Thunderheist Benefit From Perez Hilton

04/22/09 5:16pm

by Erik Leijon (CHARTattack)

Toronto hip-hop dance duo Thunderheist are known for putting on a crazy show, but it seems to pale in comparison to the increased insanity that's come with releasing their long-awaited eponymous debut album.

The tempest of this unlikely collaboration between a Montreal DJ with 15 years of spinning experience playing everything under the sun and an uber-confident and stylish Toronto MC with unlimited energy came in the form of recent kudos from American celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. Suddenly Canada's bass-bouncing blue chippers were bombarded with attention right before the pivotal release of Thunderheist.

"I had no idea how large his readership was," says DJ Grahm Zilla, one half of Thunderheist. "People were coming out of the woodwork to tell me about it.

"It wasn't even a slow thing — apparently everybody reads it every 10 minutes. I found out very quickly, and just watched our MySpace page blow up for a couple of hours."

Zilla and MC Isis recently performed at the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas, where they had a chance to briefly meet the blogger and experience an unusual set.

"There was a weird incident where these guys we didn't know came up on stage while we were playing and started to burn American dollar bills," says Zilla. "It was funny because security didn't do anything, they just watched as it happened. I was waiting for them to get beaten down by the audience."

Thunderheist's on-stage mantra is to make even the most conservative spectator gyrate uncontrollably, but the debut album serves as a bridge between the carnal delights of their performances and their ambitions of expanding beyond hip-hop and dance beats.

Zilla even admits he wasn't a big fan of the group's hit single "Jerk It" at first, and says it was too simple for his tastes.

"It's necessarily a bad thing though," he says, "because sometimes you can overthink things."

The debut album largely cobbles together many of the best songs the duo have done in the past two years, some of which were already featured prominently on EPs and performed live.

New single "Nothing 2 Step 2" seems like a departure for the group, considering its layered production, and Isis sings on the track instead of rapping. But the song was actually one of the duo's earliest collaborations.

"I think Thunderheist was a good introduction, but I don't want to be known as a rap producer and Isis doesn't want to be known as a female MC," Zilla says.

"I was involved in the party scene, so I was making music that sounds good in the clubs. But we listen to a lot of things and would like to pursue more general songwriting in the future."

Thunderheist will make you boogie at these shows:

April 23 Calgary, AB @ Warehouse
April 25 Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
April 26 Victoria, BC @ Lucky Bar
April 29 Toronto, ON @ Masonic Temple (MTV Live)
April 30 Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre w/Skratch Bastid
May 2 Halifax, NS @ Paragon Theatre
May 6 Paris, France @ L'Olympia w/Birdy Nam Nam and Burkema Son Sistema
May 8 Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Melkweg (Rauw) w/Crookers
May 9 Utrecht, Netherlands @ Tivoli (Rauw) w/Crookers
May 13 Edinburgh, Scotland @ Cabaret Voltaire
May 14 Glasgow, Scotland @ Art School
May 15 Ghent, Belgium @ Make Up
May 16 Antwerp, Belgium @ Petrol
May 16 Brussels, Belgium @ Les Nuits Botanique
May 21 London, England @ Stag And Dagger (Catch) w/Lovefoxx
May 22 Paris, France @ Social Club
May 27 Dublin, Ireland @ Crawdaddy
May 28 Munich, Germany @ Die Registratur
May 29 Cologne, Germany @ Gebaude 9
May 30 Berlin, Germany @ Villa
May 31 Essen, Germany @ Hotel Shanghai
June 2 Madrid, Spain @ La Casa Encendida
June 18 Boston, MA @ Great Scott
June 19 Brooklyn, NY @ Studio B
June 20 Philadelphia, PA @ The Barbary
June 21 Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
June 25 Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop
June 26 Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick
June 27 Chicago, IL @ Schubas
July 11 Toronto, ON @ Olympic Island Festival
July 12 Ottawa, ON @ LeBreton Flats (Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest)