How Allday Has Planted His Feet Firmly In The Rap Game

Allday (aka Tom Gaynor) ushered in progressive Australian hip hop with 2014's hit album Startup Cult. He's now resurfaced with a deeper and more personal follow-up in Speeding. And the maverick is taking on a fresh challenge — cracking the US.

Just days after wrapping Groovin The Moo in Bunbury, Western Australia, Gaynor is back in his new Los Angeles base. It's not all sunny glamour — the indie rapper/singer/songwriter delays this interview to top up his mobile credit. Soon, he'll return Down Under for a national headline tour and Splendour In The Grass.

Alas, Gaynor had nowhere in Oz to crash — aside from his Mum's place in Adelaide. But, really, he's relishing California, where downtime is spent in the studio. "I sort of have to be here to keep working," Gaynor maintains. "I feel so happy with my life happening here. So it just seems like there's no point hanging around in Australia if I'm gonna move somewhere and I'm gonna get busy."

Gaynor's decision to relocate to LA on completing Speeding was strategic. "I just felt like my music hasn't been a thing where blogs pick it up and then it naturally gets big everywhere. So I thought, 'All right, how did it happen in Australia?' In Australia, it wasn't blogs. It was radio, to a degree. [But] it wasn't a marketing thing — it really was just me being in Australia doing shows. So I figure, alright, if I'm gonna get big in America and other places, I had to come here."

"It's so hard to understand what you're making until you put it out there — even though I sat there and played it next to my other music."

Gaynor's charming, laid-back demeanour masks his ambition — and sincerity. This anti-hero's origin story is now familiar. As a kid in suburban Adelaide, Gaynor discovered hip hop, rapping for fun. He (unsuccessfully) joined rock bands. Gaynor transplanted to Melbourne to attend art school, but dropped out. Less widely known is that he briefly pursued stand-up comedy — being runner-up in 2011's RAW Comedy National Final. "I never found comedy used to be easy," Gaynor divulges. "I felt like I was pushing so, so hard just to be okay at it. Then music seemed to come easier to me."

Gaynor would export his comic skills into hip hop, positioning himself as a sardonic rapper. In fact, he was inspired by both Kanye West's individualism and Drake's fluid singing/rapping. Gaynor latched onto a modish electronic hip hop — a style far removed from traditional Aussie boom-bap. Even Gaynor's "weirdo" image was unique — with his long hair and septum piercing, he looked more emo than homeboy. Disseminating his music online, Gaynor broke out with 2012's So Good, a triple j anthem. He consolidated his countercultural brand with an alternately witty and self-deprecating Twitter feed. Eventually signing to Illy's fledgling ONETWO, Gaynor's debut Startup Cult, led by the poppy Right Now, reached #3 on the ARIA Charts. Between albums, he toured solidly. Gaynor circulated the stopgap mixtape Soft Grunge Love Rap. And he cut features — most notably for Troye Sivan's internationally acclaimed album Blue Neighbourhood.

Surprisingly, for Speeding, Gaynor liaised, not with US producers, but with buzz Aussies like Melbourne chillwaver Japanese Wallpaper (the single In Motion). His guests, too, are local up-and-comers. Gaynor's Brisbane protege Mallrat — the self-appointed "Hannah Montana of the rap game" — blazes on two tracks. "She's a real cool person." 

"Everyone wanted Allday to disappear because it was a perceived threat to their way of doing things — or that's at least how I felt from them."

Overall, the paradoxically-entitled Speeding is more subliminal than Startup Cult — Gaynor coming across as introspective rather than flippant. "It maybe wasn't something I was completely aware of 'til it was finished," he concurs. "It's so hard to understand what you're making until you put it out there — even though I sat there and played it next to my other music." Gaynor admits that, with Startup Cult, he was emulating major American acts. "It was definitely beginner music." But Speeding introduces his own aesthetic. He sings more than raps. Still, Gaynor has picked up on the latent anxiety pervading contemporary US urban music. "Drake basically invented this singy/rappy sad guy genre — in this generation, anyway. So that is the window to be able to talk about your experiences honestly." Gaynor has previously alluded to personal struggles — with partying, drugs and adjusting to fame. Today he downplays these, however. "I was going through a weird time through a lot of the last couple of years — not entirely bad stuff but, if you listen to Speeding, it'll make it sound like it was entirely bad." If Speeding is "so dark", Gaynor posits, it's partly because of his producers' sonic inclinations.

Oddly, Startup Cult represented the flashpoint in a generational shift in Australian hip hop — old school heads outraged at Gaynor's cultural transgressions. "When, before, people had to accept that Allday was 'a thing', nobody wanted to accept that Allday was 'a thing,'" he vents. "I still remember dealing with the negativity from older people. Everyone wanted Allday to disappear because it was a perceived threat to their way of doing things — or that's at least how I felt from them. But, as time went on, everyone probably realised they can still do what they do and I can do what I do and everyone can have their own spot." Ironically, Sydney vets Bliss N Eso recently ventured into trapwave on Off The Grid — teaming with Gaynor's cohort Cam Bluff. "I've met them," Gaynor enthuses. "I've had nothing but very positive exchanges with them." Meanwhile, he's opened the way for Mallrat, Gill Bates and Ryland Rose. "I definitely think I'm part of Australian hip hop changing, but I also don't care. I just wanna make good songs."

Nevertheless, Gaynor's biggest nemesis is a fellow upstart — Kerser. In 2015 the hardcore Campbelltown rapper controversially dissed Gaynor, and his followers, on his track Takin' Over The Scene, deploying homophobic epithets. Gaynor offered "a cheeky response" — albeit a cerebral one. On Facebook Gaynor shared a snap of himself absorbed in William S Burroughs' Beat Gen novel Junky, joking that he was reading about Kerser. Gaynor (perhaps naively) approached the feud as a publicity stunt. "I had an option at the time to respond or not — and I decided I'm gonna respond in a funny way. I've got music to promote and, after all, this is entertainment, people. Also my fans deserve to have me say something. If you're gonna try to drag Allday's fans through the mud, then I have to say what I stand for." Yet Gaynor wasn't prepared for the intense reaction. "I don't wanna have to deal with Kerser — and Kerser's fans — face-to-face, realistically," he laughs nervously. Gaynor genuinely admires his adversary. "I think Kerser's awesome! The fact that he has essentially popularised gangsta rap from Australia — that's the coolest thing of all time."

For what should be another run of sell-out shows come July, Gaynor will perform his classics and, savvily, those Speeding bangers most popular on Spotify. But, the eternal nerd, he's amped, too, about his new stage production — with video screen. "I remember the Kanye Yeezus tour had a gigantic screen, which cost more than I could ever afford, but that was probably one of my favourite shows — it was just simple, but effective." Like Allday.