Hilltop Hoods – who have sold 1.6 million singles and almost a million albums, won eight ARIAs, scored a J Award, had six songs in the top ten of triple j's Hottest 100, five top ten ARIA singles and five number one ARIA albums – come tumbling into the interview room at Universal Music HQ in Sydney, fresh from a photo shoot.
“What am I going to do about this massive stain?! He's spilt a drink all over me,” Suffa says sorrowfully. “It’s the stain of shame,” adds Pressure.
The ruined-shirt kerfuffle breaks the ice. It reminds me that despite being one of Australia's most successful music acts, Hilltop Hoods are chilled and silly, the music is uplifting, and at the end of the day, it’s all about having fun.
Throughout a meteoric career trajectory, Hilltop Hoods' sound and live performances have been dynamic and ever changing. “You evolve as people as time goes on and your tastes change,” explains Pressure about the trio's evolution.
“Our music and the creative vibe changes with it. Working with a number of different collaborators on the new record ['The Great Expanse']… it’s definitely our most collaborative album. You work with people, you see how they go about things and subconsciously it changes the way you go about things.”
Similarly, Suffa reflects on how the live shows have changed over time. “It used to be just us, and now we have Plutonic Lab on drums and we usually have a horn section… it keeps growing. We try to change it up a little bit every time we roll out something live.
“New album, new songs, we try to keep it fresh, for ourselves and for the people who have maybe seen the live show before. What you don’t get with just turntables and microphones is that feel with the live show. When you have drums and horns you get that feel. It changes the energy onstage.”
Does it follow that the crowd’s response has evolved as well? “Once we discovered how much we loved having a live drummer, we could never go back to not having one.
“The last show we did without him was in Hamburg. He did his knee in when we were on a river, white-water rafting. We were on a boat. We were drunk on a boat. We had to do one show without him and he had to have Cortisone in his knee. And it was so weird. It felt very empty.”
This story reminds me of the documentary about Australian metalcore ensemble Parkway Drive, which follows them on an international tour that ended with a groundbreaking gig played in the slums of Calcutta. One of the band members injures his leg surfing and ends up doing the whole tour in a wheelchair. “What a trooper.”
The documentary shows the band being silly and lairy while having adventures. A particularly memorable moment involved band members pushing their bandmate down a staircase amid bouts of hysterical laughter, watching him try to ride the bannister with the wheelchair. “It sounds like an episode of 'Jackass'.” Which it kind of was.
Documenting these larrikin anecdotes comes to mind as Hilltop Hoods recently unveiled a trailer for 'Restrung Live,' a documentary about their biggest national tour to date. Over 50,000 fans packed the sold-out arenas for the 2016 tour, which featured Australian orchestras and choirs as well as the revamped live show.
‘Restrung Live’ gives a rare glimpse into the world of the Hoods via interviews with their team, fans and contemporaries. So I’m interested to hear about music documentaries they themselves have loved and felt inspired by.
The first that comes to mind for Suffa: “'Iron Maiden: Flight 666'. It follows them around to Calcutta and Madrid. I was an Iron Maiden fan as a kid. Bruce Dickinson is like this A-type personality, who flies the tour jet around. Like, he’s the pilot. When he’s not touring with Iron Maiden he’s a commercial pilot in the States. Just for kicks. He’s a gold-medalist fencer as well.”
Hilltop Hoods are renowned for their collaborative approach to the records and live shows, and the support they have given to other artists. The 2018 single ‘Clark Griswold’ is a collaboration with Adrian Eagle. “Adrian is from South Australia originally, he’s living in Melbourne now.
“We met through mutual friends we’d worked with, just around the place at pubs and that. He’s a really gifted singer. Around the time we were making the record everything sort of came together with us working with him.
“He’s got a really unique voice, you know it's him as soon as he starts singing. Super positive dude to work with as well. We liked him so much we took him on tour around Europe. And he’s still been jumping up with us at the Australian shows.” The boys are in agreement. “We want to keep him.”
‘Clark Griswold’ is about being a father. And about how difficult that is. “The song idea came from Matt [Suffa], pretty fresh into fatherhood at the time,” Pressure says.
“I think it’s about learning to juggle, of being an artist and tour life and being away from your family. For me the song is very much about being human. It’s a big learning curve, trial and error, being a father in itself. It’s a big game changer.”
The track was released on a Friday the 13th (July 2018). As horror movie fans would notice, the clip references different B-Grade horror flicks including ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and pretty much every single, scary-clown movie ever.
The band have previously said they toned down the clip's content so it wouldn’t get pulled by YouTube. If censorship had not been a thing? “We would have gored it up,” Suffa says.
“I would have done an edit that we could let out that was like 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. I think having been allowed, we would have gone all the way. But we weren’t allowed.”
Incendiary sets at last year’s Splendour In The Grass and a sold-out UK and European tour including appearances at Reading and Leeds Festivals have marked Hilltop Hoods continued presence on the world stage.
They saw in the new year at Falls Festival, where they have done the NY countdown on the Tasmanian leg of the tour multiple times. “We’ve been doing it for like 15 years now. It’s just fun, Falls is one of the best festivals in Australia to play at. I was just happy we didn’t screw the countdown this time.”
How do you screw up a countdown? “Another stage started counting down before us. We were set to the right time, then the other crowd starts screaming it's New Year’s over there. We missed it by a minute or something,” Suffa says ruefully.
“Some of the feedback we got, we sort of laughed it off at the time; people were genuinely pissed off. A lot of people. I think a lot of people planned to shoot their shot at 12.”
I have to ask, did people actually make the effort to give the guys bad feedback? “Emails. Angry letters. They weren’t just mad with it then, they were mad when they got home too.”
The festival chatter ushers in the final question. The gig hypothesis. Imagine your dream festival. Where anyone could play and anyone could be serving you drinks, who would be on the line-up?
I’ve asked this one of Suffa before (The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, Candice Swanepoel serving the drinks). I put this one to Pressure. “I’m going to go for Notorious B.I.G on the bill. But I’m not going to ask Big to serve me drinks.”
Debris looks deep in thought. “Who’s serving us drinks, Barry?” Pressure yells at him across the table. Debris doesn’t hesitate. “Ron Jeremy.”
'The Great Expanse' is released 22 February.
Hilltop Hoods play Groovin The Moo 2019
Fri 26 Apr - Adelaide Showground (Wayville)Sat 27 Apr - Maitland Showground (Maitland)
Sun 28 Apr - Exhibition Park (Canberra)
Sat 5 May - Prince of Wales Showground (Bendigo)
Sun 6 May - Murray Sports Complex (Townsville)
Sat 11 May - Hay Park (Bunbury)
Eminem 2019 Tour Dates
Wed 20 Feb - QSAC (Brisbane)Fri 22 Feb - ANZ Stadium (Sydney)
Sun 24 Feb - MCG (Melbourne)
Wed 27 Feb - Optus Stadium (Perth)
