'One Day Was Well Overdue'

"Certainly [it’s] a really different process to working with [just] Adit [Gauchan, producer]. When I write a song I get to retain control over the lyrics and messages in the song,” explains Nick Bryant-Smith.

“Seven strong opinions and seven guys who are capable of producing a vision of how it should be... there were plenty of back and forths. And what we had to fall back on during those really tough moments was there were seven of us and luckily we can have a vote and not have a tied situation. So there were one or two things that did come down to a vote in the end. Umm, but, you know, for every situation like that there were ten things that came together in a real natural way. But, very interesting working with three, sometimes four, other rappers on a track. It was a really different experience for us, having made three albums thus far as Horrorshow.”

Their last LP, King Amongst Many was Horrorshow’s last sincere hip hop output. Bryant-Smith explains that while the One Day collective was a break away from the routine of he and Gauchan’s Horrorshow, it was not due to a creative bump in the road; for the Fort High supergroup of Spit Syndicate’s Nick Lupi and Jimmy Nice, Raph Dixon and Kai Tan of Jackie Onassis, MC/DJ Joyride and Horrorshow, it’s been a project a long time coming. Mainline was released last August.

“One Day was well overdue. It’s something we’ve been talking about doing for a long time but it’s just been hard trying to find a gap in everyone’s schedule. But eventually we found this period of time where we could get together and make some songs together. We got together at the end of the Horrorshow tour last year in Byron Bay. The boys came up to Byron and we set up a studio and got it crackin’.”

This served the duo well, as they’re gearing up to take their full acoustic band on the road for the first time. “Yes, [it’s] the first time we’ve taken an acoustic format on the road,” says Bryant-Smith. “We’ve never really had the chance to give it the attention that it deserves which is really exciting after so many years of touring and playing shows with myself and Adit doing the MC/DJ format.”

The first time Horrorshow went unplugged was at The Basement in 2011 and, more recently, The Spiegeltent for Brisbane Festival. Bryant-Smith explains how going acoustic reshapes their music. “It’s exciting and refreshing to be able to completely change that up on this tour. Plus there’s a whole new set of challenges with it. It’s really rewarding when you hear the songs live and they sound completely different, they’ve had a whole new life breathed into them.

“We always like to do the acoustic stuff because it’s just good fun, really. And it’s all about giving people something unique... something that’s special.”