Matt Lambert interview

Band/Artist: Hilltop Hoods
Website: www.myspace.com/hilltophoods | www.hilltophoods.com
Tour dates:
Saturday July 18th- Enmore, Sydney – SOLD OUT; Thursday July 23rd - Capitol, Perth – SOLD OUT; Friday July 24th - HiFi Bar, Brisbane – SOLD OUT
Sunday July 26th - Splendour In The Grass, Byron Bay – SOLD OUT; Thursday July 30th- Grandstand Hall, Hobart Showground **new venue
Friday July 31st - The Palace, Melbourne – SOLD OUT; Saturday August 1st - Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide – SOLD OUT; Tuesday August 4th - ANU Bar, Canberra

Calling from the top

Matt Lambert, aka MC Suffa, makes up one third of the supremely successful Australian hip hop act Hilltop Hoods. Full-fledged Aussies, their established national fan-base is testament to their innovative lyrical poeticism.

It is difficult to fathom when speaking to Matt that he could be a groupie himself. But that’s exactly how this down to earth Adelaidian comes across when he let loose about the ‘Hoods’ recent opportunity to work with Pharoahe Monch.

“Yeh we’ve been massive fans of him, me and Dan since we were like 13.

“When he got here I pulled out like 20 vinyls for him to sign.”

The collaboration with renowned US rapper and producer, Monch came about due to the Hilltop Hood’s latest project, their third album proper: State of the Art. Which upon listening stand will tantalise even the most mundane of music listeners. Following in a similar vein to that of their previous efforts, The Calling and The Hard Road this album feels like it the lads have matured and ripened with age and given the time off they are energised and ready to rumble once more.

These laidback larrikins, born and bred in South Australia, can be accused of teasing their fans recently with their most recent outpourings being a remix of sorts. That is they took album two: The Hard Road and combined it with a symphony and repackaged it as the The Hard Road Restrung. For Matt who claims he’s still too close to it to comment it’s being touted as a departure from their upbeat and fun rhymes, this time they’re packing more of punch.

“We’ve always been who we want to be we just you know we just wanted to make a heavier album it is just the way we were feeling, but you know The Hard Road and The Calling and all that, that’s exactly the records we wanted to make,” he says.

Quiet for just on two years, they’ve been burrowed away pretty much for the entire duration, doing Matt assures nothing more than but the norm…

“Just working – it took along time to put together, cos when we do something like this, I usually make over a hundred beats and we’ll write a ton of stuff and people will go how long do you take to make twelve songs?

“You’ve got to make a lot more to get down to these sort of twelve songs.”

Matt professes to enjoy the making beats side of the music composition than the writing rhymes side of it. He’s not formally musically trained but he’s from musical stock, with his mum a music teacher, his dad a jazz-music collector and two of his three brother’s both in bands it’s any wonder he loves what he does and calls it his one and only and passion.

Perhaps this is also what has driven the cue ball right into the socket for the Hilltop’s latest offshoot - their label. It’s a chance Matt sees for them to influence the music industry in a positive way and give back some mentoring opportunities for those talented and upcoming in their industry.

“When our contract with Obese sort of expired, we thought about what we wanted to do, we wanted to control everything ourselves and we wanted to work to our own timelines and almost as important as that we wanted to put out the music of friends and of those who we respected as well.”

With speculation rife over the ‘Hoods’ decision to cut ties with Obese executives Matt is firm when he explains at the end of the day he and his band-mates have always done their own music.

“It’s just going back to what we’ve always been doing,” he states.

The year ahead looks likely to be spent touring the new album. Matt’s tone becomes serious when he discusses the task ahead of them, building their fan base overseas. Where does he think they might have the most success internationally?

“We’re definitely not as well known overseas…The UK for a couple of shows and Germany, where we’re doing a tour supporting Atmosphere, and a couple of shows on our own and then we’re finishing up with a festival in Switzerland.”

Then they’ll be back in time for their national tour which will take in most capital cities and of course the nation’s favourite winter festival – also Matt’s fave too, Splendour in the Grass.

"We haven’t played festivals overseas until now, so you’ll have to ask me again in a little while as it’s unfair to compare to Splendour anyway, 'cos it’s my favourite festival."

Ruth Bailey

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