Hilltop Hoods
Bands don’t get any bigger than The Hilltop Hoods, undertaking one the biggest tours of their career with new album Walking Under Stars in tow. MC Pressure takes time to talk to Across The Ocean about the upcoming tour and their forty five date tour overseas as well as plans well in to 2015.
Congratulations on the new album, you must be stoked to back it up with another killer release?
We’re so happy with the album obviously, we wouldn’t put it out if we weren’t. This album is something that I’m extra proud of and a definite advancement on our previous work. I think we’ve really progressed again as artists and we’re super happy with how it is all going sales wise, people turning up to shows and everything surrounding it feels really good.
Do you feel the pressure to keep reinventing yourself and continually step it up with each new release and not repeat the last album?
We put pressure on ourselves to do exactly that because we don’t want to put exactly the same album out as we did last time. I don’t think the fans so much apply that pressure but we definitely do to ourselves. I guess if you are not progressing as an artist it is easy to become stale it is easy to get bored with it yourself. Once you get bored with it, it is time to do something else. We’re still mad, enthusiastic and pumped and we still have energy for the music. I haven’t been enjoying as much as what I am right now. A lot is that is because we have changed it up but we haven’t changed it up so much that people will not recognise that signature sound that makes it a Hilltop Hoods record. It is definitely a lot more soulful and the groove is a little laid back more and darker.
Given how much The Hilltop Hoods have achieved do you wonder where things will go next?
Where can we go next isn’t something we ask ourselves, we still listen to a lot of other people’s music. I’m still a fan of music myself and it comes naturally that your influences change and that can definitely taint how your sound goes. There were a few songs on the last record that didn’t make it on that were a bit Hilltop Hoods ten years ago. We listened to those and thought they didn’t fit for this record so we did try and keep it a bit progressive.
Did the album come together fairly well?
Making an album to be honest is pretty effortless until the last month and then you go ‘oh shit, we’ve got so much to finish’. Most of the creative side is done by then and it’s putting the finishing touches as well as all the other stuff you have to do. If you’re having trouble making music you’ve probably got writers block and that happens along the way. We spent a solid eighteen months making the record but it didn’t feel like effort right until the end when you realise how much is left to do.
Do you still get excited on release day when fans get to buy the album?
Most certainly, definitely, I get excited and nervous when we hand the record in. We usually hand the record in a month before it comes out. That waiting period for that month is now out of your control, you’ve done everything you can, you’ve poured eighteen months of heart and soul in to the record and there’s that nervous anticipation that you want to know what people think of the new record. I still get nervous and a bit excited about it and it’s torture waiting that month.
Does the power of the internet and Facebook still amaze you?
It’s such an amazing tool we have at our disposal now, ten years ago when we were starting out we didn’t have that. We are lucky to have the internet as a tool and I don’t think we wouldn’t have any fans overseas if we didn’t have that. We just finished a world tour and just started our Australian one and we sold out venues that I thought people wouldn’t even know who we were in those cities particularly places in Germany, US and Canada. Plenty of love in Vienna and we had never been there before. If it wasn’t for the internet and social media we wouldn’t be able to do that.
Is that going to be a bigger focus for the band moving in to 2015?
It already is a big focus of ours, for this album we started with a world tour before starting in Australia. The reason for that is the time of the year that we did the release because we wanted to do as many outdoor venues as possible. We trying to do as many outdoor venues as we can on this Australian tour we’ve just started. We had to wait for the right time of the year to be able to do that. For the first time ever we started with a world tour starting in New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, Canada and then the US. We played forty five shows across the world before we came home and started doing it.
Do you see much difference with overseas fans and are they up with the earlier material?
It is hard to tell, they probably know the singles and the famous songs from the back catalogue and we still play songs such as The Hard Road, Nosebleed Section and the more well known tracks from those old records but the set is mostly newer stuff. We play six or seven songs from the new album and then another thirteen or fourteen songs from the back catalogue. They seem to know it which is crazy! It freaks me out every time I’m in Stuttgart, Germany and there’s dudes rapping along to a song that’s ten years old, that’s a real trip.
Does the old and new hang together well in the live set?
It is always a bit like piecing together a puzzle when you’re putting together a live show. You don’t want to put your most banging live track next to your slowest and we don’t look at it in terms of how old the tracks are but more the dynamics and the relationships between the songs and how they flow in and out of each other. That’s part of putting your live show together, you add bits and pieces in to the songs or in between songs for the live show to make it all work. It is trial and error across shows and we do that to fine-tune the set and say those two songs didn’t work together and we remove it or change it. We’ve been doing that for the last forty shows overseas so I feel now that our set is water tight. It is great to be able to come home and have that confidence when you’re hitting the stage in front of big audiences.
Are you looking forward to the hometown crowd in Adelaide?
There are some beautiful places to play across the world to play but it is always special to come home and play in front of our hometown crowd. All your squad are there, family, friends and all those who kick started our career for us are there in the audience. It is amazing to be able to come home and do that.
HILLTOP HOODS – COSBY SWEATER TOUR – 2014
Friday 7th November – Adelaide Showground Arena – ADELAIDE
Saturday 8th November – The Old Mount Gambier Gaol – MOUNT GAMBIER
Friday 14th November – Margaret Court Arena – MELBOURNE
Saturday 15th November – Kinross Woolshed – ALBURY
Friday 21st November – Coffs Harbour Showgrounds – COFFS HARBOUR
Saturday 22nd November – The Marquee @ The Showgrounds – BRISBANE
Saturday 29th November – Macquarie Wharf 2 – HOBART
Friday 5th December – Bovell Park @ Busselton – BUSSELTON
Saturday 6th December – Red Hill Auditorium – PERTH
TICKETS DETAILS AVAILABLE FROM:
www.hilltophoods.com/hth/shows
New Album ‘Walking Under Stars’ out now
www.hilltophoods.com
www.goldenerarecords.com.au
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
