360: "I completely understand if people are going to hate on it."

A talented battle MC, known for his quick wit and scathing humour, Melbourne's Matt Colwell (aka 360) rose to prominence on the battle circuit before gaining significant notoriety post the 2008 independent release of his debut album, What You See Is What You Get.

In the ensuing years, 360 kept a lower profile, continuing to battle and releasing music with partner-in-crime, Pez, under the moniker Forthwrite. Colwell’s relationship with Pez would also contribute to his next significant rise in prominence, as a guest on Pez’s 'The Festival Song', which became a runaway hit and summer anthem of 2008. In late 2010, 360 kicked off the now wildly successful rapper tag, a move that would perfectly set the scene for Colwell’s journey to culminate in his second solo album, Falling and Flying, hitting the top ten of the ARIA charts.

TheVine caught up with the ever affable Colwell to talk about backing himself, haters, social media and the trials and tribulations of this new phase in his life: success.

(360 pic: Michael Danischewski)

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It must be pretty exciting to finally have Falling and Flying out there for the public to digest?

Yeah man, it’s a good feeling dude. There’s so much positive feedback from it, I haven’t really copped any negativity from it at all so far. It’s been pretty full on man, like, the response has been insane. Everything is just finally starting to happen for me right now. Even though it’s been a long time coming. Like, I’ve been working at it for so many years, it seems like this is the beginning now, you know what I mean? It’s a big relief to get it out finally and it’s exciting just to see what can happen from here. I can feel big things, you know?


360 (ft. Josh Pyke) - 'Throw It Away'

Thinking back on the last couple of years and the process of creating the album, what’s been the hardest thing you’ve had to overcome to get to the point where right now, Falling and Flying is released to the public?

Probably overcoming the demons in my head. I used to fucking stress so much because I was making different music away from just normal hip-hop. I used to stress that all the hip-hop fans were going to hate it, because I was rapping over dub-step, or I’m rapping over dance beats and shit like that. So, I think overcoming that and finally realising that it’s just about what I want to do and it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks. Even if it’s someone that’s been a loyal fan from the start -- if I wanna do what I’m doing, then that’s all that really matters. That was the hardest thing to overcome for me, but once I did make that conscious decision that it doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter what people think, I’ve been fine, I feel like I’m on top of the world now.

The album is filled positivity and there's a sense that you're doing what you want. "Fuck everyone else, this is me and this is what I’m about, so like it or leave it."

I’m glad you picked up on that man. That’s what I wanted.

One of the hallmarks of your lyrics is that your rhymes tend to play out at polar opposites; you're renowned for your humorous, sarcastic, satirical lyricism, but there's also a highly serious, introspective quality. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground. Is that a deliberate choice or is that just how you are in real life?

I guess it’s just who I am. I love doing the real piss-take, funny songs, but I do more of those songs on the free mix tapes when I’m not really caring much. I guess when you’re making an album, you put so much care and time into it, that you tend to get really, really serious about its content.

It’s not a conscious decision; I just wanted to start every song from scratch, wherever it takes me, then that’s where I’ll go. I wanted to talk about more personal stuff on the album, rather than that sort of piss-take shit -- there’s only one song where I really take the piss on the album, you know what I mean? The rest is all serious. But I’m trying to show another side of my personality. If someone listens to my music, I want them to get what sort of person I am at the same time.

You did humorous music on your first album, as well as one half of Forthwrite, and even 'The Festival Song' with Pez. Did you think you were pigeonholing yourself in terms of what you we're about?


Pez (ft. 360 & Hailey Cramer) - 'The Festival Song'

I guess so. After making 'The Festival Song' with Pez, for a while I didn’t have my own identity. A lot of the time it was, 'You’re that guy from the band Pez'. So it took a while after my first album to this album for me to find myself musically. I did a lot of listening to other genres, a lot of writing and stuff like that, to eventually come to making this album. Now I realise exactly what I want to do and I know exactly where I want to be as an artist and I think I’m finally ready.

I can’t really listen to my first album anymore, I think it has moments where it’s good, but I can’t listen to it because I feel like I wasn’t really ready as an artist, like song writing, recording wise and stuff. I think now I’ve matured as a song writer and I know how to record my voice when I rap. It’s taken all that time to really find myself, but I’m 25 now, so finally I feel like I’m there.

You get very introspective and very personal on the album. A song like 'Child' is almost a fun, upbeat track, but then in your lyrics you're talking about your brother getting bullied at school and the hardships your father came from. Was opening up like that liberating or was it a challenge?


360 - 'Child'

Both at the same time man. It feels great to be able to write that kind of stuff. It’s very therapeutic, especially if you have a lot of shit going on in your head, to sit down and write it out. You do feel better after it. At the same time, I fight myself thinking, 'Maybe I’m being a bit too personal.' With 'I Hope You Don’t Mind', the song on the album, I thought maybe I’m getting a bit too deep on there and baring my soul a little too much. Letting people know my insecurities and shit. But I really respect when artists do that and people are just completely honest in their music. So I thought, 'Why not do it?'. It was just me being completely myself.

By working with Styalz [producer Styalz Fuego] on the majority of the album, you’ve made a fairly deliberate decision about the type of sonic you’ve created. What was the thinking and motivation behind Falling and Flying from a production point of view?

When we started it, I met up with Styalz and I was like, 'I don’t want to make a traditional hip hop album, I don’t want to make a pop record, I don’t want to try to appeal to any market. I just wanted to make the music and wherever it took us, that’s where we’ll go.' It could have ended up being detrimental where we headed, but that didn’t matter, we weren’t trying to make a specific sound.

I really wanted to demonstrate the influences I’d been listening to over the last couple of years. Like, the different bands and dance songs and indie bands and dub step and shit like that, ‘cause when I listened to that music, it made me think this could sound really sick with rap over it. So it was only natural that I incorporate it into the album. It was never a conscious decision to not make a hip-hop album — cause there’s still hip-hop on there — it was more 'Let’s just go with it, no rules, wherever it takes us, if it sounds good to us, then let’s do it.'

There's a minority — but a very vocal minority — in the Australian hip-hop community that is going to hate on both this album’s sound and the lyrics you’ve written. I was wondering what you think about this group?

I think it’s completely understandable, because I was once part of that. When I was younger if I heard artists making music that was very heavily pop influenced or had any dance elements, I’d think those guys were fuckheads and they’re sell outs. But as I’ve grown, I’m more interested in making the music that influences me. So it’s only natural that I do it and I completely understand if it’s not their thing and that’s completely fine. I might not go and listen to a whole lot of traditional hip-hop these days if it’s released in 2011, because I’m sort of past that now. So it’s all good. I completely understand if people are going to hate on it, each to their own.

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