360 (06/10/2011)
Ahead of his first headline tour, The 59th Sound spoke with Melbourne hip-hop artist 360, painting a rather revealing portrait of the man behind ‘Falling & Flying.’
Thanks for talking to The 59th Sound this morning. Before I begin, should I call you Matt or 360?
Uhh, it’s up to you, ay! All my mates call me 6 or 60 and yeah whatever you want.
Sure, I’ll call you 6. What have you been up to recently?
At the moment I’ve been in Brisbane just hanging out with the girlfriend and having a week off here. Apart from that I’ve just been really busy with promo for the album [Falling & Flying] that’s just been out.
Sweet, how long have you been going out with your girlfriend for?
For about 4 days! [laughs] It’s very fresh.
Oh so it’s very new! I’m happy for you, I hope it works out well.
Thank you.
To introduce some people to your story and yourself, can you give us a bit of a background on where you’ve come from and how you’ve come to where you are?
I’ve lived in Melbourne all my life and I started rapping when I was about 14 or 15. I was real shit back then. I entered a rap battle competition when I was 15 and I came second. That sort of got my name out in Melbourne, in the underground hip hop scene coz I was always going into [rap] battles. Then I started working on some songs, putting them together and putting them out on the Internet, getting a little bit of a name in Melbourne still. Me and Pez were good mates from playing basketball together and we dropped ‘The Festival Song’; that was the first song that really did anything for us. From there the rest is history, I guess!
The lyrics of ‘Miracle In a Costume’ and ‘Hope You Don’t Mind’ are really quite raw and telling of what you’ve been through. You talk of your eye infection and the stabbing of your mate as well as other things. Are these all true or is it more of a metaphor?
Na they’re all true. I have a disease called keratoconus in both of my eyes but more heavily in my right eye. When I was 18 my vision started to go real blurry and I had to have a cornea transplant when I was 19. That didn’t really improve my vision but it fixed my cornea coz otherwise it was going to rupture.
I was 18 and in Year 11 (because I dropped out for a year) and me and my mates were going through that time of trying to be little tough kids. And yeah my mate got stabbed twice or three times; after that we were like, “What the fuck are we doing? Let’s stop being hard c---s and leave that shit alone.”
So yeah all that was true; everything I mention on both songs is true.
Does it take a lot for you to express yourself as you do in your songs, knowing that everyone you know – and complete strangers – know so much about you?
Yeah at the start, especially with ‘Hope You Don’t Mind’. With ‘Miracle In A Costume’, I wasn’t fazed about putting that out because it was putting a positive spin on everything. With ‘Hope You Don’t Mind’ I was really letting out a lot of stuff about me that people don’t know. I wrote that when I was in a really dark place and I was in two-minds about releasing it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted people knowing all that shit [but] I really love when artists do that. I love it when people bare their soul and just be completely honest so I thought I’ve got to do it to stay true to myself and hopefully people can relate to it. If people can relate to it and are going through similar shit they can feel that everyone’s still human. Just ‘cause I’m a rapper and living that kind of life [doesn’t mean] that it’s a fantasy world. Everyone goes through shit.
I’ve got to say, as a listener, I do really respect that song and the guts that you had to put it out there as well as not using any metaphor or imagery. You were just very plain and raw and I appreciate that.
Thanks, I appreciate that!
In your second album ‘Falling & Flying’, you mention your childhood and family quite a bit, as well as personal thoughts (as mentioned before). Did you go into the recording studio after composing the songs with those particular themes in mind?
Nah not really. I went into the studio with the guy producing it, we’d make a beat, and then [listening to the music] what I should write about would just come to me. Like, when we made ‘Child’, the lyrics “I was just a child, I didn’t know much about you”, just came out. We didn’t even plan it. We were just sitting there thinking of a melody and that lyric came out of nowhere; it wasn’t like we were trying to think, “what can we say?”. I felt like it would be perfect to write about how I was a child and me not knowing much about my parents or my grandpa or brother as I was growing up. So it all happened naturally, I think. It was really good.
Sounds awesome! What has the reception been like from the people that you’ve mentioned in the songs? And your family/friends?
At first my parents were a bit unsure about me talking about some of the stuff on ‘Child’; it’s talking about alcoholism with my Uncle and shit like that. And to be honest I’m not even sure that he’s even heard it yet but hopefully it could be a good thing to hear, to be a wake-up call because not many people have gotten through to him yet.
But yeah everyone’s sort of been cool with it so far. There is a song that I’ve written – it’s not on the album – that I got told I couldn’t release because it’s too revealing of someone in my family.
Do you think we would be able to hear that at any stage in the future or is it strictly private?
No I’ve been told that I can use it now. It’s pretty full on but I’m allowed to do it now. Ispoke to [the people involved] and they said that it’s cool and that it would raise awareness of the certain thing that I talk about so I’ll definitely be working on that one.
Could you tell us what the song’s about?
Yeah it’s about addiction and suicide but I won’t really go into it.
Sure thing can’t wait to hear it. Moving on to a lighter note: You explore a lot of different sounds in your album. For example in the song ‘Hammer Head’, you mix piano with Dubstep, which is a bit unusual. Was it your intention to create that interesting sound?
Nah, it just all happened ay! We’d made the ‘Hammer Head’ riff line where all the verses are we didn’t really want to keep that for the chorus; we wanted to have a little bit of a break or a breather. And then it was all Styalz [Fuego, producer] really, because he was the one that made the beat. He was just like, let’s put some epic piano shit in there and he just played that before going straight back into the dub line again and it sounded pretty sick.
Yeah, it’s sounds good! It’s very unusual.
I love it when dirty Dubstep songs have an almost kind of soft, cheesy melodies and riff lines going into something completely filthy. I really like that, I like the contrast of that.
It was a good move; risky, but you pulled it off.
Cheers!
By the way, I’ve got to say I love the lyrics! Is there a certain place or artist that you draw your witticisms from?
Initially it would’ve been old Eminem back in the day because he was my biggest influence when I was about 15 or 16. He had similar taking-the-piss, smartass lyrics and since then I’ve always been doing those kinds of things so that would’ve been the influence for that.
I actually did notice some similarities there. Now I know there has been some speculation regarding the sample backing to the song ‘Just Got Started’ and how it’s quite similar ‘1517’ by Whitest Boy Alive. Can you clear the air in regards to copyright and the surrounding rumours?
Yeah I went into the studio one day and Styalz played me the Whitest Boy Alive song and he sampled it and made a beat over it. He was like, you should use this as a free song over the Internet and we’ll just call it a remix, to try get some people to blog about it. We recorded it and we thought “this has potential to do really, really well”, so we ended up contacting Whitest Boy Alive and getting in touch with them, getting everything cleared up legally and they gave us their blessings. Then we went ahead with it.
Yeah clearing that stuff up is always handy so you don’t get into any legal strife!
Yeah sample clearance on this record has been a bit of a nightmare. ‘Just Got Started’ was probably the easiest one to handle. There were a couple of other songs and other samples, like ‘Killer’ and ‘Take Off’, that were a nightmare as well.
Where did you get those samples?
The ‘Killer’ one was an Ultravox [UK rock band] sample, and ‘Take Off’ I can’t remember to be honest. There was another one, ‘Falling & Flying’: we hit up the company about clearing that sample and it took them about ten months to get back to us. We weren’t going to be able to use the song, which really pissed me off, but then they came back and finally told us we had got it. There was also another sample that we couldn’t clear that didn’t end up making the album, it’s called ‘I Hate You’ (you can see it on YouTube).
That’s a shame. On your album you have a number of feature artists, such as Gossling and Josh Pyke. What was it like to record with those people? Was it a collaboration of ideas or more of a solo thing?
I sung the chorus on ‘Throw It Away’ (the one with Josh Pyke) originally. [Styalz and I] always had it in our heads that we were going to get another male vocalist who could bring more soul to it and would sound better singing it. We were throwing around names for a while and our A&R [Artist and Repertoire] at the time was best mates with Josh Pyke and he wanted to get involved. He sent us a demo of him singing it and we thought, ‘this is going to sound perfect!’ We got him on it and it sounded awesome.
Pez also stars on one of the tracks, returning the favour from when you featured on the popular ‘The Festival Song.’ How did you guys meet and develop your friendship?
We used to play for the same basketball club when I was 16 and he was about 18. We would play basketball together but neither knew that both of us rapped but once we started talking about hip hop we got together and started hanging out all the time. We started writing and I lived at his house for three or four months; all we used to do was write music and that was it, it went from there.
So do you think your fans could see any more collaborations with him in the future?
Most definitely, yeah. We’re always writing together. I think we’re going to plan to throw up a free EP to download off the net hopefully next year and I’m going to feature on two songs on his next album. We’re going to do an album together – hopefully – in about one or two years.
Sounds epic! So you’re soon to start your national tour, promoting your second album. Are you preparing for it in a particular way?
Yeah it’s going to be about an hour, an hour and fifteen minute-long set. I’m going to be doing some old songs and a lot of new songs so it’s probably one of my biggest steps yet. It’s my first headlining tour so it’s going to be awesome! There’s going to be some special features in a lot of shows and it’ll be pretty epic, I imagine!
And to finish off, where would you like to see yourself and your music career one year from now?
Hopefully still touring, touring internationally maybe and just making a really nice living off music and doing what I love. That would be perfect.
Awesome. Thanks for talking to me today, 6. Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your time in Brisbane with your girlfriend.
Take care, thanks!
Brisbane, QLD - 15th Oct – Sprung Festival @ Riverstage – 18+ Buy Tix
Geelong, VIC - 20th Oct – Bended Elbow – 18+ Buy Tix
Traralgon, VIC – 21st Oct – Kay St Saloon – 18+ Buy Tix
Melbourne, VIC – 22nd Oct – Corner Hotel – U18/ 18+ Buy Tix
Ballarat, VIC – 27th Oct – Karova Lounge – 18+ Buy Tix
Adelaide, SA - 28th Oct – Fowlers Live – LIC/AA Buy Tix
Joondalup, WA – 2nd Nov – The Boulevard – 18+ Buy Tix
Bunbury, WA - 3rd Nov – Prince Of Wales – 18+ Buy Tix
Albany, WA – 4th Nov – Studio 146 – 18+Buy Tix
Perth, WA - 5th Nov – Amplifier Bar – 18+ Buy Tix
Fremantle, WA – 6th Nov – Newport Hotel - 18+ Buy Tix
Newcastle, NSW – 10th Nov – Level One – 18+Buy Tix
Towradgi Beach, NSW -11th Nov – Waves – 18+ Buy Tix
Sydney, NSW – 12th Nov – Annandale Hotel – U18/ 18+Buy Tix
Hobart, Tas – 19th Nov – Republic Bar – 18+ Buy Tix
Olivia Fusca
Thanks for talking to The 59th Sound this morning. Before I begin, should I call you Matt or 360?
Uhh, it’s up to you, ay! All my mates call me 6 or 60 and yeah whatever you want.
Sure, I’ll call you 6. What have you been up to recently?
At the moment I’ve been in Brisbane just hanging out with the girlfriend and having a week off here. Apart from that I’ve just been really busy with promo for the album [Falling & Flying] that’s just been out.
Sweet, how long have you been going out with your girlfriend for?
For about 4 days! [laughs] It’s very fresh.
Oh so it’s very new! I’m happy for you, I hope it works out well.
Thank you.
To introduce some people to your story and yourself, can you give us a bit of a background on where you’ve come from and how you’ve come to where you are?
I’ve lived in Melbourne all my life and I started rapping when I was about 14 or 15. I was real shit back then. I entered a rap battle competition when I was 15 and I came second. That sort of got my name out in Melbourne, in the underground hip hop scene coz I was always going into [rap] battles. Then I started working on some songs, putting them together and putting them out on the Internet, getting a little bit of a name in Melbourne still. Me and Pez were good mates from playing basketball together and we dropped ‘The Festival Song’; that was the first song that really did anything for us. From there the rest is history, I guess!
The lyrics of ‘Miracle In a Costume’ and ‘Hope You Don’t Mind’ are really quite raw and telling of what you’ve been through. You talk of your eye infection and the stabbing of your mate as well as other things. Are these all true or is it more of a metaphor?
Na they’re all true. I have a disease called keratoconus in both of my eyes but more heavily in my right eye. When I was 18 my vision started to go real blurry and I had to have a cornea transplant when I was 19. That didn’t really improve my vision but it fixed my cornea coz otherwise it was going to rupture.
I was 18 and in Year 11 (because I dropped out for a year) and me and my mates were going through that time of trying to be little tough kids. And yeah my mate got stabbed twice or three times; after that we were like, “What the fuck are we doing? Let’s stop being hard c---s and leave that shit alone.”
So yeah all that was true; everything I mention on both songs is true.
Does it take a lot for you to express yourself as you do in your songs, knowing that everyone you know – and complete strangers – know so much about you?
Yeah at the start, especially with ‘Hope You Don’t Mind’. With ‘Miracle In A Costume’, I wasn’t fazed about putting that out because it was putting a positive spin on everything. With ‘Hope You Don’t Mind’ I was really letting out a lot of stuff about me that people don’t know. I wrote that when I was in a really dark place and I was in two-minds about releasing it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted people knowing all that shit [but] I really love when artists do that. I love it when people bare their soul and just be completely honest so I thought I’ve got to do it to stay true to myself and hopefully people can relate to it. If people can relate to it and are going through similar shit they can feel that everyone’s still human. Just ‘cause I’m a rapper and living that kind of life [doesn’t mean] that it’s a fantasy world. Everyone goes through shit.
I’ve got to say, as a listener, I do really respect that song and the guts that you had to put it out there as well as not using any metaphor or imagery. You were just very plain and raw and I appreciate that.
Thanks, I appreciate that!
In your second album ‘Falling & Flying’, you mention your childhood and family quite a bit, as well as personal thoughts (as mentioned before). Did you go into the recording studio after composing the songs with those particular themes in mind?
Nah not really. I went into the studio with the guy producing it, we’d make a beat, and then [listening to the music] what I should write about would just come to me. Like, when we made ‘Child’, the lyrics “I was just a child, I didn’t know much about you”, just came out. We didn’t even plan it. We were just sitting there thinking of a melody and that lyric came out of nowhere; it wasn’t like we were trying to think, “what can we say?”. I felt like it would be perfect to write about how I was a child and me not knowing much about my parents or my grandpa or brother as I was growing up. So it all happened naturally, I think. It was really good.
Sounds awesome! What has the reception been like from the people that you’ve mentioned in the songs? And your family/friends?
At first my parents were a bit unsure about me talking about some of the stuff on ‘Child’; it’s talking about alcoholism with my Uncle and shit like that. And to be honest I’m not even sure that he’s even heard it yet but hopefully it could be a good thing to hear, to be a wake-up call because not many people have gotten through to him yet.
But yeah everyone’s sort of been cool with it so far. There is a song that I’ve written – it’s not on the album – that I got told I couldn’t release because it’s too revealing of someone in my family.
Do you think we would be able to hear that at any stage in the future or is it strictly private?
No I’ve been told that I can use it now. It’s pretty full on but I’m allowed to do it now. Ispoke to [the people involved] and they said that it’s cool and that it would raise awareness of the certain thing that I talk about so I’ll definitely be working on that one.
Could you tell us what the song’s about?
Yeah it’s about addiction and suicide but I won’t really go into it.
Sure thing can’t wait to hear it. Moving on to a lighter note: You explore a lot of different sounds in your album. For example in the song ‘Hammer Head’, you mix piano with Dubstep, which is a bit unusual. Was it your intention to create that interesting sound?
Nah, it just all happened ay! We’d made the ‘Hammer Head’ riff line where all the verses are we didn’t really want to keep that for the chorus; we wanted to have a little bit of a break or a breather. And then it was all Styalz [Fuego, producer] really, because he was the one that made the beat. He was just like, let’s put some epic piano shit in there and he just played that before going straight back into the dub line again and it sounded pretty sick.
Yeah, it’s sounds good! It’s very unusual.
I love it when dirty Dubstep songs have an almost kind of soft, cheesy melodies and riff lines going into something completely filthy. I really like that, I like the contrast of that.
It was a good move; risky, but you pulled it off.
Cheers!
By the way, I’ve got to say I love the lyrics! Is there a certain place or artist that you draw your witticisms from?
Initially it would’ve been old Eminem back in the day because he was my biggest influence when I was about 15 or 16. He had similar taking-the-piss, smartass lyrics and since then I’ve always been doing those kinds of things so that would’ve been the influence for that.
I actually did notice some similarities there. Now I know there has been some speculation regarding the sample backing to the song ‘Just Got Started’ and how it’s quite similar ‘1517’ by Whitest Boy Alive. Can you clear the air in regards to copyright and the surrounding rumours?
Yeah I went into the studio one day and Styalz played me the Whitest Boy Alive song and he sampled it and made a beat over it. He was like, you should use this as a free song over the Internet and we’ll just call it a remix, to try get some people to blog about it. We recorded it and we thought “this has potential to do really, really well”, so we ended up contacting Whitest Boy Alive and getting in touch with them, getting everything cleared up legally and they gave us their blessings. Then we went ahead with it.
Yeah clearing that stuff up is always handy so you don’t get into any legal strife!
Yeah sample clearance on this record has been a bit of a nightmare. ‘Just Got Started’ was probably the easiest one to handle. There were a couple of other songs and other samples, like ‘Killer’ and ‘Take Off’, that were a nightmare as well.
Where did you get those samples?
The ‘Killer’ one was an Ultravox [UK rock band] sample, and ‘Take Off’ I can’t remember to be honest. There was another one, ‘Falling & Flying’: we hit up the company about clearing that sample and it took them about ten months to get back to us. We weren’t going to be able to use the song, which really pissed me off, but then they came back and finally told us we had got it. There was also another sample that we couldn’t clear that didn’t end up making the album, it’s called ‘I Hate You’ (you can see it on YouTube).
That’s a shame. On your album you have a number of feature artists, such as Gossling and Josh Pyke. What was it like to record with those people? Was it a collaboration of ideas or more of a solo thing?
I sung the chorus on ‘Throw It Away’ (the one with Josh Pyke) originally. [Styalz and I] always had it in our heads that we were going to get another male vocalist who could bring more soul to it and would sound better singing it. We were throwing around names for a while and our A&R [Artist and Repertoire] at the time was best mates with Josh Pyke and he wanted to get involved. He sent us a demo of him singing it and we thought, ‘this is going to sound perfect!’ We got him on it and it sounded awesome.
Pez also stars on one of the tracks, returning the favour from when you featured on the popular ‘The Festival Song.’ How did you guys meet and develop your friendship?
We used to play for the same basketball club when I was 16 and he was about 18. We would play basketball together but neither knew that both of us rapped but once we started talking about hip hop we got together and started hanging out all the time. We started writing and I lived at his house for three or four months; all we used to do was write music and that was it, it went from there.
So do you think your fans could see any more collaborations with him in the future?
Most definitely, yeah. We’re always writing together. I think we’re going to plan to throw up a free EP to download off the net hopefully next year and I’m going to feature on two songs on his next album. We’re going to do an album together – hopefully – in about one or two years.
Sounds epic! So you’re soon to start your national tour, promoting your second album. Are you preparing for it in a particular way?
Yeah it’s going to be about an hour, an hour and fifteen minute-long set. I’m going to be doing some old songs and a lot of new songs so it’s probably one of my biggest steps yet. It’s my first headlining tour so it’s going to be awesome! There’s going to be some special features in a lot of shows and it’ll be pretty epic, I imagine!
And to finish off, where would you like to see yourself and your music career one year from now?
Hopefully still touring, touring internationally maybe and just making a really nice living off music and doing what I love. That would be perfect.
Awesome. Thanks for talking to me today, 6. Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your time in Brisbane with your girlfriend.
Take care, thanks!
Brisbane, QLD - 15th Oct – Sprung Festival @ Riverstage – 18+ Buy Tix
Geelong, VIC - 20th Oct – Bended Elbow – 18+ Buy Tix
Traralgon, VIC – 21st Oct – Kay St Saloon – 18+ Buy Tix
Melbourne, VIC – 22nd Oct – Corner Hotel – U18/ 18+ Buy Tix
Ballarat, VIC – 27th Oct – Karova Lounge – 18+ Buy Tix
Adelaide, SA - 28th Oct – Fowlers Live – LIC/AA Buy Tix
Joondalup, WA – 2nd Nov – The Boulevard – 18+ Buy Tix
Bunbury, WA - 3rd Nov – Prince Of Wales – 18+ Buy Tix
Albany, WA – 4th Nov – Studio 146 – 18+Buy Tix
Perth, WA - 5th Nov – Amplifier Bar – 18+ Buy Tix
Fremantle, WA – 6th Nov – Newport Hotel - 18+ Buy Tix
Newcastle, NSW – 10th Nov – Level One – 18+Buy Tix
Towradgi Beach, NSW -11th Nov – Waves – 18+ Buy Tix
Sydney, NSW – 12th Nov – Annandale Hotel – U18/ 18+Buy Tix
Hobart, Tas – 19th Nov – Republic Bar – 18+ Buy Tix
Olivia Fusca