What better way to kick off your first ever headlining tour than with a sold out show in your home town? As you read this article Sydney duo Horrorshow are gearing up for just that. The duo, made up of Solo and Adit, are building a literal army of Droogies across the nation with their soulful beats and lyrics that are wise beyond their years. ITM had the pleasure of speaking with Solo before they head out on tour. We asked him about their upcoming journey, and tried to find out just what it is that inspires such insightful writing.

Hey Solo, you and Adit are still both relatively young blokes, yet musically and lyrically you come across as very mature. Why do you think that is?

We were both big big fans of music in general – but particularly hip hop and Oz hip hop – for six or seven years before we ever had a go at making it ourselves. I think for that reason we kind of had a lot of time to soak up how it’s done before we ever had a crack at doing it. And I guess maybe we wanted to come with a product that… product is the wrong word really, but a product that reflected that kind of appreciation. When we make something, we want to make sure that we stand by every little piece of it, and I guess because of that appreciation we have – when we are holding ourselves up to those standards of being such big fans of the music – we can kind of come off as a bit older.

Certain songs such as Days Past and Walk You Home are obviously extremely personal. Do you need to clear those songs with the people involved in the stories before putting them out, or is it just a case of dealing with it when the record drops?

Nah man, usually if I’ve written something about somebody in my life, whether it’s kind of explicit like those two songs are or whether its more hidden, I’ll usually run it by them first in some way and make sure they are ok with it. With that said, though, sometimes if I hide something well enough, like if I have something I need to get off my chest and I can come up with a way to really wrap it up and hide it away… then sometimes I’ll do that as well. Sometimes when we go on tour I’ll meet a complete stranger and they’ll want to quiz me about certain details or names or whatever, that’s bit strange in itself. So I need to have whoever else is emotionally involved on my side to begin with. I need to be on the same page as them otherwise it could all get a bit sticky, and that’s the last thing that you want when you are writing a song like that.

When writing do you prefer to write about a specific event or do you continually write and then piece together your songs from lots of ideas?

It’s a bit of a mixture of both. It’s usually easier or a more concentrated process when you’re writing about one particular topic or event. But at the same time I’m always scribbling down little bits and pieces, little phrases or words that I like, or someone around me might say something that triggers a thought. I’m constantly scribbling, and like a lot of emcees these days I’m writing little notes in my phone and stuff like that. I mean, with some tracks I’ll sit down and piece together a lot of those different thoughts and see which ones come together.

How long had you been writing before you decided to start an album? I’m talking about your debut The Grey Space here, obviously.

It’s interesting because we didn’t really have a goal we were working towards in the first place. The songs on The Grey Space are pretty much… well they are the first songs that we ever made! Like we made one or two miscellaneous things before that. But effectively The Grey Space are the first songs that we ever wrote together. Adit had been making quite a few beats… I was quietly working on little bits and pieces in my notebook, but it wasn’t too long before those little bits and pieces turned into what was the beginning [of the album].

You recorded most of your first record yourselves then took it to Elefant Traks. How close is the final product to what you took to the label?

What we took into Elefant Traks was an unmixed version of the album, which was pretty much the same in terms of the order of the tracklist. We had all that stuff worked out before we ever got down with Elefant Traks, and we actually had the album finished, then both of us went away for a couple of months. When we came back we sorted it out with them. I remember it very clearly actually, was a burnt CD with The Grey Space on it, plus the first and last track of the new album Inside Story, because we had those finished. It was kind of an interesting thing with this newer album, we had the start and the end and it was a matter of filling in the middle.

You got a lot of acclaim for your first record. Your style is less on the party tip, compared to say Drapht or Hilltop Hoods, who were doing big things at the time. Were you surprised by the reactions that the record got?

Yeah man I was, I really was… I mean, we didn’t know what to expect. We had a feeling within ourselves and our little family that had been around the music that it was good, that we had created something that was of a high quality. But it was impossible to know how the public would react. I guess that there has been a strong tradition within Oz hip hop of that more live oriented school of emceeing, like the guys that you mentioned, I wasn’t sure how people would react to my thing. But then again, you know there have been other artists who have paved that road as well. People like Muph – of Muph and Plutonic – even Urthboy. I don’t think what we do is totally unheard of, but I do think that the way we boiled it down… I don’t think there had been an album so much in that way. I think that’s the reason we had worked on it in secret. We weren’t playing shows or anything like that, we weren’t getting any airplay, so for a lot of people that record just came out of nowhere and we were really lucky that we had that word of mouth effect, of somebody finding the record and being like; “who the fuck are these guys?”

When you write a song like No Rides Left or Thoughtcrime, do you instantly know that it’s going to be a big joint? Or does it surprise you to find out which songs grab a better reaction live?

Sometimes we have some really chillin’ songs that manage to still get a big reaction from people. Like it always surprises me when we play a song of ours called All Summer Long. It’s quite soft and chilled out, with an indie kind of vibe to it, and people still jump around and go crazy screaming lyrics and stuff. Sometimes it’s very unpredictable, but normally you kind of know, or you have a feeling.

You recently toured with Urthboy on the Spitshine tour. How different will the set be at your upcoming headline shows compared to that one?

Well we want to do a new set because that tour was 25 dates within itself, and we’d been playing a bunch of shows in and around it as well. So we’ve kind of played our current set a lot of times. We like to change things up and keep things interesting, so usually we will create some kind of intro sequence. We like to do things that will make it have a bit more dimension to it, rather than just me standing there kicking songs that you’ve already heard off a CD. So we’ll definitely mess around with the set and try and make it new. And we are going to try to work in a bunch of new beats and stuff. But yeah, the flip side of all the stuff we are talking about with all these records is that now it’s getting to the point where people have certain things that they expect to hear. Like we had one or two shows on the Spitshine tour where I’d get off stage and someone would come up to me and be like; “dude, why didn’t you play Walk You Home? That’s exactly what I came for!”

Now that the headline spot each night falls to you guys, have your feelings to touring changed? Do you feel more nervous than, say, the Spitshine tour?

There were nerves on the Spitshine tour because we love Urthboy, we’re massive fans of the records that him and his team have put out. So there was nerves in that respect, but because we were all stakeholders in the tour we all worked collectively to make it a success. It was a kind of collective responsibility for the whole thing. Especially because you had Polo Club opening up for these two Elefant Traks artists, so we were sharing a lot of the expenses and a lot of the fanbase. A lot of the people that were coming to the tour were Elefant Traks fans, so I guess there are some nerves there this time because it’s the first time we have tried to see what we can achieve off our own bat, y’know? Obviously we have got the Spit Syndicate guys with us and they get a lot of love around the country, but they have had a quiet year, they haven’t really been playing shows, they have been working on their new album which is going to come out in a couple of months.

You guys have been given some amazing praise over your career so far. What has been the biggest “oh my god, we actually did it” moment to date?

They are good those moments. Probably playing the Metro in Sydney for the Spitshine tour, it was just retarded hey. Those situations, where I look out on the crowd and a good two thirds of the people there are people we grew up with, just extended friends and family, the feeling of selling out the Metro – which is no mean feat – and the vibe that was in that room that night, I couldn’t believe it man. Kids were chanting for Horrorshow from about 8.15pm, and I was backstage just shitting myself, like ‘what the fuck is happening here’ you know, when did this thing turn into this?

A little while ago you asked fans on your Facebook for their favourite line from Inside Story. Without putting you on the spot too much, do you happen to have one yourself?

I don’t know man, I’m very proud of In My Haze, the track with Jane Tyrell, because it’s the first time I ever had a go at writing a proper song. I feel like we can’t take all the credit for it, ‘cause we wrote the thing together [with Jane], but it’s really such a different challenge.

Don’t miss Horrorshow on their Inside Story tour with Spit Syndicate throughout February and March:

Feb 26 – Factory Theatre, Sydney
Feb 27 – University of Canberra, Canberra – w/ Lupe Fiasco
Mar 5 – Republic Bar, Hobart
Mar 6 – Ed’s Castle, Adelaide
Mar 7 – Pushover Festival, Melbourne
Mar 12 – Step Inn, Brisbane
Mar 13 – Sands Tavern, Sunshine Coast
Mar 14 – Great Northern, Byron Bay
Mar 17 – The Loft, Warnambool
Mar 18 – The Nash, Geelong
Mar 19 – The Evelyn, Melbourne
Mar 20 – Karova, Ballarat
Mar 25 – Rocket Room, Perth
Mar 26 – Wintersun Hotel, Geraldton
Mar 27 – Mojo’s, Freemantle