2010 Nominee Q+A: Horrorshow
| 2010-09-17 10:00 | Written By:
Sydney-based hip hop duo Horrorshow [pictured right] are nominated for Best Hip Hop/Urban Album at this year's Jagermeister Independent Music Awards; the music video for their song 'Thoughtcrime' is embedded above.
Ahead of this year's awards night - more details on that at the bottom of this post - we briefly caught up with Horrorshow's MC Solo.
What's your favourite musical moment of 2010 so far, Solo?
Playing in London with Hilltop Hoods on the same night as our labelmates Urthboy and Hermitude. What seemed like an unbelievably unfortunate clash of tour dates ended up being the best thing ever. Both shows were sold out and we all partied together afterwards... being in a room full of so many Australian hip hoppers repping our music on the other side of the world was an amazing feeling. Growing up as a fan of hip hop in this country even a few years ago, playing overseas always seemed like a fairly unobtainable goal - so for so many of us to be over there doing our thing felt pretty special.
What's the biggest challenge you face as an independent musician?
It seems obvious, but $$$$$$! Whenever we're putting together albums or tours or whatever, we're limited in the scope of the promotion and things we can do for it as we have to be very mindful of having smaller budgets and smaller profit margins to keep the whole thing afloat and successful. Luckily we have a very capable and experienced label in the form of Elefant Traks who look after this stuff and know how to make it work.
Conversely, what's the best thing about being independent?
There's loads of good things about being independent. But for me, it's probably just the people who I get to work around. By that I mean our label, the other artists on there, artists we tour with, our distributors, and also our listeners and supporters... I think that being focused on independent music, they tend to not really be concerned with the glitz and glam of being on TV, having posters everywhere, on the idea of being 'famous', some of the more pretentious or flashy things that can be associated with making music on a big commercial level, and more so simply with the music itself. Which suits us just fine...
What's the best thing about being associated with AIR and the Jagermeister Independent Music Awards?
It's always nice to be nominated for an award like this, to be recognised for the hard work you've put into your music. I guess it's extra cool in this instance as the AIR charts are about the closest thing we have in Australia to a music chart that's relevant to our little sub-genre or corner of the music industry. It's also dope to be in a category with such a solid list of nominees - big ups M-Phazes and Lowrider - and of course our labelmates Urthboy and Ozi Batla. I think Australian hip hop is in a good place, there have been some awesome records coming out over the least year and it's dope to be included as a part of that.
Which Australian independent act deserves to be the 'next big thing'?
I'm gonna have to say The Jezabels, who are up for a few categories at this year's awards. Being an MC, hip hop is the main genre of music that I listen to, but every now and then I stumble across a release from other genres that really blows me away.
The Jezabels EP 'She's So Hard' is one such release. It's only a few tracks long but it really took me and I couldn't stop listening to it... I reckon the song writing is really original and I love their sound, it's dope to see such a high standard of music coming out of Sydney. Plus I've met a couple of them and they're dope people... I reckon they deserve to go far, and will do so. [Music video for The Jezabels track 'Easy To Love' embedded below]
Thanks for your time, Solo! For more info on Horrorshow, visit their MySpace.
The 5th Annual Jagermeister Independent Music Awards are held at The Forum Theatre, Melbourne on Friday October 1st, 2010, featuring live performances from British India, Cloud Control, The Amity Affliction, M-Phazes, Sally Seltmann and Joe Chindamo. Doors open at 8:00pm; tickets are $29+BF and available now via Ticketmaster.
For more info on AIR and Australian independent music, visit http://www.ausindies.com/
