“We had midnight in our hotel room, drinking our rider”. Not really the type of New Year’s Eve behavior you’d expect from one of Australia’s most popular hip hop acts, especially one that once described itself as the “funnel in which all morals and conscious are drained into the river Styx”. But The Funkoars have a valid excuse for their low-key end to a rather hectic 2009. They were one of the many headlining acts that almost fell victim to the mayhem that became of the 2009 Pyramid Rock Festival yet, unlike others on the bill, The Funkoars actually got to play. “We played at about 8pm, just before the storm hit. We got warned that the storm might come during our set but we managed to finish out set. It was a really good show, the crowd was nuts”. After their set the boys got their priorities straight and “literally threw the rider in the car, jumped in the car and drove back to Melbourne” managing to escape Philip Island just as the first bolts of lightening began to hit. That sounds a bit more exciting now doesn’t it? Not that they need much more excitement in their lives, especially after the success and change 2009 brought.

“It was a good year for us” chirps Funkoar DJ Reflux down the phone from the comfort of his air-conditioned home in Adelaide. It sure was, since releasing their third album The Hangover in late 2008 (it would be rude not to mention that the album debuted at #8 on the ARIA Top 40 Urban Albums Chart) The Funkoars have nationally toured their latest album not once but twice, played at countless festivals, produced a hit collaboration with Ash Grunwald, made it into the voting list for Triple J’s hottest 100, signed to a new label and released a premium edition of The Hangover – just another year really.

While everything came together in the end, the year wasn’t without its dramas. “*Showgun*, the distribution company we were with, closed their doors mid way through the year. So it ( The Hangover ) had only been on the shelf for 6 months and you could no longer get our CD, and we were doing festivals and tours and getting radio play and no one could get our bloody record.” That’s when old time friends The Hilltop Hoods stepped in, “the boys go ‘look you know, Golden Era’s up and running’ and offered us to come to their label so we jumped at that”. It was under this new umbrella that the Funkoars released the ‘Premium Edition’ of The Hangover which boasted some new remixes and their latest (and very successful) collaboration with Ash Grunwald Little Did I Know.

The partnership with Grunwald came as quite a victory for the boys who first revealed their wish to work with the talented bluesman in an early 2009 interview with ITM, “We’re trying to get Tame Impala and Ash Grunwald on board,” told Trials. I ask Reflux if they already had the wheels in motion at that stage. “No, we just love his music and we like the guy and shit like that”. It was while doing a remix for TZU that Trials was put in touch with Grunwald by TZU producer Count Bounce. “He had worked a lot with Ash Grunwald’s music before so I think he introduced them via e-mail and so Trials shot Ash some loops and beats and Ash did the same, and sooner or later we were in the studio and out came a few tracks and that’s one of them so it was pretty cool in the end”.

The track, which according to Reflux “came together quickly, literally from start to finish it only took a couple of weeks”, has gone so well the guys have decided to make a national tour out of it. “Triple J really thrashed it and everyone loves the track so we were like bugger it, lets do some shows!” exclaimed Reflux. The tour will be stopping in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne and will see each act do individual sets before coming together for 15 – 20 minuets of combined work. According to Reflux, “There will be some new content as well as Ash’s take on some Funkoars stuff and maybe some versus of ours over some of Ash’s tracks”.

If you have somehow missed the Funkoars at one of their many shows over the last 12 months then make sure you catch them with Ash Grunwald on this tour as it may be the last you see of the boys for a while. While they’ll be playing at a “whole heap of festival in the mid-year”, details of which they cannot yet disclose, they boys will also be spending a lot of time in the studio this year working on their new album. “We’re in the studio at the moment, coming up conceptually with the next album, making beats and righting rhymes and things like that. So, the new album is already underway really”. When will it be on shelves? “I’d like it by the end of the year, but I don’t think that’s going to happen”.

Regardless, with two albums, a hit collaboration, 3 national tours and a new signing under their belt, The Funkoars have made enough of an impact on the Australia music scene over the last year to keep them riding the wave of success for some time.

The Little Did I Know Tour Dates:

Friday February 5th – Hifi Bar, Melbourne
Friday February 12th – Metro, Sydney
Saturday February 13th – The Zoo, Brisbane