Phrase for PM
Aussie hip hop has come a long way from its humble beginnings, and Phrase is excited about it. The Dwarf spoke to Phrase the day after he had performed with the Hilltop Hoods, Pegz and Funkoars on The Lair, It was “a monumental moment for Aussie hip hop, it was the biggest turnout The Lair has ever had and to have all of us in the building at once, to see that it’s got to that level that we pull a bigger crowd than Fall Out Boy, it was wild”.
It’s a good time to be in hip hop, “I think we’ve kinda found our own identities. I think it took a while for artists here to work out exactly what we were doing, and I think that people can relate to it so much easier than they can 50 Cent talking about shooting people… I think it’s just the fact that we’ve got a no bullshit attitude and Aussies are like that, they see through anything that’s fake and I think it’s easy for people to relate to it because we’re talking about things that happen here in our country and lifestyle and that sort of stuff”.
Phrase has just released the first single off his upcoming album Burn It Down. The single, ‘Face It’, features Ian Kenny from Karnivool and is being used to promote Halo 3 in Australia which is good for Phrase as he is “quite a big gaming fan”. But, back to the single, “When I wrote the song I [thought] we need something really epic and a really powerful chorus, I’d been hearing a lot of Karnivool on the J’s so I just reached out to their management and then I met up with him [Kenny] when I was in Perth doing a show. He was really cool, he liked the song and I said to him, you go do your thing on it, and he sent it back to me and I think it turned out really well”.
‘Face It’ is definitely at track to go by for the rest of the record, “It’s a lot more alternative than the last one so I’ve got some pretty different collaborations on there that I don’t think people will be expecting and I suppose that’s one of them”. The Karnivool collaboration is not the only one that will generate interest from fans of different genres, “That’s kinda a gap I’m trying to bridge. I’ve got a collaboration on the record with Kram from Spiderbait. I think it’s cool, I feel really privileged and kinda special that I reached out to these people in the industry from a different genre and they’re recognising hip hop. I think this country is so deep in its rock roots that it’s kind of only natural to cross the two genres together. Hopefully people continue to do it”.
So where did the inspiration come from for this record? “Well in the past, hip hop here kinda got pigeon-holed as the white guys trying to do black music, and I grew up listening to Nirvana, Metallica, Iron Maiden and Rage Against the Machine, all that stuff, and I suppose the thing that attracted me to hip hop was the same thing that attracted me to that - that rebellious attitude and being a young male with a lot of pent up, not anger, but you know. I really dug hip hop and there was no rules and it was all about breaking the law and that sort of stuff”. On the new album “one of our concepts was to go through our parents’ record crates and stuff that we had when we were younger, so there’s Cold Chisel samples that we chopped up and some really cool stuff”.
The inspirations didn’t just come from Phrase’s parent’s record collection though, “When I was touring last year, I really toured pretty hard last year, I did over 100 shows and towards the end of that I thought, I’ve gotta come up with something different! I was getting bored of just straight up and down hip hop. A straight up hip hop record has been made a million times over already, so that’s why I tried to do something different and kind of etch out my own sound and cross a little bit of the rock genre in there. I spent 6 months in the studio solidly every day with J Skub from Jackson Jackson and finally one day we were starting to develop a sound, then for the last three months, things rolled really quickly and we just knew what was what”. Phrase ended up with “about 45 songs and then I culled that back to 17”.
The title track ‘Burn It Down’ “features Max White, the guy who sang on 'Hold On', and the song’s kinda a little anti-establishment, there’s a bit of a stick it to the man vibe on the record. It’s not in a political way where I’m saying vote me for prime minister, would I run? Hell yeah, I reckon I’d be an awesome PM! But I suppose there are points on the record where I’m saying listen, things are a bit messed up, I don’t have any answers, but the general vibe of the record is do your own thing, don’t be bullied into stuff by the system, and do what you want to do in life.” The track is “kinda about having no use for luxury. You know as long as I’m having fun and I’ve got good mates around and all that sort of stuff then burn the rest of it down, I don’t need it”. The message is positive, and one that reflects the musical melting pot that Phrase has developed in.
The Melbourne boy enjoys that “there’s so much different live music happening here and all the musos kind of know each other and end up intermingling and working on each other’s records and stuff, which is kind of where you get those cross genres. I think it’s cool and that’s what I’m trying to do with this record, not be put in a pigeon hole with hip hop per se, if its good music, you get into it, if it’s not, then whatever”.
Burn it Down is released early 2008 on Universal
