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Upfront: Spit Syndicate

Unity through collaboration

Nick and Jimmy of Spit Syndicate have always possessed a strong collaborative mentality. Initially bonding over graffiti and their love for hip-hop, the pair are now ready to release their fourth studio album, One Good Shirt Has Us All Fly. The album features an array of Australian artists including Thelma Plum, Remi, and Radical Son. Undeniably, Spit Syndicate’s unified spirit stretches farther than their own duo; they are also part of a collective known as One Day and throw parties across Australia where they say “everyone is welcome”.

What was it like growing up in the inner west of Sydney?

Nick: It’s very multicultural, probably upper to upper-middle class when we were growing up but now with the way everything is gentrified it’s crazy. It’s vibrant with a lot of culture, it’s a good vibe. For us growing up in terms of our connection to hip-hop, graffiti was everywhere. There was a pretty strong local graffiti and music scene where we grew up and it was fairly fertile ground for bands, rap crews, graffiti writers that we kind of looked up to and soaked up all around us. Now it is a hotbed of music, parties and art and those cultural scenes that are happening in Sydney. We kind of take that everywhere we go.

Would you say your environment was a major influence on your music and your crew? How did you all come together?

Jimmy: Our schools were in similar areas. Where we grew up trickles down into everything we do – how we act, how we talk to friends. I feel like our main goal is to reach a point where our community does respect us for what we do because we have respect for how we came up. That’s one of the key things for us, it’s not all monetary or stature goals. Just walking around where people know what we do and respect what we do. All these One Day Sundays parties we’ve been doing around the country are very inclusive and very free spirited – everyone is welcome. That’s what we bring from where we are to wherever we go. Having four different crews in one creates that same vibe, everyone’s got a voice and we do it together. One Day is made up of Spit Syndicate, Horrorshow, Jackie Onassis, and Joyride.


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I’d assume you were playing a lot of live shows to get your music out there and heard initially. Now you’re in this position where you do so much online that it’s a blessing to do the live shows and have that real world interaction. How’s that transition been for you, going from real-life to online to back again?

Nick: When we first started coming up at the age of 15, it was literally about taking a trip to a record store and listening to the people who work there. Now you have to do everything, you have to use these various spheres to try and push the overall goal. If you can try use online stuff, be it blogs or the content you’re creating or putting out, if you can use that online game to further and campaign and this project, by all means do it. You also have to be doing stuff in real life; you have to be playing shows.

Jimmy: You have to keep your vibe and your story consistent. Consistency is key.

Tell us about your new album One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly.

Nick: It’s been about collaborating in the truest sense with other artists. With Remi, we were fans of his work and then we became friends with him over the course of a few years. We built up this vibe then we kicked it in Melbourne and wrote this song which was really organic. We have Thelma Plum on there. Radical Son who’s an Indigenous singer from NSW. It’s a very personal yet extremely collaborative record and that kind of ties in with the album title One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly – Jimmy and I are the faces of Spit Syndicate but there’s a whole lot of people who contribute to this overall project and story that we’re trying to shine a light on.


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One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly is available now. Get it here.

 

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