Bag Raiders Interview

Unlike most artist blogs, we dont want to be spamming you guys with never ending news on how we think we are killing it. Instead we want to concentrate more on the music we are digging & bring you interviews from our friends, other artists we like & just people who have some real things to say in general.


So to kick things off, we caught up with the Bag Raiders direct from LA. They dropped their debut album a year ago & since then they have been one of the busiest acts on the face of the planet. Having set the benchmark for other Australian electronic upstarts, we fire a few questions at the boys to find out what theyve been up to since releasing the album, why they decided to move to LA and where to find the best burgers in town. 

You guys recently moved to LA, why the move & how are you finding it ?
Man I love it! It's not the kind of city that jumps out and grabs you right away - it's not a New York, Paris, Tokyo kind of city. But once you've been here for a while you start to get hip to what's going on and it comes to life in it's own special way.


Everyone knows the Bag Raiders = Burger Connoisseurs. The best burger in LA is ?
Haha that's more Chris than me. Although being on tour with him so much I'll probably still end up with the butt cancer but without the enjoyment in the first place. It's hard to go past in-n-out though, figuratively and literally (it's hard to go past without stopping in for a double double animal style). 8 oz is also good and I hear the Roosevelt in Hollywood has some dope burgers too.


How are the live shows going in the states ? Do the crowds differ to Aussie crowds ?
Going great although we're kind of slowing down on them at the moment to focus on doing some writing. I think the crowds are pretty similar actually. People seem to like and react to music the same in Australia and the US. Europe, Japan, South America, for example, there's some more obvious differences


You've spent quite a bit of time touring in South America. Seems like they've got a crush on you boys and a few other Aussie bands like Cut Copy and Miami Horror to name a few. What has been your favourite country to play in and why?
Yeah we just got back from there actually. We played festivals in Brazil and Chile and did two nights in a row at a joint in Colombia. Two nights in a row - how good! Feeling like Simply Red playing the Entertainment Centre or something. I love Colombia. The people there are amazing, love to party, and shit they can dance!

What's the typical day in the life of a bag raider now that you live in LA? Have you moved all your gear over with you?
Yeah we shipped a bunch, bought more stuff over here too. But it's taken us so long to set the studio up! Oh man feels like we've been in Guitar Centre and Radio Shack more than we've been in the studio.


What's the beach life like in LA? Favourite beach? 
It's coming into winter and apparently all the beaches in LA proper are pretty shitty. I think you have to go up the coast or down to the OC for a swim


What's your favourite album right now?
Diggin the new Drake album and I've also got a bit of a soft spot for the Drums new one too.


And lastly, when are you back on Aussie shores?

Back in a week! Yeah we're doing Stereosonic which will actually be the last Australian live shows for this album. So we're planning on doing it real big and special for these last five shows. We've been touring the album for over a year now so we're both pretty excited to go out with a blast and then come back to LA and hit the studio for real to get busy on the second album.

I Won't Let Go (Bag Raiders REMIX) by bagraiders

DREAMCAST VOLUME 1: POLYSICK

Dreamcast's are our interpretation of a Podcast/Mixtape. Come along on this journey with us where we will invite some of our friends and favourite artists to host the Dreamcast & from time to time we'll even host it ourselves. There is more to music than dancing and we will enlist some great guest's to take you on a journey of the mind and spirit..

Volume 1 is hosted by Italian VHS supremo Polysick. Commonly known for his amazing video work for AAVV, he is also in command of Polysick & TheAwayTeam. We caught up with the man direct from Rome.

Download

Egisto, Welcome! we're really stoked to have you kicking things off for our Dreamcast series, Ive been a huge fan of your AAVV video stuff for a while, now that your putting out alot more music, has the video editing been put on hold ?
Thanks alot! Yes. I havnt been doing much video editing laitly, partly because I've been more involved in music production. My approach to video making is totally naif and spontaneous so i have to be in the right mood to sit down and mess around with the visuals. As for the label, were actually after a couple of artists whose works we'd like to release, but it will take some time.

Since the Dreamcast idea came to me in a dream, lets talk about dreams. I once had a dream when i was a kid that my mum was bitten by a shark, I literally had to go check she still had both legs, so.. what dreams have stuck with you forever?

That's scary! I rarely have such vivid dreams: one that was recurring in the past was getting lost in a familiar place, like discovering unkown rooms in my house. I'd say that daydreaming happens to me more frequently and is a more intense experience.

Do you think as we get older we have less dreams? I remember having 2-3 dreams per night as a youngster.

Yeah, this is a common thing. But getting old has some positive side effects too, like absent mindedness and hyperfocus: these kind of human glitches are a primary source of creativity and pleasure for me.

Both your videos and music have such a dreamy nostalgia, in particular TheAwayTeam's Relax & Sleep video. How did that idea come about?

I wouldn't call it nostalgia; it has more to do with the hyperreality of tv images and the state of numbness they induce. There's a subtle sense of comfort in hearing or watching something that you have the feeling you alerady know. The idea behind "Relax&Sleep" was to create a visual flow manipulating old tv clips, placing them in a different and enexpected context, bringin out their hallucinatory quality, to induce a soothing - but at the same time - eerie mental state. DVD buyers also get a special audio content called "Audio Tools for Sleeping", an hour of synth based minimal drones designed for falling asleep, a concept inspired by the "sleep concerts" performed by Robert Rich in the eighties.

So musically, you have two projects on the go. Whats the difference between Polysick & TheAwayTeam?

Polysick it's supposed to be more focused on the beat, while TheAwayTeam is more about ambient and exploring different zones, but the boundary tends to fade lately.

I know you listen to alot of different genres from alot of different era's but what have you been listening to alot laitly? 

Early 90's ambient stuff (you can hear a few examples in the mixtape I prepared for you) and the usual amount of semi-obscure early house tracks. Two recent releases that I like a lot are the retro-futuristic library music of ADR on Public Information (a very interesting label) and the Octo Octa EP on 100%Silk which is absolutely great!

You did the video for Com Truise's 'iwywaw' , how did that come about? 

We got in touch last year. He was still an unkown very talented producer with a couple of tracks on soundcloud; I thought those tunes were amazing so making a video for "iwywaw" came quite easy and quick.

Youve got the new AwayTeam album 'Star Kinship' out now in Japan & a new Polysick album 'Flow FM' (out very soon on 100%silk), what can people expect to hear on the new Polysick jam ?

For some time now I've been wanting to make a "dance mixtape" like those that were made in the 90's (like "The Evil Baron Acid" or "Stakker - Eurotechno") but with more variation. What came out in the end is very different tho: think of a pirate radio transmission, a flow of tracks, bits and intermissions rangin from acid house, to more relaxed house, chillout and dub tunes. It will be on cassette, which is the ideal format for this kind of stuff, but will be available in digital too.

I was lucky enough to have a look at a few designs good friend Jo Cutri was doing for a Polysick single, When does that drop ?

Yeah, Jo has made some wonderful artwork 
for this 7" I'm releasing for BigLove, a cool japanese label. It will feature two track, one is called "Nightwalk" and is a tribute to a cult latenight tv program aired in the late 80's. I don't know the release date yet, but I will let you know when it's out, for sure 

Ok so your italian, on a scale of 1-10 , how much do you love pizza ?

10 of course, but it has to be a real one! No frozen pizza allowed here

And lucky last, if you had the chance to visit Australia, whats the first thing you would want to do ?

I'd like to visit the Uluru, the mysterious sacred mountain of the aboriginals. I read that in the ancient era, that they call "the Dreaming" (!), weird things happened down there...

-Arnhem Land

#23

To be continued...