Rogue Traders: Mr. Bungalow.

Rogue Traders play the R Bar on Wednesday.

Meet Rogue Traders – two loveable Brit producers living large in Australia with a tasty selection of releases on Australia’s premier dance label Vicious Vinyl. With a hype building around this down to earth production duo who are quietly wooing friends and seducing rivals, it’s refreshing to note that James and Steve are decidedly unpretentious for a twosome that are on the cusp of something resembling big time recognition. With a slick, laid back sound, Rogue Traders are kinda like the naughty schoolboys of the local scene.

I speak to Steve first:

Steve: “Where are you right now?”

In the office, horror of horrors!

S: “It could be worse. You could be watching Ricki Lake at the moment, which is awful.”

I am! Fat, cheating chicks?

S: “Oh my God yes, that’s so wrong!”

So you’ve both enjoyed southern hospitality for a while now, haven’t you?

S: “Yeah, it’s a little bit more convoluted then that, James has been here for about ten years, I’ve been back and forth five times now.”

Many producers from Europe and the UK prefer to work here I’ve noticed.

S: “I find that in England it’s like being a small fish in a big pond, but here its like being a small fish in a small pond, so in some ways you’re given more of a level chance compared to the UK. Even though in the UK there may be more chances to get your tune played on a dancefloor, again there’s more competition, so there is that disadvantage. But yeah it is easier, it’s a great place to be creatively.”

But you’ve lived here awhile, haven’t you James?

James: “I’ve been here for yonks, it’s a wonder they haven’t kicked me out yet. But I have been here for some time. In all seriousness, I really love it here in Australia, Australia has been very, very good to me so I am very grateful…is that enough of a suck?”

Yes. So…who does what? Who is twiddling what knob?

S: “I think really, there isn’t so much roles. James works more on the production side, he’s quite an accomplished producer. I kind of pick out bits and pieces of samples and he lets me know when I’m screwing up.”

You’re kinda billed as a live act, so how live is live?

J: “Well that’s a good question you see, because we’re actually still working out what were gonna be doing. We are taking some of the tracks on the road. At the moment, we’ve got a DJ set that we do as a live PA, so we’ve got the two songs, I Need You To Show Me, which is the current single and also another track called Give In To Me, we’ll do them as live PA’s, but we don’t have a band as such. We’re sort of incorporating that into the DJ set. To be completely honest, we’re still working out what would be the best way of presenting the tracks live, because people are very savvy theses days. You don’t want to take the piss and have a couple of keyboards that aren’t switched on, or stand behind some turntables pretending to mix records, people know that that’s not a happening.”

You know, when you try to find Rogue Traders info on the Web, all you get is dodgy banking stories.

S: “That is where the inspiration for the name comes from, it works well for us cause were kinda cheeky.”

OK, define the sound for the punters out there.

J: “We call it bungalow funk, ‘cause our studio is in a bungalow and also because basically, it has influences of house and garage, so we call it bungalow funk, it’s all the stuff we love thrown together. It’s not gonna change the world, but I think it’ll put a smile on peoples faces.”

Ditto.