As newcomers to the Sydney scene, Horrorshow are already beginning to forge a rich, mature sound that contradicts the time they’ve been producing music together. Solo and Adit are on the eve of launching their debut album, The Grey Space this Friday night. For those who haven’t heard, it’s one of the strongest local releases of late, featuring a strong sense of instrumentation, a vibrant gamut of emotions and a strong cohesion between the pair that ties the whole thing together. Basically, The Grey Space is well worth handing over your hard-earned for.
It was pleasantly surprising to hear of your signing to Elefant Traks. How did this eventuate?
Solo: Our signing with Elefant Traks basically came about through approaching Urthboy about our album. We had pretty much finished the project and were looking at different ways we could get it out. We initially went to Urthboy for some advice about what we should be looking for in a label or distribution deal. We were speaking to a few different labels at the time and things just developed from there.
So basically whilst shopping the album around, you hit up Urthboy purely for advice but he liked what he was hearing?
S: Not purely for advice, Elefant Traks was always an option we were considering, but at the time we weren’t sure what we wanted to do. We gave Urthy a copy of the album to see what he would make of it. Elefant Traks was always on the cards but i guess we didn’t approach them straight up looking to get signed.
Adit: After understanding a bit more about the process, what was on offer, and our initial thoughts and impressions Elefant Traks began to look like the right home for our music.
Do you think the signing to such an esteemed label made a significant difference in the final product with regards to aspects such as mastering?
A: No I don’t think so. The album was essentially finished before we had approached anyone. There were some final engineering/mastering aspects to be addressed of course, and Elefant Traks helped us organise the full treatment and polish for the record. But as far as making a any significant difference to the final product, no. Most of the creative decisions had already been made. But people involved in the post-production phase, namely William Bowden and Mike Burnham at Tardis were Elefant Traks contacts and they definitely brought the record sonically up to scratch.
You two have emerged from the strong music culture at Fort Street High School. Is there a healthy level of competition for success? Who else went through there?
S: I don’t think there’s a competition at all. There’s just a strong appreciation for music at the school, a very strong band program and there’s been some amazing music teachers and conductors come through the school over the years. Fort Street is, or at least it was when we went, a fairly laid back and tolerant environment which encourages its students to express themselves in a whole bunch of different ways. There’s been a lot of different creative people come through the school, from actors to musicians to artists and everything in between. Personally i was involved in a whole bunch of different bands, playing jazz and funk. I think for us we were just part of a group of peers who had a lot of different talents, and a lot of us just really loved music.
But there’s also always been a strong hip hop tradition at Fort Street, lots of writers and emcees. Comrade Kos and Jack Prest of 3rd Estate fame, one of the guys from Bluejuice, Joelistics from TZU and Unkle Ho of The Herd are some of the people I can think of off the top of my head. But I’ve been hearing murmurs lately there’s a whole new batch of rap kids coming out of the place which is great to hear. Oh and Nick Lupi of Spit Syndicate and the Natural Causes guys, they were in our year at school as well.
So solo it’s obvious you’ve been singing for some time now. do you play any other instruments? What about you Adit? How long have you two been involved with music performance or production?
S: Yeah I used to the play the drums, that was my first introduction to performance. I sold my drumkit last year though, it was just taking up space, it’s gone to a much better home now. Personally I guess I’ve been involved in making some kind of music, even if that was just singing to myself all the time, since early primary school days and I got a lot more heavily involved in it through high school.
A: I very contently dabble in a couple of things, namely bass. But i started producing in high school. We’ve worked on hip hop together since those days so it has been a good 3 or 4 years now.
S: Yeah, I think we made our first track together in Year 9?
A: Something like that. But the first thing we did together was non Hip Hop related. I was playing bass in a band, and we got Nick to lay down his caramel-flavoured voice for a performance. I guess we’ve been involved together in some sort of music since day one.
So the story of Horrorshow’s beginnings is the story of two friends with common interests meeting at high school? has it always been just Solo and Adit?
S: Well Adit and I were friends for years before Horrorshow or before we even started making tracks. We met in Year 7 and developed a love for Hip Hop amongst our peers, as I mentioned before there were a few emcees in our year. Basically around Year 9, Adit was experimenting with making beats and throwing the odd thing at Nick Lupi or Phatchance. I was kind of working on rhymes in secret at the time and would get Adit to send me whatever he made. and eventually i got enough courage to show him something I’d be working on, and that was the beginnings of Horrorshow i guess. Actually one or two of the tracks from The Grey Space actually date to that era in some way shape or form.
The new album sounds vastly mature for a debut, exactly how long had you been working on it?
A: Well as Solo said earlier, some of the songs had been partially written years ago. Some of the beats I’d started and left in the basement of my hard drive (gotta love the digital age) for a while. but the record really came together over the last 6 months of 2007. We came up with a lot of new material and put life into the old. Both of us went on hiatus for about 3 months. Came back in February and spent the next two months doing final mixes and getting it through mastering. So it’s difficult to plot out exact dates, but that’s the rough timeline.
You’re both close with the Spit Syndicate boys not only on the social tip but musically. how do you go about finding common ground in the studio?
S: I guess that’s exactly how we find common ground, we’re close. We have a good understanding of who they are and vice versa so it’s not hard at all for us to work with one another and complement what each of us can bring to the table. It’s definitely true that Horrorshow is pretty different to Spit Syndicate in a lot of ways. But there are also fundamental similarities between what we do, some of the ideas we express in our music. I guess it comes down to a real respect and admiration that we have for each other and what each group is capable of and what each group excels at. For example, something like Here Today Gone Tomorrow, that’s probably not something I would ever write myself and it’s a sound which is quite different to what we make but I love it, and I love what it communicates about the boys and what they stand for, so I can sing it proudly knowing that I’m representing for them
Waiting for the 5:04 features some really beautiful imagery. is the telling of the story and its content just as important as a super tight rhyme structure?
S: Very much so, in fact with that track I would say it’s more important. I just wrote that as a kind of freeform thing, I wanted it to be something like a story told in rap form without really worrying about the rhyme structure, I don’t even know how many bars long that verse is. Some tracks are all about trying to write the coolest rhyme patterns and stuff that you can but that song was just about getting something down about my hometown. I was working in the city at the time and was spending a lot of time on that train trip taking in our local area and I just wanted to write something that would let me express the love I have for my city and for the area I grew up, the Inner West.
One thing i picked up from your songwriting is a tendency to highlight the drudgery of day to day living as well as an emotional depth, evoking parallels with Slug from Atmosphere. Is he a musical inspiration?
S: I saw you ask Muph this question on your blog the other week. Yes, Atmosphere are definitely one of our major influences. I have a lot of respect for the way that Slug observes things and finds significance in small day to day events. I think it probably boils down to the fact, and I would hazard a guess that this is applicable to Muph as well, that we are both just people that like to think about shit way too much. I think a lot of rappers are that kind of person, that’s how we manage to make 3 or 4 minute songs about one particular issue or feeling or whatever. But yes, Slug has definitely been a big influence on me in learning to see what are arguably insignificant things in my life, such as catching a train home as something a bit deeper than that.
What about production-wise? Is Ant an inspiration of your’s Adit?
A: Well yeah. I listen to a lot of Rhymesayers so naturally that will translate into the music and I hope it does. But i couldn’t single out any one producer or musician. What I listen to spans genres, so it really does just boil down to what I’m feeling that day, what side of the bed i wake up on, if you will.
Care to give me a summarised cross-section of the stuff you dig from other genres?
A: it’s funny you ask…there’s always the tendency to go straight to the soul/funk/lounge crates when you walk into a record store; but if you’ve got the patience to listen through Barbara Streisand or Paul Simon you’ll always find gems (Paul Simon is a genius though). That said i get stuck in the trap of heading to those same crates too. i could listen to bobby bland all day – been sampled to death but he always delivers.
Was there a pronounced consideration for the emotional consistency of the album? As in, placing tracks like Celapram and All Summer Long together? Distinctly negative to distinctly positive within 5 minutes of listening time?
S: One thing we definitely tried to do with the album was to place the tracks in an order which we felt made sense emotionally or had some flow to it in terms of the moods we have on there. The album contains a pretty wide variety of moods and I think we tried to put the tracks together in a way which created some kind of linear flow, hoping to create some kind of underlying progression that ties the whole thing together, from the first tracks to the middle of the CD where you have some darker stuff creeping in there, and that darker section of the album definitely reaches its climax at the point you’re referring to. We put All Summer Long there because it’s probably the most easy listening, chilled out track on there so to put it after Celapram, which is a bit harder to listen to just because of the nature of the song, was meant to give the listener a breather after listening to that heavier stuff in the previous track. However I wouldn’t say it’s as simple as moving from distinctly negative to positive – I think it’s more a question of the wider progression of the album from the opening track to the final few songs where we tried to come to terms with or resolve some of the sadder or darker shit we brought up in the record.
Considering your context in Australian Hip Hop-almost a new generation, how do you encompass the values and ideals crafted by the older schools of thought both locally and abroad?
S: I’ve actually had a few people raise this idea with me of a ‘new generation’ or ’second wave’ of hip hop artists in this country, Aussie Hip Hop 2.0 and shit. I never really thought of it like that until recently. I guess between us, Spit Syndicate, and other artists like The Tongue, 360, Illy, Illzilla (although they’ve been around for a while) there has been a fair few records come out from newer Australian acts in the last little while which I think is really cool. Without meaning any disrespect whatsoever to any of the established Hip Hop artists in this country, I definitely think it’s time for some new blood. I think it’s just that shit has come full circle now, just like a lot of kids I got into Australian Hip Hop at the beginning of my teens and I spent those formative years listening (amongst other shit) to that first wave of really prominent Oz Hip Hop acts – The Hoods, The Herd, Funkoars, Hermitude, SBX crew, Pegz, L.C, Delta, TZU – basically all that shit. I’m a kid that grew up on those Culture Of Kings compilations, that shit was like the bible to me back in the day. So I definitely feel like what we do is informed by the ideas that those guys were pushing, particularly what they were pushing about being comfortable representing Australian accents, identities and experiences in their music. As far as your question, I guess I do try to represent the values of Hip Hop as they were taught to me by artists such as the ones I’ve just mentioned. I think it’s very important to have a knowledge of what’s come before you and the kinds of ideas people have already expressed if you’re gonna find your place within this Hip Hop thing. A lot of artists have put in years of hard work to basically pave the road as far as getting it through people’s heads in this country that Australian Hip Hop is legitimate and worthwhile music. So I think acts like us are in a much better position to come through and have our music heard and accepted by kids now and I don’t forget that. I still bump a lot of those artists regularly and keep up to date with their new shit so they’re still influencing me. I guess what will be interesting is to see how this new generation of artists continues what all those people have worked to build so far.
Is knowledge a strong focus in what you do?
S: I guess so. I just think that music, and particularly Hip Hop, gives you the chance as an artist to really say some shit, to give people some thoughts or ideas that can open their minds or just help them make sense of their own shit a bit more. I think as an individual I think it’s very important to know yourself, to know what you stand you for and also what you’re not down with. And I think also, if I try and sit down and boil down what I think about a certain issue or feeling into a 24 bar verse that rhymes, in doing that I’m gonna get it pretty clear in my head what I think about that issue, and so the actual process of making the music is kind of about getting to know my own thoughts really well, and I think that comes across in our music.
What does the next 6 months hold for Horrorshow?
S: Right now we’re busy as a one armed whore getting ready for our album launch this Friday. We’re doing a set with a live band, doing live versions of the album tracks for the first time ever. Adit is playing bass and we got a whole bunch of muso friends in to play – horn players, keyboards and all types of good shit. It’s been really fun getting ready and it’s sounding awesome but obviously co-ordinating that many people for rehearsals has been keeping us pretty busy. Other than that we’re currently working on some plans to hit the road again in October and November, get out to some cities we haven’t been to yet, which is going to be sick, keep an ear to the ground and an eye on our myspace for details. Oh, and working on our next record.
