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| The Hilltop Hoods
 The Hilltop Hoods have come quite a long way in the ten plus years since first getting up in Adelaide's southern suburb pubs and having a go of it in front of their mates. They've had two massive albums - 'The Calling' and 'The Hard Road', both reaching number one positions in the ARIA Charts - and have been touring both big festivals and headlining their own shows around the country.
And now they're about to embark on another tour called 'Stopping All Stations', one of the biggest hip-hop shows ever to tour Australia, with a massive 30-show journey over three months and stopping at all major cities and regional venues in all Australian states and territories. DJ Debris, who joined the group after the departure of DJ Next in 2000, seems to take it all in his stride as he talks comfortably about the tour, the album and all stops in between.
My last chance to interview the 'Hoods came just before 'The Hard Road' hit the streets, so I used this opportunity to ask some things about the album. It has a much darker tone, but Debris concurs with Suffa's sentiments from our last chat; it wasn't planned.
"It just evolved that way, without us really trying to mould it that way. We weren't really aiming to make a darker album," Debris agrees.
Another thing that I wanted to ask about was their use of sped-up vocals. It was a risky move, considering how cliched these have become in hip-hop, but it is done very well on songs like Reclaiming The Vibe and the title track The Hard Road.
"With The Hard Road," he explains, "the beats to that were made a year-and-a-half ago and we dug it out of the closet for the album. We had plenty of time sitting on that track in particular, coming back to it with fresh ears and going 'yeah, that actually works'. You're right, though, it does sound cliched with a lot of artists and a lot of people having been doing it lately, but I think we pulled it off well with this one."
'The Calling' also featured little skits in between songs, a common occurrence on hip-hop albums, but which was noticeably absent from 'The Hard Road'.
"We just wanted a solid release from start to end without having to press the skip button," Debris explains. "Sometimes albums can have too many skits and on this one there's only the real small one and that's not even ten seconds. It was just a conscious effort to have an album of solid songs without diluting it with skits."
The 'StopPing All Stations' tour sees the 'Hoods hit not only big cities, but many rural venues as well as playing to an all-ages crowd. There is a common perception that all-ages shows are more violent than regular shows for some reason, but Debris claims he hasn't experienced this. Fresh from judging the all-ages event Battle For A Rep MC Competition in Adelaide recently, which he calls a "Very cool show," and having played many himself in recent times, Debris thinks it's a myth.
"It is hard to tell because the last few all-ages shows, there's been a real segregation between the artist and the crowd with the barrier rails and everything. But yeah, I think it's a myth and it all really comes down to the vibe on the night and whether there's a full moon or not," he chuckles.
With regard to small shows versus the bigger ones, Debris likes both, "We like to vary it up. Festivals are good because you have a different demographic. You might have a bunch of people who aren't really into your music but might be passing by or seeing you on the time table and coming to check you out, so it's a good chance to convert people to liking your music," he laughs.
He's also excited about the rural shows, "The country towns are good when you don't really expect them to be. You rock up and you do sound checks and look around and think 'oh God, this looks a bit suss', but you do the show and walk away with a breath of relief thinking 'that was unreal!'"
Julian Cram
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The Hilltop Hoods play at Shadows Nightclub (Mt. Gambier) on Fri 15 September and Thebarton Theatre on Sat 16 September. 'The Hard Road' is out now through Obese. |
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