The Hilltop Hoods have got a huge 2016 ahead, with their national orchestra-backed tour set to bring them to some huge stages around the country. At the Falls Festival, the Adelaide trio sat down with us before they performed to the Mt. Duneed punters to chat about it all; from the success of current single “Higher”, through to the changing wave in Aussie hip-hop that’s got them so excited.
“She’s got a big future ahead of her,” Pressure says of the latest Hoods-collab artist, Montaigne, who is featuring on their next album. “She’s a great songwriter as well.”
“We went away for a while,” he continues. “When you go away, you hope that the love is still there and it’s been a truly amazing response, how much everyone has jumped on board and gotten behind the new track [“Higher”].”
“We’re only doing a couple of new songs,” Suffa says of the release of “Higher” in particular and what it means for upcoming live dates. “So the songs are going to be six from Drinking From the Sun, six from Walking Under Stars, a couple of new songs and a couple of tidbits here and there – there are only a couple of truly new songs.”
“As a music fan myself,” he says of their upcoming tour. “If I was a fan of a band and they were doing a concept tour or an album like that, I’d be interested in it, even if I wasn’t going out to concerts much or whatever. That’s the sort of thing I’d make an exception for, to see someone with an orchestra. We’ve got that added advantage, they’re our secret weapon. If we suck, there are 32 talented people on the stage!”
Now that the Hoods are existing in a genre that is producing more interesting and varied artists than perhaps before, the lads are excited for the new music that lay ahead from some of Australian hip-hop’s bright new talents on the block.
“There used to be something that was a really heavy Aussie hip-hop sound,” Suffa says of the recent diversification of the genre. “That was the sound that everyone sounded like. Now, what you’ve got is sub-genres and sub-genres and sub-genres; you’ve got the underground heads, you’ve got the mainstream music, you’ve got a more modern sound from people like Tkay and Remi and it’s a real mixture. I’m glad to see it’s not like one thing and I’m also glad to see it’s not just white men! There’s diversification in another way as well, L-Fresh and Tkay and all those guys are becoming the face of hip-hop, like Citizen Kay as well. I think it’s great.”
Watch the full video interview below!
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