Hilltop Hoods to embark on biggest tour yet

HILLTOP Hoods MC Dan Smith said when he showed his wife the band’s Hilltop Hoods upcoming tour schedule, she “almost fell over”.

The hip-hop trio is preparing to embark on a 49-show tour, taking in 14 countries in less than five months.

“There’s a mixture of daunting and excitement,” the MC better known as Pressure said.

“It is incredibly exciting going to that many places and releasing it as one big tour.

“It’s the stuff we work towards our entire life; we’ve spent 15 years just giving it everything and this is what we’ve come to.

“And this is the biggest yet, so we’re pumped.”

As well as being their biggest tour to date, Smith said it was also the “biggest capacities in all of those regions”.

“We haven’t gone backwards in any of our room sizes so it’s a real moment for us putting this tour out there and it’s going to be a moment every 49th night doing it,” he said.

“To be making music as long as we have and to be still elevating and hitting our stride is wild and we couldn’t be happier.”

And it’s going to be their longest show yet.

“The new set is an hour-and-a-half to two hours,” Smith said.

“We’re playing about three-quarters of the new record and all the songs people know from the past five or six records.

“We’re also going to put together a bunch of more obscure songs and play some really old stuff for the old school heads so that will be interesting.

“I don’t know how it will go down so we’ll see on the night but it’ll be fun.”

Hilltop Hoods burst onto the airwaves when triple j discovered The Nosebleed Section from the band’s third studio album The Calling in 2003.

“Suffa (Matt Lambert) and I had made music for so many years as a hobby; it was something we did amongst working or studying when we were younger and it just happened,” Smith said.

“Triple j picked up The Nosebleed Section and everything blew up and suddenly we thought people actually liked this obscure niche genre that it was back then.

“There were making hip-hop in Australia who came before us and who we looked up to for four or five years but they weren’t getting national air play and street press and all the big accolades.

“It was a very underground movement so it just went crazy; we never expected it to blow up.”

And yet 16 years later, Hilltop Hoods are more popular than ever selling out the Riverstage in Brisbane in less than four hours and Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne not far behind.

“We are blown away,” Smith said.

“We played some of those rooms three years ago when we worked with the Symphony Orchestra for the remixed project but they sold out in the last week and this time they sold out in the first day.

“After making music for so long, and to get that sort of love I have to step back and check that its actually real.”

This year also saw the release of the band’s eighth studio album The Great Expanse, which broke yet another milestone debuting at number one on the ARIA Album chart bringing their total number one albums to six.

The album is also responsible for the platinum selling singles Clark Griswold (featuring Adrian Eagle) and Exit Sign (featuring Ecca Vandal and Illy) and double platinum selling track Leave Me Lonely, proving they are still just as relevant.

“It’s amazing to me,” Smith said.

“I always say to my wife this is going to start going on the decline soon and what’s life after music going to be like, but it just keeps getting bigger so I haven’t had to think about that yet.

“I just feel really honoured. It’s hard to put in to words. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done as a group.”

THE ESSENTIALS Who: Hilltop Hoods What: The Great Expanse World Tour When: September 7 Where: RAC Arena, Perth Guests: Mojo Juju, Shadow and DJ Nino Brown Tickets: www.teglive.com.au