My name is Smiles, you can call me Smizzy if you like, and I emcee alongside  Willow in Mind Over Matter. We’re a hip hop act and have been making music since 2006. We’re about to embark on a small nationwide tour to promote our new single ‘Somebody’s Love’.

‘Somebody’s Love’ is the second single off our forth coming album titled This Way to Elsewhere due for release in the coming months.

Who or what inspired you to start Mind Over Matter?

Willow and I listened to nothing but hip hop during high school, we rapped on the phone to each other most nights and passed rhymes back and forth in class. There was a battle of the bands competition that our school put on and we ended up entering and winning the cash prize as well, after that we decided to create Mind Over Matter.

Mind of Matter have been known to make a mixtape here and there. How do you go about selection of the tracks for your mixtapes?

We just download, vibe and freestyle to all of our favourite instrumentals and the ones that feel right we roll with. It’s a really organic and fun process. Finding 320kb instrumental mp3’s is usually the hard part!

You’re commencing a tour with the first show being at Sounds Of Suburbs this weekend, where else is the tour going to take you and whom will you be touring with?

We’re touring all over the country hitting places like Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Batemans Bay, Newcastle plus more. We wouldn’t go anywhere without our wonderfully hilarious and insanely talented, if I may say so myself, DJ, DJ Ntaprize. We’re also bringing along the very swarve Ernst Carter Jnr who sings on Somebody’s Love and has been a collaborator and very close friend of ours for years.

What’s on heavy rotation on the Mind Over Matter Ipods or streaming services right now?

I’m currently banging J. Cole’s latest album and have been for a few weeks now. Also my morning / shower album currently is the new Rufus album. (We’ve also worked with them on our forthcoming album This Way to Elsewhere).

Mind Over Matter just signed with Shock Records, when should we expect the album to drop?

We’re looking at releasing either late 2013 or very early 2014.

If you could curate your own festival, where would it be, who would be on the bill, how many people would you let in and what features would it have?

Headline would definitely be Outkast. I’d also like to put Wu Tang and Redman on there too, I’d throw some Chet Faker in the mix along with probably the Arctic Monkeys and the Black Keys. It would be held at my parents’ house, tickets would be $25 with a free ‘butterflied sausage’ sausage sandwhich with onions and sauce included of course. 300 tickets would be made available as Mum would have a heart attack if there was any more. I’d lose a heap of money as the festival promoter but it would go down in history as one of the greatest music moments of all time I reckon.

Because it’s more fun to do things together, what female artists living or dead would you like most to collaborate with?

Lauren Hill would be incredible. I kind of have a voice crush on Missy Higgins so she’d be on the list. Also Yukimi Eleanora from Little Dragon. Apart from this all I really want to work with is K.I.K.I who sang on Real Life – she’s just too damn brilliant!!

What is your band’s music the best soundtrack for?

Probably the movie called The Sandlot, which I always remember as The Sandlot Kids, if those kids were over 18 and baseball became partying and smores became hash cookies.

Tell us why we shouldn’t miss your set at the very first Sounds Of Suburbs Festival in Cronulla on Sunday 22nd September.

Because it opens with our very own rendition of Meatloaf’s ‘Anything For Love’ and then bursts into a hip hop cross Irish Pub Rock anthem of our own!

Sounds Of The Suburbs featuring Mind Over Matter:

Sunday 22nd September

Wilbar Lane – Cronulla (NSW) – * 18+ ONLY 

Gates Open: 11.00am – Gates Close 9.00pm

BLEEDING KNEES CLUB  –  CHANCE WATERS  –  THE GRISWOLDS – GOONS OF DOOM  – THE LAZYS – BLOODS  –  MARLIN ZANDO  – DUMB BLONDES – YOUR FAVORITE ENEMIES (CANADA)  –  BLACK ZEROS – HARMONY HART  –  LETTERS TO LIONS – D`LUNA

www.soundsofthesuburbs.com.au

More tour dates:

Friday September 27 – The Workers Club, Melbourne

Friday October 4 – Spectrum, Sydney

Saturday October 5 – Small Ballroom, Newcastle

Sunday October 6 – Captains @ Mariners, Batemans Bay

Wednesday October 9 – The Causeway, Perth

Friday October 11 – The Dusk Lounge, Joondalup

Saturday October 12 – The Beetle Bar, Brisbane

Watch ‘Somebody’s Love’ here

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