Forever Evolving

Growing up in the Blue Mountains seems to be conducive to creative success, judging from the Thundamentals’ story. MC Jeswon says it’s because of the mountain weather.

“Looking back on it now it was really an amazing time,” Jeswon says. “We feel really blessed to have the good fortune – or, me personally anyway, because I only moved to the mountains when I was 17 – but yeah, it was just an amazing place to be at that time. There were a lot of artists in the Blue Mountains doing great things: Hermitude, Urthboy, Dialectrix, Down Under Beats kind of crew. By the time we were at a stage where we were ready to perform, there was a really supportive scene there.

“I think some Sydneysiders suffer from tall poppy syndrome where it’s a bunch of people working against each other even though they’re in the same scene, just to try and get some personal credit happening or whatever,” Jeswon explains. “But in the mountains it was super supportive, all the other acts that were a little further along than we were, they were just happy to see the next generation of people coming through on their music.

“So looking back on it, it was just this magical time where everyone was down to support each other and some illustrious artists – not just in the hip hop scene, but other bands like Cloud Control are from there and some other pretty prominent artists are from there. I think it’s a pretty creatively energized place. I think the weather helps in a way because it’s so rainy up there and it’s so cold that you’re indoors quite a bit.”

It’s because of the mountains’ creative buzz that Thundamentals were able to flourish, building a solid fanbase – known as Thunda Cats – and selling out venues before they were legally able to be there. “There was one club – well, nightspot – in particular called Triselies and that had a big influence on all the musicians in Katoomba, and the whole Blue Mountains, because there aren’t that many live spots to play. They used to let underage kids – we were all underage when we started playing there and it was just a great breeding ground. We were pulling crowds that were selling out venues there before we had records out. Headline acts would come through and just spin out because there was this great scene of lots of people supporting and great quality artists doing their thing.”

Several years down the track and the guys are no longer in the mountains, with a new base in Newtown. The new location hasn’t slowed their production either, with the release their sophomore longplayer, ‘Foreverlution’, earlier this year. “I feel like the new album is a sequel to the first album, ‘Sleeping On Your Style’,” Jeswon says. “It’s kind of, I guess, a bit of an evolution on the first album, hence the title ‘Foreverlution’: it’s kind of forever being in a state of evolving your music and hopefully trying to perfect it as close as you can get.”

'Foreverlution’ builds on the hip hop and dubstep influences present in ‘Sleeping On Your Style’ to create something heavier than their previous efforts. “It’s pretty heavy,” Jeswon says. “I mean, we make hip hop music but we’re fans of all kinds of music … I think that those kinds of influences from other genres come into our music and I can’t see us not making records in the future with some aspect of those influences coming through. I kind of feel like the new album is very eclectic in terms of its sounds. I think DJ Morgs [Thundamentals’ producer], who made all of the beats for this album, really did a great job at providing this real plethora of different sounds. Not just the one kind of beat — every beat sounds distinct and I think there’s a lot of merit in that, coming from the one producer.

“I know quite often if there’s just one producer making the album, it can sound quite samey. After a while you’re just like, ‘Well, this beat sounds like the last beat to me’, whereas to me I feel like Morgs has managed to serve up a lot of different flavours on the record, which I think is a testament to his skill as a producer; to be able to flip his style and be able to come up with new styles of beats.

“As an MC it’s great to be served up with different kinds of flavours like that, because you know, it inspires you to write differently and to come up with different song ideas that you might not be able to reach if you’re just given the same beat each time. I think he’s done a really good job, Morgs, of keeping things interesting.”

‘Foreverlution’ is DJ Morgs’ first time producing an entire album, which Jeswon admits wasn’t in the initial plan, but arose out of necessity.
“There was another member of Thundamentals called Tommy Fiasco who co-produced our first record with Morgs,” Jeswon explains.

Morgs did still do the majority of that first album but Tommy was definitely there helping co-produce and making his own beats which all made it onto the record. Since then Tommy’s gone on to do some solo stuff so he’s no longer with us but yeah, it was pretty much just that Morgs was the only producer left in the crew. It was just like, ‘Ugh, we’ve got to get it done’ and he stepped up to the plate and just produced the whole thing himself. With the exception of a couple of little co-production features with a couple of other producers, he’s pretty much done 95 percent of the beats himself.”

While they’re now one member less, the Thundamentals crew still stick close to their Blue Mountains brethren, particularly when they were after a horn section or trumpet part for the album. “We pretty much only collaborated with friends of ours who we grew up with in the Blue Mountains. On a lot of our songs – even though they’re produced by Morgs, we will bring in instrumentalists who are friends of ours to lay down some layers on top of the songs that we just aren’t capable of adding because we don’t play trumpet, tenor sax or whatever it might be that we need for each song, so we’re just getting a bunch of friends to collaborate and to lay things down.”

Thundamentals play The Globe Friday December 2. ‘Foreverlution’ is out now.