Fresh from rocking the mainstage on the national Parklife tour, where they debuted their live show to rapturous response around the country, Sydney outfit the Bag Raiders have once again hit the road, this time on their own headline tour to launch their super fresh new single Turbo Love. The past few years have been massive for the duo, with their track Fun Punch well and truly taking on a life of its own. After it was released by the crew at Bang Gang 12 Inches it was promptly picked up for international released by A-Trak’s label Fools Gold.
Fools Gold saw fit to make a film clip for Fun Punch. It unashamedly apes the Power Rangers, and it’s now had over 600,000 views on YouTube. Not bad eh? So how would the Bag Raiders describe their music? “Our sound is adventure,” they told ITM. “We make adventure music. Sometimes modern, sometimes historical… Often exciting.” With the boys on the road throughout October and November, it’s time to go adventuring then!
Bag Raiders. Simply a name, or a recreational activity too?
Well… It just had more of a ring to it than any of the other names we tried out… Read on to find out what the runner up was.
What was it that caused you to join forces and start working together?
Actually it was a mutual love of pinball. We met in an underground pinball arcade where we were both trying to beat the high score on the limited edition Adams Family machine… We’d been going there for months independently of one another, noticing that our score was beat… One time I was there I chanced to bump into Jack, and realised who had been beating my score, and so did he. We got talking about it. Commented that we thought the Adams Family music was semi-lame but kinda cool… But in any case, the Robocop music was dope. So we kind of took it from there, and swore to better the music of the Pinball world. Somehow we ended up in the club.
Today, the term ‘electro’ is thrown around willy-nilly and can be used to describe a whole manner of sins…. How would you describe your sound?
Our sound is adventure… We make adventure music. Sometimes modern, sometimes historical… Often Exciting.
Who would you cite as your musical influences?
The Dream Academy, Wendy Carlos, Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder, Enya, O.D.B, Charlie Parker, Daft Punk, George Duke, Coco Pops, Pilot, ELO, Nirvana, Bill Murray.
How do you create a track as a duo – is there an ideas man and a production man, or is it less structured than that?
Hahaha, more like there’s a Mineral Water man and a Coffee Man. No but seriously, it’s not really structured. Usually we just jam it out on keyboards until we hit the sweet spot.
Have there ever been any hissy fits thrown as a result of, shall we say, ‘artistic differences’?
Only one, and that was way back in the beginning when one of us (I won’t say who) wanted to use the name ‘Underwater Princes of God-Like and Possibly Amphibious Entities from Outer Space’.... Needless to say, we went with Bag Raiders.
You’ve been busy boys, remixing the likes of Kid Sister, Muscles and Midnight Juggernauts. What are you working on at the moment?
At the moment we’re working on our sun tans… We’re currently sporting killer night club tans to rival the guy from that movie Powder, so we’ve got a lot of work to put in. We’ve been busy with other remixes for Cut Copy and ZZZ... Also the live show that we did for Parklife took a lot of work.. Right now we’re touring for Turbo Love, so we’re taking a break from the production for just a minute.
In terms of other artists, who do you think would be the ultimate to collaborate with?
Perhaps Maze & Franky Beverly, also Weezy. It would be unbelievable. Someone needs to make this happen.
You got some great reactions from your debut EP Fun Punch, were you expecting such a hype?
No we weren’t expecting anything like that at all. It has been so great though, cos it allowed us to get on some bigger festival gigs which was awesome. Our friend Beaufort and some of his cronies were nice enough to fashion a video clip out of milk cartons, rubber bands, and stunt men. That helped a lot of people get exposure to the track that otherwise may not have. It’s all thanks to nice people, the radio gods and the internet gods.
Do you prefer the atmosphere playing at a festival like Good Vibrations, or in the club scene?
Both are so different. The club is a lot of fun, and people are generally there cos they like club music and partying. Day festivals are different because you have people who may be there just to see one band so you have all sorts of people and the crowds are a lot larger and not as contained, so it can be extremely exhilarating playing these kind of shows.
What’s been the highlight or your music careers so far?
Getting a remix on GTAIV. Instant fame amongst a worldwide audience of stoners. Who wouldn’t want that? Oh, and getting punched in the face by a drunk girl after being ordered to “Play more muscles you c*nt.”
You guys recently played as a part of the Parklife tour, with all those big names playing together surely you must have some goss about the shenanigans that went on.?
Shenanigans? We don’t involve ourselves with this sort of tomfoolery. However, we did hear on the grapevine that Dizzee saved a family of possums from being crushed by the partygoers towards the end just after his show, and then Soulwax held a dinner party in their dressing room to celebrate his care for the local fauna… They invited Wes Anderson to the shindig, and surprisingly he turned out coming with Bill Murray. Now they’re making a movie together which is set on a space station… Soulwax is the crew and Bill Murray is a rogue cosmonaut from a failed mission who is trying to tamper with the communications device of the station to re-rout it to the USSR circa 1937. Dizzee is supposed to play the part of the onboard computer…. It’s going to be interesting to say the least. You think I’m lying about this? It’s too outrageous, how could I possibly make this up?
So when can we look forward to a Bag Raiders album coming out?
At the moment it’s a lot of umming and ahhhing, but there’s talk of possibly starting work on an album sometime next year.
What kind of a show can fans expect on your upcoming tour?
Well if the rest of them are anything like the ones we’ve done so far you can expect some big fun… We’re having a blast on this tour and we hope everyone else is sharing our sentiments.
Catch the Bag Raiders on their ‘Turbo Love’ tour dates…
Oct 24 – Sydney, Bandits
Oct 25 – Bathurst, Village Fair
Oct 26 – Toukley, Beachcomber Hotel
Oct 27 – Armidale, Uni of New England
Oct 31 – Penrith, Dirty Secrets
Nov 1 – Terrigal, Key Largo
Nov 2 – Newcastle, Fat As Butter Festival
If you’ve missed the clip for Fun Punch, you can check it out here:
