It is not surprising to learn that Tom Gaynor, aka Allday, grew up in the same neighbourhood as fellow Australian hip-hop crew Hilltop Hoods.
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Like his groundbreaking predecessors, Allday is proud to rap and sing with an Australian accent rather than "faking" an American accent. But the cultural cringe surrounding Australian hip-hop is, he says, still very real.
"The Hoods are from Blackwood near Adelaide and I'm from Blackwood so they were obviously an influence on me," he said. "I mean, we're from the same high school. They made it big when I was 13."
Allday is in Australia for The Drop Festival 2020 which kicks off in Noosa on February 29 and travels to Newcastle, Manly, Coolangatta, Torquay and Busselton. His debut album Startup Cult peaked at No.3 on the ARIA Charts and spawned hit singles Right Now and You Always Know The DJ while his second full-length project, Speeding, scored another Top 10 chart debut and hit singles Sides, Raceway and In Motion. He released third album Starry Night Over The Phone in July, 2019. These days, he is based in Los Angeles.
"We haven't had a lot of success in America with Aussie hip-hop to date," he said.
"It doesn't help that the cultural cringe around hip-hop in Australia is massive - people like it but also feel guilty for liking it, like it makes them a bogan or something. I loathe that, but I do understand where some of it comes from because a lot of the Australian hip-hop that has been around is dated when compared to the US and the UK. So when I came on the scene, I wanted to try to make Aussie hip-hop cooler."
Has he achieved that? "Well, I reckon I was definitely part of the wave that began to extend the range of sounds that were acceptable in hip-hop in Australia, and now there are so many different sounds."
Allday's sound blends singing and rapping in, as mentioned before, an identifiable Australian accent. It's more authentic, he says, and just comes naturally.
"It's so important to me to use my own accent. You're only imitating if you're using someone else's accent," he explained. "And there are exceptions to that, but rapping is literally talking, so it makes the most sense to rap how you talk."
He says he always wanted to sing as well as rap.
"It's taken me a long time to learn about music and I'm still learning, really," he said.
"I am still hearing developments in my voice as I go on, and I'm getting more confident with my singing, but I'm only just figuring out what I can and can't do as a vocalist. For one thing, I use auto-tune, so I can't take all the credit [laughs]."
And he never, in his wildest dreams, thought he would be able to make music for a living.
"It was so far-fetched to ever think that I could get away with doing something like this as a job. I was never brave enough to even have that dream, so it's pretty special."
Allday joins The Presets on The Drop line-up, as well as Boy & Bear, Ball Park Music, DZ Deathrays, Kita Alexander and GRAACE, at Empire Park in Newcastle on Saturday, March 7. Tickets are on sale now at eventbrite.com.au.
He won't, however, be joining any of the other artists in the surf.
"I'll be on the beach watching with my sun vest on. I am not really an outdoor beachy guy, let's put it that way," he said.
Allday also gave a special shout-out to "Liam from Newy" who offered to wash people's cars for free if they voted for one of his songs in the Triple J Hottest 100. Liam, your efforts were appreciated.
