After first revealing the Silverchair singer would appear on his new album last year, and several recent teasers, the collaboration between 360 and Daniel Johns has officially landed.
The successful Melbourne MC and the Silverchair frontman’s co-written tune, ‘Impossible’, is a dark song that rides on dirty dubstep drops and dirty, glitchy beats featuring 360 spitting verses about tackling his addictive personality and self-destructive streak as Johns offers melodic counterpoint and backing on a natty chorus.
The pair also co-star in the ‘Impossible’ music video, as they vandalise public property in the dead of night as two molotov-wielding hoodlums, as well as playing two Tarnatino-esque figures in a muscle car trying to hunt down their unruly doppelgangers – leading to a fiery conclusion.
Produced by Collider and filmed in the streets of Sydney, the clip was directed by Patrick Fileti (whose previous music credits include videos for Boy In A Box and Bird Automatic) and 360’s comeback track, the first taste of his new album Utopia, is the first time that Daniel Johns has appeared in a music video in six years (since Silverchair’s ‘If You Keep Losing Sleep’).
“Daniel hasn’t done a video since 2007,” Sixty says. “He doesn’t really like doing videos but he loved doing this one,” explains 360. “Mind you we got to hoon around in a muscle car and throw molotov cocktails.”
For the Daniel Johns co-write, 360 emphasises “I love the song but I also wanted to take a few risks. There’s poppier songs on the record to come, but I wanted people to hear this first. There’s a lot of attitude in ‘Impossible’. It’s really honest.”
The song sees the MC describing himself as a “young self-destructive unhealthy fuckwit” with lyrical references to his degenerative eye disease and “alcohol, sex, caffeine and ciggies too/shit what haven’t I been addicted to.”
For his part, Johns (who is releasing his own solo album “later in the year“) tells News Ltd that ‘Impossible’ began as a “songwriting experiment for Matt’s record. Neither of us ever expected I’d end up singing on the song too but we both really liked the demo so eventually we thought – ‘why not’?” “Daniel Johns and I got to hoon around in a muscle car and throw molotov cocktails.”
Colwell met Johns through his brother (who is also the MC’s publisher) in a bid to stretch out for more left-field collaborations in the follow-up to his chart-storming, award-winning Falling And Flying album.
“Daniel and I hit it off quickly,” Colwell says. “Stuff he went through ages ago with Silverchair, in regards to being thrown into fame and dealing with the pressures, I was going through at the time we met,” he says, explaining that his partying lifestyle of booze, chemicals, and marijuana was to cope with the pressures of sudden fame.
Turning up to write and record the song at Daniel Johns’ Newcastle studio, 360 – real name Matthew Colwell – admits “I was at the peak of my loose partying days… I rocked up to the studio and I hadn’t slept for three days- I was an absolute mess.”
But “things have changed I’m not partying now. I’m sober,” says 360, whose found a new addiction as a bona fide gym junkie. “I’m three months sober and smashing raw eggs every morning,” he told Triple J earlier this month, as part of his positive new outlook; “now I’m loving life.”
That includes 360 using his position as one of Aussie hip hop’s most prominent stars for positive influence, inspiring his recent pubic stands against “fucking racist c#*ts” Down Under and declaring war on hip hop’s inherent homophobia.
Both issues which have fed into his songwriting, including 360 and Daniel Johns’ other co-write to feature on the upcoming Utopia LP, ‘It’s All About The End’. “I think lyrically it’s the best song on the album” says 360.
The two turns from the Silverchair figurehead is just one of many collaborations that fuel Utopia, due for release later this year, with a roll call that includes The Presets’ Julian Hamilton (a mate of Daniel Johns, trainspotters), Chris Cheney from The Living End, fellow rapper (and Forthwrite Records labelmate) Pez, and another turn with ‘Boys Like You’ singer Gossling.
“Me and Gossling did a song called ‘Price of Fame’, she kills it once again,” 360 tells Triple J of Utopia’s guest stars. “We’ve got a guy called Lifted, too. He’s from L.A. and he’s signed to [Kanye West’s label] G.O.O.D Music… He produced ‘Mercy’ for Kanye last year. He’s executive producing, and Styalz Fuego is back to do the beats.”
