From the get-go, there was an evident fatigue in his voice. And rightfully so. He has just released his biggest album to date –The Life Of Riley – an album which the man himself states he has put the most time and energy into in comparison to all of his previous work. “It was a really long process. I go through every record with different stages. The initial stage is getting my ideas together, and getting beats from M-Phazes or any other producers that I’ve worked with in the past. Then I go through the writing process which is about six to seven months worth, and I won’t start recording any of my songs until I feel that I’ve got something that I think is completed writing-wise.”
“I was trying to record an album in the summer, and I had no air conditioning, and I was having some stomach issues at the time…It was the same thing day-in-day-out, even pushing me to the brink of what almost felt like insanity. You know, I couldn’t deal with it. I was even saying to my mum, I was like, ‘Why do I keep doing this to myself?’ I forget about it with each record – as soon as the record’s out, I kind of move on – she just goes, ‘You say this to me every single fucking time you’re recording an album.’ I just forget.”
But this fatigue didn’t diminish the quality of his responses, or the conversation that would occur for the next 20 minutes. He has been involved in the Australian hip hop scene since the impressionable age of 17 as part of the Perth hip hop crew, Syllabolix, and he’s about to venture out on the largest national hip hop tour that he’s ever been on, with the likes of Muph & Plutonic joining him along the way. A significant amount of accolades under his belt, it’s a surprise that these, amongst other things, haven’t gotten to his head. The most evident characteristic of Drapht, though, is that he’ll chat to you just like a mate – he’ll have a joke with you, be upfront about the turmoil that comes along with being in the public sphere, and he won’t have any qualms telling you just why you should never refer to him as ‘Jimmy Recard’.
Now, his latest record, The Life Of Riley has just gone gold, and he can’t be more thrilled.
“I’m super excited! I actually found out last week [that it had gone gold] but it didn’t tie into half the stuff that we wanted to announce this week in regards to the video and the tour, so I had to hold off announcing it for a week which was hard to do, but all my friends and family already knew.”
“I’m stoked. It’s one of those things that I never imagined [happening] four or five years ago. But yeah, I’m lucky enough to have a few accolades under my belt this year which is pretty amazing.”
“The workload and the amount of time that I put into this record definitely sort of separates it from any of the previous work that I’ve done in the past. Because of all of the success of Brothers Grimm and Jimmy Recard and all the rest of it, I was able to start living off them. From that point onwards, it just meant that I’ve been able to put every waking hour into this album and focus on the stuff that I really wanted to work towards in terms of live instrumentation, and just mastering my craft – as much as I could, anyway. But yeah, I think the biggest thing that sets it apart is definitely the amount of time that I put into it.”
By this stage in the interview, it was easy to feel comfortable with him. Like having a conversation with a good friend, our words flowed back and forth. But as I looked to my next question – a question which I knew would get a rise out of him – a part of me hesitated, but I just had to ask him what the deal was with Jimmy Recard.
“Everyone thinks that I hate Jimmy Recard – that’s not the case. I love that song and I appreciate that song more so than anything else because it did push me into the spotlight and the position that I’m currently in today. And I love performing it. It’s one of the most enjoyable songs in the set. I enjoy peoples’ reactions as well, but the whole stigma around Jimmy that I hated was that people didn’t know me as Drapht, and they didn’t know the artist Drapht. I mean, they knew the song Jimmy Recard and it just kind of had its own life in itself, and that really annoyed me. It was like people knew the song name but they didn’t know who wrote it.”
“It just got to the point where it was just getting ridiculous, so that’s where some of the aggression [towards it] stemmed from. It even turned into the point where people were starting to call me ‘Jimmy Recard’, and that obviously wasn’t the case. The idea stemmed from the idea that if I had a name like ‘Jimmy Recard’, would my life be different and would I turn into this super being? But I’m not Jimmy Recard, and I never pretended to be Jimmy Recard, so that’s why I had to kill him [with the song R.I.P. JR] considering it was in my legal rights,” he laughs.
And don’t even think about screaming out for him to play this bitter-sweet track during a live set. “I literally tell [people] to shut the fuck up every time they do it,” he said, still laughing.
“I’ve actually made an enemy off doing that. Like, there [was] this young dude in the Blue Mountains actually, on the last tour, and I was like two songs in, and of course, if you’ve got brains, you’ll understand that I am going to play the song – it’s one of my biggest songs – I’d be stupid not to. This dude was just constantly yelling at me at every moment that he had – ‘Jimmy Recard! Jimmy Recard!’ – like yeah, two songs in, so I stopped and I put my finger up at him and I gave him what was what.”
“I’ve had to ban him off my Facebook because he was so hurt by the fact that I put my finger up at him. He was like, ‘Next time you come, I’m going to be waiting for you’-kind of thing.”
“It’s a song. And he got his song. But he was just being a wanker beforehand, so I had to yell at him. It’s constantly bad!”
“And then last week – I didn’t stop the set – but I played in Cairns and people [were doing the same thing]. It’s mainly the younger crew that don’t really appreciate too much of my back catalogue, so that’s why they’re yelling ‘Jimmy’ out to me. It’s frustrating, but I suppose that it just comes with the territory.”
Having recently just played Splendour In The Grass – sober, may I add, Drapht is getting ready to set out on his headlining Party Party Party Tour, taking a few guests along for the ride with him.
“I really can’t wait! This is something that I’ve never done in the past – four albums worth of back catalogue from the last ten years.”
“I’m touring with some of Australia’s finest: Muph & Plutonic, which is pretty exciting. Also The Thundamentals, and then Layla and Dazastah who are from my Syllabolix family which I’m really excited about bringing them on the road with me.”
Unfortunately for us Melburnians, we won’t get the opportunity to see Layla and Dazastah, but don’t fret! Drapht will have special guests for us too. Just make sure that if you go along to the shows, leave Jimmy Recard out of it. He’ll be there, but in his own time.
