Rolling Stone Australia — July 2017

B

yanyone’sstandards,

2013wasastellaryearfor

Sydney hip-hop trio Bliss n

Eso: their fifth album,Cir-

cusintheSky, debuted at Number

OneontheARIAcharts,goingon

to become the second biggest album

debutoftheyear(DaftPunk’sRan-

dom Access Memorieswas the only

LP to best them). Then, in 2014,

camethecountry’sbiggesteverhip-

hoptour,‘CircusUndertheStars’,

wherethecrewwoundupplayingto

around 55,000 punters across Aus-

tralia. Behind the scenes, howev-

er, things were unravelling for one

of the MCs.

“I’d been drinking every day for

10 years and knew that was a wall I

hadtoclimbandjustthoughtthat

Icouldneverdoit,”saysEso,aka

MaxMacKinnon.“Wehadtheop-

portunity to go to Afghanistan and

playforthetroops,andIknewthat

there’dbedryzonesthere,soIwent

overandwasgettingoffthealcohol

forthefirsttimeinadecade.That

seven days ended and we went to

Canadaforatour,andonthefirst

daythereIsaid,‘Igottaquit’.My

bodywasrejectingit.Iwashaving

theDTs,goingtohospitalstogeton

drips,goingstraightfromthehos-

pitaltobeingonstage...basical-

ly it was hell. There was no rehab –

Ihadtodoitontour,havingtoslap

asmileonandploughthroughit.”

The experience, although harrowing,

marked a major turning point in MacKin-

non’slife.“Ifinishedthattour,Iwasclean,

andthenflewmymissusover–allofus

gottogetherinLasVegas,”hesayswitha

smile.“Wegotmarriedandnotlongafter

thatIhadababyboy,andit’sbeenbless-

ings ever since.”

Thetriumphantreturnofthegroup–

roundedoutbyJonathan‘Bliss’Notleyand

Tarik‘DJIzm’Ejjamai–sufferedablow

in January this year when stunt double

Johann Ofner was accidentally shot and

killed on the set of the video for the sin-

gle“FriendLikeYou”.“Thatwasatough

situation that affected everyone involved,”

saysNotley.“Weweredeeplyhitbyit.”Well

versedinturningdarkmomentsintosome-

thingpositive,thevideomorphedintoa

MacKinnon. “For you to come to terms

with your own problems and demons or ad-

dictions is a hard thing to do in general, let

alone trying to learn how to put those ex-

pressions into your art form. But we saw

other artists that we look up to and realised

welikedthembecausetheywerebeing

brutally honest, so we delved into our own

problems andlaiditoutthere.”

“Ifeellikeinthepastonrecordwe’ve

hadthispoeticsidethat’squiteabstractat

times,”addsNotley.“Thistimewereally

thoughtabout,‘Whatarewetryingtosay

in this song? Where are we going with this?’

Really dig deep and pull out the honesty

that goes with it. On this record I feel like

we’rebringingstuffwe’veneverbrought

to the table before – instead of people just

knowing about Bliss n Eso, they now final-

ly know more about Jonathan and Max.”

tribute to Ofner featuring his family and

friends. “It became more a celebration of

hisliferatherthanmourninghisdeath,”

says MacKinnon. “Because it was such a

sad situation, there needed to be something

thateveryonecouldbeapartofsowecould

all support each other, and that’s what it

was from the moment we saw his family –

it was all love, and that was the best out-

come for it.”

On recently released sixth LPOff the

Grid–thegroup’sthirdNumberOnedebut

afterknockingEdSheeran’sDividefrom

thetopspot–MacKinnonandNotleymade

apactwitheachothertobe“brutallyhon-

est”,airingoutthegood,thebadandthe

uglyintheprocess.“Therewasdefinite-

lyapointwherewesaidtoeachotherthat

wehadpersonalstoriesthataresorich

withdetailsofthehumancondition,”says

R&R

18 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com July, 2017

Hip-hop trio face their demons on sixth album ‘Off the Grid’

BY JAMES JENNINGS

NEW ALBUM

Bliss n Eso’s Raw Honesty