Grinding all the way to the top.

Despite writing songs that sit on different sides of the musical sphere, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between Maroubra rapper Harry Michael AKA Masked Wolf and busker-turned-phenomenon Tones And I. Both had been toiling away trying to break into the music industry for years, telling themselves that the bumpy road would be worth it in the end, before releasing tracks that exploded them to global fame.

Whilst Tones And I’s ‘Dance Monkey’, immediate and bubbly, became perfect fodder for FM radio, Masked Wolf’s ‘Astronaut In The Ocean’ with its punch-in-the-face hook took a different route. Perfectly syncing with TikTok’s 60-second (or less) video length, the track built momentum on the platform over 2020, before reaching the top ten across charts in Australia, Europe, South America and the US. There are literally too many to list.

It seems like a bad time to be talking about the ‘infectiousness’ or ‘virality’ in music, but it’s hard to describe ‘Astro’ in any other ways. Not only has it spread all over the world, but once it hits you, you simply can’t shake it. The amount of times, I’ve sung that line since the track first entered my ears is in the thousands and I can’t see that changing anytime soon… Currently the track has racked up about 480 million streams.

Obviously, going from being an up-and-coming rapper to an ARIA Gold, international success in a matter of months is going to have a drastic effect on your life. Last week, he performed on Jimmy Fallon, when festivals open up, he’ll be playing the biggest, millions of eyes and ears will be on his next single – it’s a fuckload of pressure for a guy who up until recently worked nine-to-fives in sales to pay for studio time.

We caught up with Masked Wolf to find out how he got here and what has shifted in his life over the past six months. Check it out below and head here to stream/buy ‘Astro’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6LPvmuCa2A

Before you became a full-time musician, you were working in sales, right?

I’ve always been in sales ever since I came out of high school. So ever since I was 18, I’d been working full time. I’d been in real estate, JB Hi-Fi, retail. And then before I just quit work, I was in corporate helping businesses go digital and that was with a suit on every day. So it was like suit on by day and then studio by night.

Are there any skills there that transferred over to music? Fast talking? Thinking on your feet?

I think I’ve always been a bit witty, in a sense. I’ve been quick to answer things and have a reaction that’s a bit professional or proper, but I feel because I’d been working so long and being in sales, I always had that business mind on how to address an audience… When I started, I wasn’t doing music videos, I didn’t have the finances to do that so being able to captivate an audience with words became paramount. So it was a big training and focus for me to be able to, I guess, connect with listeners just from lyrics.

At what point did you realise ‘Astro’ was a hit and things were about to change for you?

I think it came to a point where we were doing a lot of zoom meetings with labels and everything was growing exponentially. I was getting, messages from a lot of people saying ‘Astro’ is a really great track, keep it going, you’re going to be big, all those types of encouraging comments and messages, everything combined and then, maybe three or four months after COVID kicked off, I started getting this feeling that it’s going to be taking off a bit faster than what it had been for the last two years.

Why do you think that song has hit so hard with so many people?

There’s been a lot of times when people just listened to and they’re like, this is a really cool track. And then they find out two or three listens later, or six or ten listens later that it’s about feeling out of place… I never thought it was a massive banger or the drop was as sick as what people say. That takes over first when you first listen to it, and then it’s, “okay, what is he actually saying in his lyrics?” Because people get the feeling that I’m talking about something important, which I am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEg-oqI9qmw

What was your lowest point, musically, where you were like, fuck, I’m just about to give up?

I think it happened throughout all my twenties, to be honest, especially through my mid-twenties. There were parts where I was putting a lot of finance into me, into my music because it’s physical, mental and financial all in one, and you’re investing in yourself and that’s the hardest part about music. You’re not investing in whatever cryptocurrency where you get to watch a graph go up and down. You invest in yourself and then you have to put the hard work in. So you are your own stock in a sense.

And for me, I guess the hardest part was the mental side of things, which I express in ‘Astro’… There were times where I took a break for whatever, a month or something. I just needed to have that one down because I was burning myself out. But I always found myself going back to music, when it gets to that point you know you can’t get rid of it. It’s just, it’s a love and a passion. It’s like, you’re never escaping that.

How did your friends and family react when your music started taking off and you told them you were leaving the corporate world behind?

Oh, I have a couple of mates that are the I-told-you kind. I told you, you were going to blow up and I tell them to be quiet. And then I have the update mates, which are like, Hey man, congrats on 22 million today. And I’m like, I don’t care about numbers. And then I have the mates that are like, I’m so proud of you. It’s all a mixture.

One of the hardest things, in reference to “the struggle”, was that none of my mates did music. So for me it was a solo grind. I wasn’t in a group. I was going to the studios by myself. I was writing by myself. I was listening to music by myself. I didn’t have like a rap crew or a group where we all sat down and wrote music. That was the toughest part about it. So yeah, for me, I did what I did and now people are proud.

How have the local rap scene and broader music community reacted to you?

That’s a good question because I mean, I get a lot of Instagram messages and some are from overseas and some are Australian. I don’t like focusing on where I’m popular at or whatever like that. I just, I see a message and it’s, a, “Hey, what can you say about this?” And I try to answer it, but I feel like the Australian hip-hop scene is a very, very… either, they hate you or they love you… I take what comes, you know what I mean?

I think Australia is fifth or sixth for my top countries. So I still have work to do. And I still, I feel it’s a very hard thing: being accepted in Australia, because I always used to get teased and bagged out for trying to sound American. Especially when I was 17, 18, 19. They were always on the internet. “Who are you? You’re trying to sound black” basically is what I heard over and over again. So I just kept going with my sound. I knew I wanted it to sound international and, I mean, it’s all come to fruition so…

I don’t sound Australian at all and it comes to a point where, when I put all my emotion behind the mic, that’s the tone that comes out. I’ve tried just rapping in a pure Australian accent and there’s no emotion for me. It just sounds bland. And the way I talk is Australian. I just sound like an Aussie, but when I really put my pain and my struggle behind my recording, that’s what comes out. So, I mean, I never got phased by it. I just am always amazed by hate and negativity. Someone in their day of life just wants to be negative. I’ll always find that amazing. But at the end of the day, you got to roll with the punches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68jdIFyItaE

For sure! How do you back up a single like ‘Astro’?

How do I back this up? I don’t back this up. I just continue what I’ve always done. And I release the next single that I think is my best song and I say, here it is. I never want to be like, “I have to match ‘Astro’”. ‘Astro’ is its own lane, its own type of song and its own story. And the next one, which will be a very good song, I believe, is its own story and its own lane as well.