Conversation with Dan Smith assumes a distinctly philosophical bent when broaching the topic of success. “I don’t think being anywhere in life is a limitation to your work, as long as you’re still passionate, and into what you’re doing.” he tells MAG, sitting between his two Hilltop Hoods bandmates at a bar overlooking an icy Yarra River on the fringe of Melbourne’s CBD.
The man known to fans as MC Pressure gives a shrug, and stares out over the water for a time, before laying down his hand.
“I think the more experiences you have in life and in the industry, the more you have to give back to an audience,” he offers measuredly, re-establishing eye contact. It’s a rare moment of calm in an otherwise raucous encounter – the Hoods are all beers and light-hearted bluster – but it encapsulates their colossal new record, State of the Art.
The chart-topping success of 2006’s ARIA award-winning The Hard Road and 2003’s breakthrough The Calling (the first Australian hip hop release to go gold, then platinum) aren’t the story, but mere chapters. In a career spanning over a decade and five independently produced and released studio albums, the South Australian trio – Smith, MC and producer Matt Lambert (aka Suffa) and DJ Barry Francis (aka Debris) – have defied a star-making record industry that forgets acts as quickly as it breaks them. The real Hoods tale is one of gradual, self-made success and longstanding commitment to their art.
“Each record made the next record seem more possible,” says Francis of the Hoods’ early material, Matter of Time (1999) and Left Foot, Right Foot (2001) to name a couple. “The only difference now, is that we have more time and resources to make an idea reality.”
The point is driven home when canvassing their split from the apparently synergistic relationship with iconic Melbourne hip hop imprint Obese (see MAG June). Having released The Calling, The Hard Road and a 2007 collaboration with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, The Hard Road: Restrung (effectively dragging Australian hip hop into the mainstream on its own terms), some found their decision to go it alone glaringly narcissistic. Lambert puts it differently. “The thing about Obese was that it was a fairly short relationship in the context of how long we’ve been doing this,” he says. “Before that, we were doing our records by ourselves. We just wanted to go back to controlling our own shit.”
It’s something of a return for the Hoods. Forming in the early ’90s, after Francis – who hails from Noarlunga in Adelaide’s outer southern suburbs – hooked up with promising rappers Lambert and Smith from nearby Blackwood, the Hoods’ roots seem as unassuming as they come. Taking their cues from the classic golden era hip hop of the time – from KRS One and Common Sense to Nas and Organized Konfusion – and a “terrifying mentor” by the name of Flak, the Hoods spent their spare time hanging out and freestyling in the local park, blissfully unaware that it would get them anywhere.
“We used to freestyle before we even knew what freestyling was,” recalls Lambert. “We thought we’d invented it!” he laughs.
It wasn’t until they came across 1993’s seminal Knights of the Underground Table album by Sydney pioneers Def Wish Cast, that they realised rap’s possibilities. “You have no idea you can make records,” says Lambert. “It didn’t even enter our mind back then.”
State of the Art sees the Hoods push their brand of rugged, straight-up hip hop to its farthest reaches yet. A meditation on the state of the music industry and hip hop community, the record pulses with abrasive, rock-based hooks (The Return, The Light You Burned, Parade of the Dead), reggae flecked grooves (Still Standing) and flashes of downbeat orchestration (Last Confession, Fifty in Five). It’s some of Lambert’s most intricate production work to date, not to mention some of his and Smith’s most adept verses. They’re not alone. In something of a coup, they enlisted legendary NYC rapper Pharoahe Monch, who flew out to Australia to lay a blistering verse on the funk-ripped soul of Classic Example.
While something of a proud moment, the Hoods aren’t about to give themselves a congratulatory slap on the back. They may have conquered the hard road to mainstream success in Australia, but according to them, their biggest and best is still ahead.
“We want to sign and develop artists who deserve it, we want to make inroads overseas, and we want to take Aussie hip hop to the world,” urges Lambert. “Good music can do well, wherever it’s from.”
State of the Art is out now via Golden Era/Universal. As a thanks to JB Hi-Fi, Hilltop Hoods have included the exclusive track State of the Art on initial copies of their new album, in JB stores while stocks last.
