MC Pressure details son’s cancer battle on Hilltop Hoods’ Walking Under Stars — and it will make you cry
AS his eight-year-old son battled leukaemia, MC Pressure wrote songs at the youngster’s hospital bedside. The result will make you cry.
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MOST nights Daniel Smith spent beside his eight-year-old son’s hospital bedside, he would write songs.
It was a way for the man known as MC Pressure to the legion of Hilltop Hoods fans to deal with Liam’s leukaemia as he underwent six months of chemotherapy.
You don’t hear too many songs about cancer. Through the Dark, Smith’s hip hop narrative of his son’s illness and hopes for the future now he is in remission, could be the song to break the taboo.
His longtime band mates Matt Lambert (MC Suffa) and Barry Francis (DJ Debris) had to talk him into singing it rather than inviting a guest to reprise his guide vocal.
And then they had to talk him into putting it on their seventh studio record Walking Under Stars. They wanted “real life” on this album.
Through the Dark, even though it has a hopeful ending, will make you cry, with Lambert confirming 75 per cent of the people who have heard it have “broken down”.
“Writing that song is one of the hardest things I have ever done,” Smith says.
“I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it throughout his therapy and he responded very well to the treatment so it became a song of hope and perseverance.
“He’s good now, he’s doing normal kid s---, going to school. And there’s no sign of the cancer.
“He hasn’t heard it yet. He wants to wait for the album to come out before he listens to it.
“I might have to leave the room ... it might be a bit much.”
A Hilltop Hoods album could always be presented in the classic record format of two sides.
The A side of Walking Under Stars would have the life lesson songs — Through The Dark, The Thirst, Live And Let Go and Pyramid Building.
And the B side brings the fun times with Cosby Sweater and the Art Of The Handshake and the positive affirmation with Won’t Let You Down.
Cosby Sweater is a pop culture history lesson for those who missed the 1980s sitcom The Cosby Show.
The star of the show, comedian Bill Cosby, sported colourful chunky knits, many of which were designed by the Australian label Coogi.
The jumpers became adopted by hip hop enthusiasts when Biggie Smalls made them part of his wardrobe. And MC Suffa is proud to say he has one of the designs Smalls made famous in his own collection. A Coogi comeback is imminent.
“The ’90s generation will get (the song) too because Biggie Smalls was the second time we were exposed to the Cosby sweater. He rocked the Coogi sweater. So the hip hop generation get it,” Lambert says.
“And it’s having a renaissance. I have bought a bunch, I am not kidding you. It’s become a thing. At home, my wife was like, ‘That thing is so f---ing ugly’. You have no idea how comfortable I am right now.”
Another shout-out to the good old days could spark a resurgence in the Art Of The Handshake.
Remember the repertoire of elaborate greeting rituals employed by the cool kids which would go on for 20 seconds? Suffa and Pressure do from their high school days. Now it’s all high fives.
Lambert says the song was inspired by a lyric about 20 second-long handshakes in a song by Canadian group Notes To Self.
The song, which was one of their first tasters for Walking Under Stars, has generated enough chit-chat for the Hoods to consider making their own documentary on this time-honoured greeting which originated to demonstrate you weren’t carrying a weapon, according to the song.
“I love the idea of doing a song that is so earnest about something so stupid,” Lambert says, laughing.
“I had to research handshakes for a couple of days to do the scripts for the voiceover guy in the song.
“I found out all sorts of things, like in Switzerland if you are meeting a group of people, you should shake the women’s hands first. That’s the polite thing to do.
“In India and Japan, it’s rude to give a firm handshake.”
Walking Under Stars opens with emotive strings, a motif which the Hoods have embraced since their groundbreaking 2007 album The Hard Road: Restrung which reimagined their 2006 record with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
“We’re very posh; we like strings,” Lambert explains, grinning. Smith adds: “We love the power and emotion strings can deliver like no other instrument can.”
Walking Under Stars, which they call a companion album to 2012’s Drinking From The Sun, is also the most soulful collection of songs from the hip hop heroes.
That is reflected not only in the soundbeds but also in the array of guests invited to join them this time around, including Dan Sultan and Kiwi singer Aaradhna.
Smith says the sonic switch has more to do with the more personal listening habits than a mission statement for future musical directions.
“When we were 18-year-old kids, there were only certain kinds of music, even hip hop, that we would listen to. The older you get, the more your horizons expand,” he says. “I think there’s a domino effect. You listen to one artist you like and then you keep digging from there.”
Lambert adds: “We laugh now at how narrow-minded we were when we were kids.”
It seems incongruous to contemplate the Hoods as elder statesmen but it has been 15 years since they released their debut record and more than a decade since they took the genre from the underground to the mainstream pop charts with The Nosebleed Section.
The fiercely independent crew, who are widely respected for their creative and financial support of up and coming artists, have maintained their position without indulging the cult of personality of hip hop’s other cliches.
“When you wake up to Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Isis, Ukraine, all that s--- in the morning, it’s like ‘Jesus Christ!’ I have a lovely house and I make music for a living,” Lambert says.
“Two fingers to everyone complaining about their first-world problems. We have it good, we have it lucky.”
■ Walking Under Stars (Universal) is out Friday (August 8)
Originally published as MC Pressure details son’s cancer battle on Hilltop Hoods’ Walking Under Stars — and it will make you cry
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