Interview by KATIE ROLSTON

Xannon Shirley is THE TONGUE. Touring the country to showcase his second album Alternative Energy, this conversational MC will be in Perth for two nights headlining The Wildside Tour for Elefant Traks alongside Melbourne hip hop duo SPIT SYNDICATE.

How are you feeling about the upcoming tour?

I’m very excited. I did a tour at the end of last year with a guy called PHAROAHE MONCH from the states which went around to a few different states in Australia but other than that I haven’t really done a solo tour for nearly two years now.

That’s really exciting!

Yeah! I love touring, I love doing shows but I haven’t really gone out on my own with an album that people are excited about for a while, so yeah it’s very exciting. I think we have a really good line up and I can’t wait to get over to Perth, we always have great shows in WA.

What will it be like on the road with the Spit Syndicate boys? Are they good guys?

We’ve known each other for a long time. I knew those guys before they put out their first record so we’re very good mates. We also share that common link in that JOYRIDE that is their DJ is also in my live show so he’s going to be coming along. My DJ SKOOB is always a trouble maker so between the lot of us…

We’re also bringing CLASS A who’s one of Melbourne’s better MCs that’s coming up at the moment. She’s great as well and has a lot of shows under her belt, so it should be great.

Is there anything surprising to expect from you on the new album?

I’m singing on one of the songs all the way through which I’ve never done before but people really just have to listen for themselves. The main aim with the album was to make something that didn’t sound anything like what you would consider Australian Hip Hop to sound like – that was the mission. So I feel like we did a pretty good job of getting there. I don’t think you could confuse one of my songs for HILLTOP HOODS or MUPH AND PLUTONICon the radio. I really wanted to get my own sound happening. A big influence for me was DIZZEE RASCAL. I was think about Dizzee Rascal – he’s just a rapper like any other but it’s really his choice of beats and music that set him apart, given him his own identity and allowed him to have such success. He’s not afraid to break the rules of hip hop. I don’t even think he considers himself to be hip hop even though he’s a rapper like me.

Paving your own way.

Yeah, if you do the same as everyone else is doing you’ll get treated the same as everyone else.

Good attitude.

Yeah, the idea is to have the most original approach as possible.

What was it like collaborating with ELGUSTO on the record?

Elgusto was there from the start. Part of the reason I’ve been a few years between albums is because I didn’t want to compromise, I didn’t want to work with the same producers as everyone else and come up with an album that sounds the same, and it wasn’t really until Elgusto was like “okay I’ll actually help you find this new sound” that the album came together.

He’s so damn talented and experienced and he just knows what sounds good, what’s funky, knows how to program drums that make you wanna move – he just knows how to do that. Once he green-lighted, the whole project came together really quickly. Not only did he produce the whole album, he recorded it with me, he coached me a little bit while I was in the booth and tried to get better performances out of me. He mixed the whole thing. He was really vital to the whole project. The album would not have happened without him.

So he had a massive influence on your sound?

No doubt, he pretty much is the sound. There’s a few other producers on there, but other than that he is the sound and even those other producers, he mixed their tracks with them and he made little changes here and there. If you have a look inside the CD it says the Executive Producer is Elgusto and The Tongue, so I consider him to be at least half of the album really. He should get credit for.

Is “The Show” the most accessible song to start getting into the album?

We sent that out as the first single and we got a very good response. The film clip got added to Video Hits which surprised me. I think of Video Hits as being a very pop focussed show so it did make me think that it was the most accessible. We just shot a video for the new single which is called “Crazy” so in my opinion I think it’s the second most accessible [laughs]. It’s funny because a lot of my stuff, as much as I try to make it a coherent album, I try and do something different on each song. It’s always interesting when I put out a record, different people like different songs. It’s always interesting for me to see what other people think is accessible and you can never predict how the other people are going to react. Sometimes the songs you think are the best other people don’t like or songs you’re not crazy about other people will love so it’s always different. Overall, I think it’s a more accessible record than the first one.

How different is it for you performing live to the studio?

Completely different but both very satisfying in different ways. When you’re in the studio you have to really perform for yourself. I would call it a performance when I’m in the studio. I like the term recording artist, because that’s what it is – it’s the art of recording, it’s the art of finding the best way to perform your lyrics, whether you do it in one take or six takes or all together. When there’s 500 people there and they all know the words of your song its completely different to recording a song for the first time which no one else has heard.

But you love performing.

Yeah, I love them both. When you start out with an album it’s like an author who starts out with a book with a blank page, there’s nothing there. So when you get to the point when you’ve written something –and I’m very self critical – by the time I’ve decided I like something I really like it because I’ve taken a lot of time to think about it and re-do the edits and change words, so to get to the point of “that’s the way I want to do it” and then record it and hear it back is very satisfying. Your music is no good unless people hear it and enjoy it so to get to the point where there’s a room full of people who love your songs is a real high.

Any immediate plans after the tour or are you just going to bask in your own glory?

[Laughs] I wish I could just bask in my own glory, but I won’t know how much glory there is. The glory part is doing the tour. It’s the best part because even though the album has gone really well so far, at times it feels like it’s trippy. You don’t know what other people are thinking, how much they are enjoying it and in what situation.  You don’t know how much it means to them if a certain song has helped them at a certain time, if they’re playing it at their 21^st birthday, you don’t know how it’s been received by the listener.

When you actually go out on tour and people tell you at shows “I love this song”, “I love this line” or “this means this to me” or “I was thinking that too and you put it into words”, that’s really the glory for me. That’s when you’re seeing the effect of your music which is the most satisfying thing as a musician. It’s all well and good those musicians who say I only make music for myself, but I think that’s bull personally. Otherwise why would you bother recording it?

With music you’ve never made it. You might come across to other people like you’ve made it but you never really have, you always have to keep trying to make it you never rest on your morals. I guess at the end of this tour I will be thinking about the next tour, the next album. I’m not sure which one yet.

MORE INTERVIEWS >>