making music since the late 1990s. It’s been about 15 years. Me and Suffa went to school together so we made hip hop at school just for fun, mainly to fuck around and do anything but actually go to school.

That’s quite a long time. What has kept you working together?
Yeah, it’s a hell of a long time to be working so closely with someone. But Hilltop Hoods is based on friendship. We met DJ Debris a few years after we formed we we are just best mates who make hip hop together. That’s the key, we enjoy touring together and of course, the music side of it.

Personally, man, I’d just prefer to be called hip hop. It’s an international form of music

Has you attitude to touring changed over the years?
Yeah, I’ve got a six-year-old son. The other fellows don’t but they’ve got long-term partners as well. Being away for a long period of time – I was away for six weeks last time – is pretty hard. It’s just one of those things. We try and do shorter trips in and out of Adelaide and get as much downtime as possible but generally stay on the road for the best part of a year.

Does touring this help or hinder writing and creating new music?
I get inspired by travelling and going to new places, meeting people and seeing new things. For me, it helps me get creative and work harder. It’s good to see where other people are at.

On your latest album, State of the Art, there is a track with Pharoahe Monch? How did that come about?
He was a big influence for me and Suffa when we were young and basically just got in contact with him over the internet. We threw a few beats his way and asked him to come guest on a track. He’d been in Australia before that so we eneded up flying him to Adelaide with his manager and hung out for a week. Surprisingly for us, he was willing to jump on a track!

You are often referred to as 'Aussie hip hop'? Are you comfortable with having that national distinction on your music?
Yeah, look, it’s one of those things. People back home in Australia get all patriotic and proud over something that’s coming from their neck of the woods and they can relate to. Personally, man, I’d just prefer to be called hip hop. It’s an international form of music and has been for over a decade. To me, we’re not ‘Aussie hip hop’.

You started on your own label, Golden Era Records? What was the reason for that?
We were with an independent label out of Melbourne [Obese Records] for a lot of years. We just wanted to go our own way when we were out of contract. We decided to make our own label so we could call our own shots from start to finish and have 100% artistic and creative control. It’s worked out really well for us. The other reason was that we wanted to start building our own family of artists around ourselves who we thought needed to be put on.

Are these tough times to start a label?
They are but we are not trying to take over hip hop in Australia or go crazy internationally. We just wanted to give artists and ourselves a solid platform to work from. Record sales internationally are just dropping by crazy amounts every year. These are tough times but as long as you are smart about it and don’t go overboard and get ahead of yourselves doing big marketing spends on something that’s not gonna work. If you are street smart about it, there’s not too much risk involved.

Do you think you will ever hang up the mic?
One day it’s going to happen, I guess. I’m still passionate about it so I think we’ve got a few albums left for us to do. I know that Suffa feels the same way. If the time comes when we are sick of doing it, I’ll give it up for sure but I’ll still be involved in the scene. Whether running small local shows or other artists, I’ve been doing it too long that I don’t know anything else. It’s in the blood.

State of the Art is out now on Golden Era Records.

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Hilltop Hoods interview (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.