Canberra hip-hop duo Coda Conduct have been kicking plenty of goals over the last couple of years. With releasing their EP Butter Side Up, an insanely good weather rap on Triple J and now have dropped a new track and video for Paint it Gold. It’s a sick track, but did you know that the track actually started life about hotdogs?
Sally and Erica of Coda Conduct chat about the 2am ‘writing’ session that led to their hilarious track Hotdog’s Coming to Town.
HAPPY: So tell us about Hotdog’s Coming to Town, it’s your first demo of Paint It Gold correct?
SALLY: I had a blank beat demo beforehand, but these are the first ever lyrics to Paint It Gold. It’s probably gone downhill since then.
HAPPY: And it was written at 2am right? That sounds pretty crazy, what’s the story behind the birth of the track?
ERICA: So… it was really late at night. Sally sent me the first ever, 8 bar blank loop of the beat. My housemate Lewis was lying on the couch wearing nothing but a poncho. I played the track, and we both sat in silence and listened for a second. Then Lewis started snapping his fingers, and doing this sassy eyebrow raise thing. Then, OUT OF NOWHERE, he starts singing…
SALLY: HOTDOG’S COMING TO TOOOOOWNNNNN… We both thought that was hilarious, so I whipped up a little chorus, put some harmonies in there, and added an “Ahhhh” to really spice things up.
HAPPY: Dare I ask if there’s a sneaky innuendo in there?
SALLY: It’s a perfectly PG rated hotdog, thanks very much.
HAPPY: And those bongos are just perfection if I might add! Please tell us one of you guys actually play bongos?
SALLY: Why thank you. I was all for keeping them…
ERICA: But I told her the world wasn’t ready yet.
SALLY: We don’t play bongos ourselves, yet, but if there are any bongoists out there who’d like to help with our live show then we’d love to hear from you.
HAPPY: So how did Hotdog’s Coming to Town become Paint It Gold?
ERICA: We really loved the idea of a lone hotdog strolling into town, but we were having trouble with character development.
SALLY: Even with the ‘mustard ketchup’ plot twist.
ERICA: So I think the new chorus was actually based on the start of my first verse.
SALLY: We really wanted to make a cohesive song, rather than just rapping on a beat, and the visual metaphor of painting something gold really appealed to us. So when we came up with it we just ran with it.
HAPPY: You guys have been pretty busy having just wrapped up the Pool Room tour. What was the raddest thing to happen on tour?
SALLY: We got a personally requested rider for the first time! Shoutouts to Zierholz for fronting up half a watermelon and some hummus.
ERICA: And Mario Kart backstage.
HAPPY: And the weirdest thing?
ERICA: The night we played Brisbane, there were 6,000 US marines in town who had their first weekend off in four months.
SALLY: Good crowd.
HAPPY: So is Paint It Gold the first of some new tracks on the horizon?
SALLY: We’ve maybe got a few things up our sleeves…
HAPPY: Finally, we always talk about the music that makes us swell with joy on Happy, so we want to know what makes you Happy?
SALLY: Watching live music. There’s nothing better than that awesome feedback loop you get when a band sees you rocking out to their music, so THEY rock out even harder, so YOU rock out even harder, and it’s just grins all round.
ERICA: Discovering new music! Digging for music online is like being in an endless op-shop with unlimited money.
