Inside 360 and Daniel Johns’ Impossible collaboration

The chorus of Melbourne rapper 360’s new track Impossible, at radio and retail this week, features a familiar voice – that of Silverchair’s Daniel Johns.

The two artists were introduced to each other by Heath Johns: 360’s publisher, and Daniel’s younger brother. They worked together on Impossible as well as a track named It’s All About to End for 360’s (real name: Matthew Colwell) upcoming third album Utopia.

“This began as a songwriting experiment for Matt’s record”, explains Johns. “Neither of us ever expected I’d end up singing on the song too but we both really liked the demo so eventually we thought – ’why not’?  Hip hop is obviously more Matt’s world than mine but we had a lot more in common than one would expect so it was a really interesting collaboration.”

The video for Impossible – directed by Patrick Fileti, produced by Collider and filmed in Sydney – is Johns’ first time in front of a camera since the last Silverchair video six years ago.

“The concept of the video is there’s a good and a bad version of me and Daniel,” Colwell says. “There’s us dressed as hoodlums leaving a path of destruction, then there’s the good versions of us in suits all clean cut and nice. The bad versions of us are destroying everything they come across, the good versions are trying to find them. When they find them they kidnap the bad versions, put them in a car and set it on fire. It’s sort of a metaphor for setting fire to your demons.

“(Daniel) doesn’t really like doing videos but he loved doing this one. Mind you, we got to hoon around in a muscle car and throw Molotov cocktails.”

Impossible is released this Friday.