Allday’s Homecoming
In the last three years, Allday has moved to London, worked
at an Italian olive farm and found his way back to his musical roots – being a rapper. It’s this journey the Adelaide-born artist immortalises on his brilliant, beat-heavy fifth album, The Necklace
Words by Zara Richards
You’ve just released your fifth studio album, The Necklace. To you, how do these songs sit in the Allday universe?
In a way, they go back to the music before my last album – back to my 2019 album, Starry Night over the Phone. I worked with the same producers and was back in my comfort zone – [using] autotune and all those effects I love. Thematically, maybe they sit in the same place as well. It’s classic Allday.
I had always wanted to make that type of music I did on [Drinking With My Smoking Friends]. Then, at a certain point, I was like, ‘Ok cool, I’ve done that’. It was almost like a clean slate. It freed me up to say, ‘Ok, I’m enjoying rap’. It was fun again.
The Necklace is an honest record, filled with your signature stream-of-conscious storytelling on tracks like ‘Toxic’ or ‘Encrusted’. What’s your writing process like?
It changes. I hear artists saying, ‘Oh, I wrote this in 15 minutes’ and I’m like, ‘How? That’s amazing’. So, I’m always trying to write fast. I’ve also had songs that have done well for me, like ‘In Motion’, that I’ve spent six months on. And when I say six months, I mean I will just work all day on it. Then there are ones like ‘Tarmeka’ where my friend Simon [Lam] made the beat, and I wrote two verses in 15 minutes. And because it’s a thing I can do quite easily, you can really do it fast if you want to. That’s when people think God is in the room with you – when you go fast.
Do you find making music all-consuming?
Yeah, for sure. You can definitely lose perspective. I guess that’s why I’ve been trying to go a bit faster and why I should be a bit more chill about [music], because I just lose my mind. It’s just music. I just have to have fun with it.
The album’s sixth track, ‘Tarmeka’, is named after a fan following a tweet exchange you had with her years ago. I think it speaks to the community you’ve developed online since 2014. How important is building those connections to you?
That, for me, has been everything. It’s been the reason I’ve been able to get to the fifth album. I probably didn’t realise at the start. I think I was just replying to people and being kind because they’re humans, I’m human and it’s good manners. But also, I think I was like, ‘Fuck I don’t come from a musical training background – I’m just rapping’. I felt kind of like a fraud. I was like, ‘I’ve got to at least be nice’. And then through that, people felt connected to [me] and the music, and then they’ve stuck around.
The ‘Tarmeka’ thing was crazy. I DM’d her saying ‘Hey, how’ve you been? I’m finally going to do the song’. She was so happy. She was probably 15 when we had that tweet exchange and she’s grown up and bought a house!
You moved to Melbourne early on in your career, but you’re originally from Adelaide. What was the rap scene like when you were growing up here? Has it informed your pathway interstate?
I moved when I was like 20. I’m still back in Adelaide all the time – I love it. I grew up in the Hills and the Hilltop Hoods were around there. But not just them – that whole culture as well. At Blackwood High, we had a legal graffiti wall in the school. [The culture] was just around and so by the time I was 11, I was like, ‘Yep this is me’. I used to go to a lot of all-ages shows in the city. They’re pivotal.
I didn’t feel like it could’ve been a job or anything. It was just something I was into. I would come home after school and write my little bars, probably talking about whatever was going on in my life. And then when I was 20, I had left Adelaide and the music started happening. But that’s not to say you have to leave.
Why did you feel like you had to leave?
For me, it was probably because in Adelaide, I was just going to hang out with
my friends. It was more of a personal thing. I would’ve probably kept going to Hindley Street until I was 30 and that would’ve been it.
In the lead up to The Necklace, you also worked at an Italian olive farm as a way to really shake up your surroundings and solve some creative burnout. What did this teach you?
Not that I like talking about COVID, but I was in Melbourne for a lot of it [so] I was like, ‘Let me get out of here’. And then as soon as you do something actually hard – like working outside – I was like alright, let’s see if I can focus on this thing that I’ve been mucking around with a bit too much and maybe taking for granted.
You’re kicking off your tour for The Necklace at The Gov on August 23. What should people expect?
All the good songs. Hopefully, as many as possible – just like giving a little bit of this song and keeping everyone happy. I don’t like it when artists only play their new stuff because it’s like, ‘Fuck you, play the good stuff’. But I’ll also play the new stuff because it’s good. It’ll be more of a rap show!
Last question! Describe The Necklace in three words.
Amazing. Genius. Bangers.
See Allday perform at The Gov this August 23. Tickets on sale now via Oztix.
