It’s been two years too long since pillars of the Adelaide and national hip hop scenes, Funkoars released an album.
The wait is finally coming to a close. “We’re going back out on the road,” Daniel Rankine aka Trials announces proudly, “we’ve been working on this fifth, full length for so fucking long now, it’s time to put it out.”
With work on their forthcoming album ‘In Case Of Emergency’ nearing completion, fans have already been graced with new single, ‘Mad As Hell’. Trials says both it and the forthcoming album harks a return to Funkoars’ trademark deference to bodily functions. “It’s a good return to one of our older albums. We definitely got pretty serious for a while and now we’re just going to take it back to all the fart and egregious amount of sperm jokes, so it’s been really fun to go back there.”
Trials is flexing his muscles behind the decks at Umbrella: Winter City Sounds as part of the line-up for The Warm Up, a series of day parties presented by Golden Era Records. He says the event is the perfect opportunity for fans to get their ears around the new Funkoars material. “We just get together and throw a mini-block party,” he says.
“We get a bunch of crew in the area and it's cool because we actually have our own beer now which is just another excuse to party. We're dying to hang out and play the new [Funkoars] record, and I get to spin a whole bunch of new songs people haven't heard yet.
“It’s nice to finally get some music out because the fifth album is chockers of hard, heavy hip hop shit and it’s something we’ve been dying to do for a long time.”
The Warm Up is hosted by Brisbane beatboxer/ human-sound machine Tom Thum and Trials says he is excited to be performing alongside Tom, as well as K21, Plutonic Lab and DJ Sizzle. “Tom’s another good friend of mine, we’ve worked together so many times and that dude is unbelievably talented. If he’s got a microphone in front of him you know something’s about to go down.
"Couple that with Pluto, Sizzle, K21 and me in the mix with MPCs and a live drum machine and who knows what else; it’s gonna go down.”
As part of the esteemed Golden Era Records collective established by Hilltop Hoods, Funkoars have worked extensively alongside fellow label alums such as K21, and supported the Hoods themselves on many a tour. “We've played with them a million times,” Trials says, “because Suffa and Pressure are easily two of the best MCs I’ve seen in my life, so we stole a lot of their stage show to try and make ours over the years.
“Playing with those guys is always a ball, it's a blast. The after parties are always something else too,” he laughs. “The only way you can't have a good time is the next day. The next day is awful, it's always a very bad day.”
Trials performs as part of The Warm Up at Umbrella: Winter City Sounds 23 July at Edinburgh Castle.
Funkoars Tour Dates
Fri 8 Jul - The Gov (Adelaide)Fri 15 Jul - Ding Dong Lounge (Melbourne)
Sat 16 Jul - Pelican Bar (Melbourne)
Thu 28 Jul - Prince of Wales (Bunbury)
Fri 29 Jul - Jack Rabbit Slim's (Perth)
