You’re overseas at the moment, travelling through the UK, US, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Argentina. How’s the trip been? Any wild adventures you can let slip?
So far the trip has been amazing! The shows have been great, so that's been really encouraging. There's been a lot of late nights and no sleep: planes, trains and automobiles and the like. So far as wild adventures go, hmmm let’s see. We played a frat party in Nashville, which was actually inside a frat house. We were hanging around outside having a beer and there were drunken college kids roaming the streets everywhere going from party to party. Also, we went to a weird after hours party in Colombia where we had to enter through a car park of a hotel, which was guarded by all these dudes dressed in army gear with machine guns; that was a new experience.
What’s the craziest aspect of touring overseas, particularly in places where English is not the first language?
Language barrier stuff is more funny and endearing than anything. I suppose the craziest part is how fast everything goes by. Like, you land in a city, have dinner, do a show, have a bit of a party, get on a plane and do it all over again the next day. And in that time you meet so many people and have so many weird and wonderful experiences all condensed into such a short amount of time that it ends out being quite a frenzied blur.
Aside from being a great way to holiday and see the world, do you also draw influence from your travels with songwriting?
Sure, I mean we draw influences from a lot of things, but travel is definitely one of those things. Long flights when you are sitting in the one seat for hours gives you time to reflect on the places you have been and things you have seen, and it's a good opportunity to process it all in your mind and work through ideas.
Being a duo, what’s the standard Bag Raiders rider? C’mon, tell us you live large.
Hahaha, we don't live THAT large. No Cristal or anything like that. Basically we just have beer and vodka, and Pimm’s or something like that, with an assortment of fruits to make fruity cocktails with. We like to get creative with the drinks in the dressing room.
Your debut album is now six months old; do you still feel attached to the project or is it a case of having already moved onto the next recording?
It was our first album, so it's always going to be special for us. And while it may have been out for a while, we are cruising around the world touring it in countries that have never seen us play live before, so we are still definitely very much in the cycle of the album, it's still current for us.
The strangest backstage chat you’ve ever had occurred with whom and where?
Probably with Dizzee Rascal. He was telling us he was over rap and was going to quit it and spend the future pursuing excellence in neo-expressionist cubist painting.
What’s been the most unexpected perk of being a Bag Raider?
The travel thing is pretty amazing. Getting to go places that we'd never otherwise go to. Even the other week, we did a show in Albury. Probably not on the top of most people's lists, but still we went. It was cool and now we've been to Albury and seen that little bit more of the world. Nice!
If Chris Stracey and Jack Glass ever end up in a boxing ring together, the outcome would be?
It would probably be a Mexican stand-off with both of us not willing to throw the first punch. So it'd probably end in a stalemate, but if there was a winner, he'd have to buy dinner.
Bag Raiders play Monastery Monday April 25.
