Hilltop Hoods Take Us Through 'Walking Under Stars', Track By Track

Hilltop Hoods’ Suffa, aka Matt Lambert, talks about being well-versed in handshakes and using boxing as a metaphor for rhyming as he runs us through their seventh studio album, Walking Under Stars.

The Thirst Pt 4 (ft Aaradhna)

That’s a continuance from The Thirst Pt 3, the last track from [2012 LP] Drinking From The Sun. It’s the bridge between the two albums because they’re like companion pieces. It sort of gives a narrative of where we were at and we got Aaradhna on the hook because we were huge fans of her album that she did with P-Money, Treble & Reverb.

Walking Under Stars

Walking Under Stars was produced by One Above. It’s just sort of an entry into the album, if you like. We wanted it to be the second track on the album to once again match up with Drinking From The Sun, which came in on the title track. There’s little bits in there to Drinking From The Sun as well. Like, in Drinking From The Sun, I say, “I lay down my bars ten feet from where I lay down,” and then in this I say, “I lay down my bars in the bars where I lay down” – just little things like that throughout we tried to stick in to sort of link the two albums together.

Cosby Sweater

Cosby Sweater’s a bit of a throwback track for us. It’s got sort of like, that nosebleed, hard road, sort of up-tempo party track feel about it. It’s definitely rhyming for the sport of it. We’d been playing it live throughout Europe and we played it at Splendour as well, and it’s really becoming one of our favourite tracks to do live.

The Art Of The Handshake

It’s a bit different for us. It was inspired by a lyric from a group called Notes To Self, and their track All Of The Above, and they’ve got a lyric in there, “20-second handshake,” and it just made me think back to being a kid and all the ridiculous handshakes we had. I liked the idea of doing a song so earnest about something so stupid as a handshake! Don’t get me wrong, it’s, like, super-interesting — I had to spend a day researching handshakes! I learnt all sorts of things; I learnt in Switzerland, you should shake the ladies’ hand first when you enter a room. In India, you shouldn’t have a tight grip; it’s considered offensive. We got a voice-over guy — we wanted to give it sort of a theatrical feel so we reached out to this guy from Vancouver, Dave Pettitt, and funnily enough he’d been to our last Vancouver show, so he was like, “Man, I’ll do it for a real good price and I’ll flip it in 24 hours,” and we were like, “Shit, Dave Pettitt, you big-voiced, badass motherfucker!”

Live And Let Go (ft Maverick Sabre & Brother Ali)

Live And Let Go’s got Maverick Sabre from Ireland and Brother Ali from Minneapolis on it, and we recorded that in Red Bull Studios in London with Maverick and in New York with Brother Ali. Maverick, we were recording our single Won’t Let You Down with him, and we had a bit of time left at the end of the session. He was like, “Is there anything else you’d like me to jump on?” and we were like, “Yeah, well maybe you could try this beat.” Threw it at him, and he recorded the hook in half an hour. We’d sort of been throwing tracks at Ali for a while and nothing was sticking for him and as soon as he heard that he was like, “That’s the one I want, that’s the one I want, that’s the one I want!” So we went to New York and we recorded at Red Bull Studios there and it was awesome. We sat down and we wrote the track in the studio, wrote and recorded in the studio, which isn’t something we often do because we just like to really take our time when we’re back at home so it was a bit outside our comfort zone but it was really good to work with Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much.

Pyramid Building

Pyramid Building is a track just about greed. I guess it throws back to when we used to listen to BDP and KRS talk about needs versus wants and I guess you could sort of look at this track as sort of a modern version of that discussion. I’ve never been a fan of millionaires existing and I’m all for people making themselves comfortable and blah, blah, blah... but of course I think there should be limits to it, before it gets gratuitous. If you shrunk it down to like a room of ten people and there was one guy in the corner sitting on like 200 pizzas and all this soft drink and in the other corner there’s a person with half a cracker... It’s just hilarious. That was a good analogy! I completely feel like pizza right now.

Through The Dark

Through The Dark is Pressure’s solo track. It’s hard for me to comment on it because it’s such a personal track. His son, when he was nine years old, was diagnosed with leukemia, and that track’s just, you know, his conversation with his son. I think it’s the best thing he’s ever written, personally. Originally he laid that hook as a placeholder to get someone else to sing and everyone around him, especially me, was like, “Nah, man, that’s your hook, that’s your story, that’s your kid; you do it,” so he took himself out of his comfort zone to do that. The result is a really beautiful track. It just punches your heart straight in its face. I was really proud of him for the way he dealt with the whole situation with his son and I was really proud of him for what he created with this song. And his son’s in remission now, which is amazing.

Won’t Let You Down (ft Maverick Sabre)

This is clearly a song about our partners. We’ve got Maverick on the hook again; it’s what we originally flew over to the UK to record with him. It’s a, I guess you’d say, a cover of an ‘80s Ph.D track called I Won’t Let You Down, which was again covered by an Italian singer called Zucchero, which was who I sampled it from. It can be difficult being the partner of a touring musician so it’s a bit about that I guess.

Rumble, Young Man, Rumble (ft Dan Sultan)

This track is a track about using boxing as a metaphor for rhyming. There’s a lot of analogies within that track — rhyming for the sport of it, but using boxing as a device to tell the story sort of thing. We’ve got Dan Sultan on the hook. I had a hook written for it and it was completely out of my register... (laughs) Not the world’s greatest singer. Getting [Sultan] in made that track come to life — it was amazing to watch him sing. He’s just such a gifted dude and we love him as a person as well.

Brainbox (ft Drapht)

Brainbox has our friend Drapht, from Perth, joining us. We flew him over here and he spent a couple of days at my house and we went down with Debris and laid the track. It was originally slated for a friend of mine’s album, Headlock, which was gonna be called The Gentlemen Baller, but he’s taken a step back from music, and the producer still really wanted the track to see the light of day so he threw it our way, with Headlock’s blessing, and we put together that with Drapht. We thought it’d be nice to get Drapht a bit outside of his comfort zone, into something a bit down-tempo and a bit grimier, and Drapht liked that idea as well.    

I’m A Ghost

I’m A Ghost is a track about eventually hanging up the mic — sort of just reflecting on that. It’s by no means announcing a subtle retirement — it’s hypothetical, which of course one day will be a reality. So yeah, the right place for that was at the end of the album.   

The Thirst Pt 5 (ft Aaradhna)

The same as Pt 4; Aaradhna once again on the hook. We use a sort of orchestra at the beginning, at the end, as devices to bring the listener out and then take them out of the album. The Thirst Pt 5 is meant to be the bookend, it’s meant to close the chapter. I was a bit worried about having all that applause for ourselves on our own album!

Walking Under Stars will be released this Friday, August 8. You can get your pre-orders in on iTunes now.