Rogue Traders Interview

So, where are you?
I’m in Sydney; it’s the evening here. The rest of us are coming over in July, we’re all based in Melbourne. Natalie’s just finished work on a certain TV show, I’ve forgotten the name, do you know it?
Hmm - “Home And Away”?
I think that’s the one, yeah. We’ll be joining her for promo next month.

You don’t sound very Australian by the way.
Yeah, I was born in England and lived there til I was 18, I grew up in between Devon and London. It’s crap, they don’t accept me in Australia because they think I’m English, and they don’t accept me in England either!

How was the tour supporting Kelly Clarkson last year?
It was really really good fun. Performing live’s what we enjoy most. We do live guitars, live vocals, although I play bass on a keyboard, because I can.

I imagine those were the biggest audiences you’d played to then?
Yeah, we’ve been around many many years, but that was the biggest ever at the time. We’ve played in front of an audience of three hundred thousand people since then though in Adelaide – that was a third of Adelaide’s population!

Did you have any reservations about picking Natalie as the band’s vocalists when you were auditioning due to her role on Neighbours?
Yeah, it was something I was really worried about. But we’ve had a lot of success in Australia so I don’t think it’ll be a problem here. I was concerned about it initially though, but the worries were totally outweighed by how good she was! When we started with her in Australia, we didn’t announce who she was, she was just “our singer”, which helped I think.

I heard that Natalie collapsed on the Neighbours set from exhaustion a while back – do you think that influenced her decision to quit the show and focus on the band instead of trying to juggle both?
I’d imagine so, yeah. I know how hard she was working herself. At one point she was doing a musical, travelling doing Grease, while also doing Neighbours and the band at the same time! She relishes it though. But I’m certainly looking forward to having her around more! When we were making the album and she was away doing Grease, she phoned up saying “I’m in Sydney and I’m free for a bit, I can do an hour in the studio!”, except we were in Melbourne twelve hours away!

I don’t suppose she’s given you any hints about how Izzy leaves Neighbours?
She has in fact, but I can’t say!
Not even a tiny hint?
Not even a tiny tiny hint, sorry, I’m not allowed or she’ll kill me!

What are the band’s plans for the future?
Hopefully we’ll return to the UK later this year. We’ve already been back in the studio working on the next album. It’s going slowly, but we’re very pleased.
What sort of direction is it taking so far?
When you’re onto something good, you’d be an absolute twat to change things. We just want to make a better album. We’re really proud of ‘Here Come The Drums’, it’ll be a similar big mash-up of rock and dance.

What new music are you listening to at the moment?
A fantastic Australian band called Eskimo Joe. The sound somewhere between Elbow and U2. I also love the new Kate Bush album, it’s fucking brilliant, and Bloc Party too. Being back in work-mode at the moment, I’m trawling through all my 80s stuff. Blondie, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Transvision Vamp... I’d say Human League are the biggest influence for me.

Okay, we’d like to know if the following are true or false...

The band are named after the Ewan MacGregor movie.
Yep, after the film and also after the whole Nick Leeson scam that it was about.

The ‘Here Come The Drums’ album contains a secret message, involving amphibians.
Yeah, that’s true too!

Lastly, it says in your official press-release that Natalie is currently dating Stefan Dennis (aka Neighbours’ Paul Robinson)!
No, false, it says that on our UK website too! They’re very good buddies, but I can categorically deny they’re dating!


9th June 2006.
Interview with James Ash.