Rap stars Bliss N Eso celebrate sobriety and mourn lost friends on new album
BLISS N Eso’s new album is personal, revealing MC Eso’s fight for sobriety and celebrating the lives of lost mates who loved their music.
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IT took a top-secret musical mission to Afghanistan for Bliss N Eso rapper MC Eso to confront his drinking problem.
Eso, known as Max MacKinnon to family and friends, and his mates MC Bliss (Jonathan Notley) and DJ Izm (Tarik Ejjamai), were tapped to entertain the troops in 2013.
MacKinnon didn’t want to go; he just didn’t want to get “out of my comfort zone.”
The truth was he knew the war zones were “dry spots” and he had started weaning himself off the breakfast beers which kicked off most of his days.
Urged by his band mates not to pass on the opportunity to boost the morale of troops stationed in the war-torn country, he agreed to go and thanks to a relative stationed at one of the bases, was given small amounts of beer to stave off the scarier symptoms of withdrawal during the tour.
But the vivid nightmares, shakes and anxiety that result from detoxing landed him in hospital as the trio toured Canada straight after their Afghanistan visit.
MacKinnon shares his struggle for sobriety on Bliss N Eso’s sixth studio record Off the Grid on the track Devil On My Shoulder.
The track is not only a cautionary tale for his young fans about Australia’s drinking culture but also a celebration of the good things which have come into his life since he got sober, including his young son Zephyr.
The almost two-year-old boy makes a cameo in the video to their latest single Moments, which features Irish singer Gavin James.
“I had two sips of beer at Dubai airport after we left Afghanistan and then another two on the plane to America and it was tasting weird to me, my body was already in the process of changing so I told Tarik I was going to give it up right now,” he recalls.
“Those first seven, eight days of that tour were absolutely crazy because I was in and out of hospital on a drip, then getting in a taxi to the show. It was like having the flu times 1000.
“I was an alcoholic for all those years, I was slamming four bottlenecks when I would wake up, no one would see me do it.
“After the Canadian tour, I flew my girlfriend Megan over and we got married in Las Vegas and everything has changed from there. Just bonuses and bonuses and bonuses in my life.”
And there is death. As MacKinnon is sharing his story, Notley receives a text which floors the men.
A young fan Corey Perez, who inspired one of the album’s standout songs Blue, had died of cancer.
Bliss N Eso became friends with him after Notley received a random text earlier this year asking if they would visit him in hospital.
“Oh man, we were just about to do a preview of that track; I was really hoping he was gonna make it so he could hear it out there. I went to see him two weeks ago to play him the song so at least he did hear it,” Notley says quietly.
“He was happy his story was being told.”
Off the Grid had already been touched by the tragic death of actor Johann Ofner during the video shoot for Friend Like You in January.
Ofner died after being shot in the chest by blank ammunition on the Queensland set.
Bliss N Eso eventually released a clip in tribute to Ofner in March, featuring footage of his family and friends talking about the young actor.
It also featured footage from the tribute concert they staged to raise more than $40,000 for Ofner’s seven-year-old daughter Kyarna.
“Everyone needed some positivity to come out of that darkness. It was the first time we met the family that day — we had reached out straight away offering to help them with anything they needed — and we didn’t know if they would want to kill us or hug us,” Notley says. “In the end, it was nothing but love.
“It was such a touching moment for me to get his gorgeous daughter on stage scratching on the decks and see her smile. It was a celebration of his life and personally it gave me some closure that we had tried to do the best we could in a terrible situation.”
Since their first EP in 2000, Bliss N Eso have placed great stock in their artwork helping to tell the story of a record.
Off the Grid features a black-hooded Grim Reaper figure holding a golden skull, with a white rose blooming from its crown.
The life-out-of-death image is mirrored in the sound of its songs. Off the Grid’s lyrics touch your heart as its melodies, rhythms and unexpected samples such as Hoodoo Gurus’ Miss Freelove ‘69 riff move your feet and head.
Notley wrestles with describing it as Bliss N Eso’s most “pop” record but admits they were going for big songs with anthemic choruses, the kind that always provoke a bouncing happy mass of fans at their revered live performances.
“You know what it is? Pop these days is good, it’s not cheesy shit, it’s credible awesome songs,” he says.
“Hip hop has always been genreless in the sense that it is sample based and pop is heading in that direction. Now it just comes down to good music and whether you call it pop or sick hip hop, that’s what it is.
“Working on this album, the beats were crazy, we wrote choruses we loved and every word comes from the depth of our souls. We got personal.
“Deep down I hated the word pop but these days some of the best music in the world is pop.”
HEAR: Off the Grid (Illusive) is out on Friday
SEE: Bliss N Eso perform at Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane, May 26, Metro City, Perth, June 4, Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre, June 10, The Forum, Melbourne, June 23, Enmore Theatre, Sydney, June 28. For all other dates and tickets, blissneso.com
Originally published as Rap stars Bliss N Eso celebrate sobriety and mourn lost friends on new album
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