Joyride On The Confidence Of The Hip Hop Collective

When you look at the last few years for Horrorshow, Spit Syndicate, Jackie Onassis and Joyride, it seems like the upward trajectory of their respective careers matches pretty accurately. Well, beyond their own talents, there may be another reason for that: the fact that they’ve all been heavily involved in each other’s work, with every member appearing on another artist’s track somewhere along the line. They’ve toured incessantly together as well, so there’s obviously a strong camaraderie between the acts. Which leaves no secret as to why One Day works.

“There’s a certain level of comfort that comes from knowing certain people for so long, y’know?” Joyride says. “Before we even did any legitimate One Day music, it was all something that worked because we were mates before the music. We’d all met in different circumstances and at different times, but we had this connection because we’d met at parties or at battles or just like on the streets. And so we had the same kind of direction and the same kind of passion, which takes out the awkwardness of working with someone professionally. There’s a confidence in that, and that’s how we make music.”

“There’s a certain level of comfort that comes from knowing certain people for so long, y’know?"

While Joyride – who has now become respected as one of the great all-round instrumentalists and entertainers in Australian hip hop music – met the other members of One Day a few years ago, Solo, Nick Lupi, Raph and Adit met at high school in Sydney’s inner-west, and the years have been instrumental in the comfort Joyride describes. They’ve taken it in their stride: last year’s debut Mainline debuted at number two and has been huge since, and the subsequent tour has been going full-pelt since. “You know, it’s something we’ve been planning for years and years, pretty much when we started making waves with all of our solo projects,” Joyride says. “It was the right time, really. Everyone had a bit of time off, One Day Sundays [their regular show at Factory Theatre] was starting to pay off and we were just like, ‘We’ve been meaning to do this for so long, let’s just fucking do it.’ That was basically it.”

It’s clear to see that the eclecticism and dynamic edge of Mainline is the result of having so many creative angles in the one project. While the boys all might come from the same town, there’s a distinct difference in the presentation of each act, and the coming together of those turns it into something else. “A lot of the tracks on Mainline came from different periods, like some go back to 2011. It was a lot easier to get them down than we thought, because there was just so much energy. There was a lot of competition – I think everyone was trying to one-up each other, and that’s probably what makes it so good,” he laughs.