Kllo, Hollywood, Weed & A Relationship Breakdown Inform Allday's New Record

After we bags a couple of stools facing the side window of a cafe in the heart of Melbourne's CBD, Tomas Gaynor (Allday on festival line-ups) orders a green juice. The Adelaide rapper is based in LA "at the moment" and enthuses, "I'll be driving through the canyon [Hollywood neighbourhood Laurel Canyon] and be like, 'Oh, this is right where Joni Mitchell used to live.'" 

Still, he admits he would have preferred to call the City Of Angels home circa 1971: "I'm thinking of, like, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills & Nash – that's the sort of stuff I like, so..."

What about the height of the '80s Sunset Strip hair-metal scene? "I was living right in Hollywood when I first moved there," Allday reveals. "I was a bit into that [music] growing up as well, my friends and I have a Guns N' Roses Appetite For Destruction club – well, just three of us – and we make sure we meet up once a year and listen to [the album] in full, and usually in a car just 'cause it was our thing." 

As such, Allday was stoked to spot Rock N' Roll Ralphs on Sunset: "They've got it printed on the doors... 'cause that's where they all used to hang in the hair-metal days and, like, meet up before they'd go to the clubs. I was just like, [snaps his fingers and points] 'Rock & Roll Ralphs.'" 

Allday then shares "the main reason" he decided to relocate stateside: "I wanted to learn how to write quicker... They just go in the studio and just make songs and they don't care if it's good or bad [in LA], so I wanted to, like, get a dash of that and try to combine it with the cosmic inspiration I'm always searching for."

We discuss prolific Brill Building-era songwriting teams such as Carole King/Gerry Goffin, and Allday offers, "It's that's old adage, 'Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.'" 

He recently watched Rocketman with his mum and we marvel at the depiction of Elton John's speedy songwriting process throughout the film. "I mean, sometimes it's almost like that," Allday allows. "Sometimes that first idea is 'it' – an amazing feeling. Maybe it is like that for Elton John?

"I think hit songs – not that I've had a hit song, but the thing with hit songs is you feel like you've heard it somewhere before; it's like an instinct. So usually if my brother says to me, 'I dunno, I feel like I've heard this one before.' I go, 'Oh, this might be a good one!'" 

So does Allday then Shazam the melody to make sure he hasn't accidentally plagiarised a famous tune? "I drive myself pretty crazy with that," he confesses. "I've, like, deleted a lotta things that I've stolen from other people. I accidentally did a Midnight Oil melody on a song and I was like, 'This is fantastic! I've written a great chorus!' and then it was just like one of the big Midnight Oil songs." 

In Simon Lam from Kllo, Allday found a simpatico songwriting partner, which is something he's sought out for his "whole career". After what was intended as a one-off session, during which Atmosphere – a track off Allday's upcoming Starry Night Over The Phone record – was created, the rapper says he "had a moment". "I thought, 'Oh, wow, Simon's sensibility and tastes really match with mine,' and it just felt like I didn't have to constantly be instructing him in what to do, and it was just a load off my shoulders." 

The pair started working "every night from 5pm" and "could work as late as [they] wanted". "There were no interruptions," he points out. "We'd just go out and get a taco and then go on the road and maybe look out over Hollywood, smoke a little weed, yeah! It was nice." 

After an advance listen to Allday's forthcoming album, this scribe gets the sense that his past relationships may have suffered while he's "been busy blowing up". "I haven't been very good at keeping relationships so far in my life," he admits without hesitation, "but I've been very good at keeping friendships. 

"The album ended up being more written when I was in a relationship, with lots of negative stuff about the relationship ending. And sometimes I found that you end up writing about stuff that hasn't happened yet, that you haven't really accepted is about to happen, in your conscious mind. And then when you look back you're like, 'Oh, I was just writing about everything that is about to unfold...' But the lyrics are really what's embedded in your mind."