Australian hip-hop act HORRORSHOW are fiercely collected and unapologetic. “We’re not really the dudes that are just that good at rapping and being fly that we can just talk to you about how mad we are. We kinda have to fall back on actually wanting talk to you about some shit, bring up some issues I guess.”
The Sydney duo (beat maker Adit and wordsmith Solo) proved on their recently released debut Inside Story, their keen ability to turn a phrase through oft twistingly poignant narratives and drop punchy one-liners on top of silkily sublime and varied beats, causing Australia to go mad with desire.
They, along with the incredibly sharp Thundamentals, were chosen to support legends A Tribe Called Quest at Hordern Pavilion for their first Australian shows ever, not the lightest of tasks.
Even on the prospect of playing with ATCQ, Solo refuses to lose focus; “you just kinda take it as it comes. We haven’t done the gig yet, so I’m not really tripping out too hard, but I’m sure that once I get off that stage and they’re chilling, playing Can I Kick It or Bonita Applebum then I’ll have a moment of crossing that one off my list.”
Their upcoming Walk You Home tour is hotly anticipated, including a show at the ANU Bar that Solo insists is long overdue. “We’ve been trying to find a way to go down there for a while. The shows we’ve had in Canberra have been dope, and we’re just looking forward to getting back to ANU and seeing how things are going in Canberra and how much love there is for Horrorshow.”
On cyphers and freestyling with other MCs, Solo is a little bit less sure, saying “I understand how important all of that is, being an MC, kinda cutting your teeth and all that, but it’s just not the way we chose to come up. We chose very much to just keep our music to ourselves. It was almost a secret until it came out, then we looked at doing shows.”
“It’s something I’d like to do more of… it’s always fun to have a freestyle. One thing we haven’t done that much of is collaborations, that’s something we’d definitely want to do more of; make some songs with the artists that we’ve grown up looking up to.”
For their tour, Solo is enthusiastic about talking about changing it up.
“We wanna put together a brand new set for the Walk You Home tour, obviously still playing a lot of the same songs, but we wanna change shit up, do some new stuff and change up the structure of it all.”
“I wanna start doing some a capella, just working in some new material into the live show. We just wanna make sure that it’s interesting for the good people of Australia; so everyone can have a good time.”
Horrorshow will be playing at the ANU Bar on Saturday September 4 from 8pm. Tickets are available through Oztix for $19 +bf or on the door.
