Back then too, he describes how – around the time he was finishing school – the Hilltop Hoods were already starting to blow. The time was around the turn of the millennium and Australian hip hop was only in its infancy – and albeit in hindsight, with a massive future. “Even though things were still pretty new, you were already beginning to see the green shoots,” explains the articulate Hons. “There were the graffiti kids and the kids on boards. We were really motivated to give it a go and along with a bit of a push from the Certified Crew, we sort of agreed to do something.”
And the rest as they say is history. Their seminal first release, Who’s Your Step Daddy? turned ten this year, as Matt proudly describes it was ‘our firstborn’. Since then, a number of albums have followed, each more innovative and evolutionary than the last, culminating in the most recent, titled The Quickening. Matt describes the change, “If you look at the progression of our music from The Hangover, to The Greatest Hits and so on, you can sense a certain maturity. You can really notice the way things are happening differently across all the albums; when you have your own creative control over everything do you, it helps your music progress at a level that you want it to.”
Indeed, the lads continue to place an infinite value on that creative control – so much so, that they’re in the studio experimenting and recording almost every night. “We’re really looking forward to releasing something in the next nine months,” Hons says. “At the same time though, we’re also looking at other avenues and things for release. There are plenty of tracks out there that we’re working on and there’s still a lot of time between now and then to get things done, so we’ll see.”
In between all of the progress and the glory then, the lads are grateful for their success and the love they’ve got from their fans. “I remember when back in the day we were just on some really basic gear – an old mixer and some reels and a coat hanger and some old stockings, trying to get rid of the pops,” he reminisces. “It wasn’t much good – but it was around the time Trials met Sesta.”
Then at Cargo Club in Adelaide, the boys would record and write and Hons would just hang around – as he describes in his own words. “Then I decided to try something myself and without thinking it would go anywhere, we recorded some music and we really got into it. We ended up doing about 20 tracks and didn’t want anything out of it to be honest – but our old manager really pushed us and we ended up doing Who’s Your Step Daddy? and now that we look back and think about that sound, it really feels like a bunch of 17-year-old kids on the mic. We laugh, but it’s definitely something to look back on.”
Gigs wise, Hons admits they haven’t been doing as much as they might like, but that will change in the near future. “To be honest, we haven’t done too many gigs in recent times; we did rock out with Briggs for New Years at the Espy in Melbourne and we did another show for the Robert Hunter Cup and played the footy the next day – it was a good, fun day. Otherwise, we are doing a little lap of the country soon – and we’re doing that before the Sprung Festival sets and then another show a home. We’ve got a fair bit on the go before then too.”
The group has had to adjust to life as a trio too, since Reflux (Daniel Yates) moved on. But that hasn’t changed thing, “Myself, Trials and Sesta have never been tighter,” chimes Hons. “Even though Reflux did leave the group, we feel we’ve been able to maintain the intensity and focus on staying creative. More than ever, we want to get on and keep making music,” he says.
BY RK
