The Australian electro-pop duo known as The Bag Raiders consists of Jack Glass and Chris Stracey. The duo have been making music together since 2006 and have had a lot of success over the years with chart topping hits such as “Shooting Stars” and “Way Back Home.” We caught up with member Jack Glass right before he was about to catch a flight in Miami. We asked him questions about some of the things he looks forward to on tour, the upcoming performance at U Street Music Hall, studio life, his partner Chris, and various other things you know you want to read about.
What is the thing you miss the most from Australia when you go on tour?
I miss good coffee from Sydney, but it is getting a bit easier to find that in America now so that’s cool. I miss this chocolate powder that I eat all the time called Milo. I eat it all of the time in Australia, so now when I come over here, I bring some with me when I’m staying here for awhile. Its this grainy chocolate powder in a big green tin and when you have it with milk it’s the best.
So we know what you miss, but what are you the most excited for when you come to the States?
I get excited to go to new places, seeing new cities, meeting new people, you know, eat new food, have new adventures. There are a few cities in America that I always love going back to. We played in Brooklyn last night which was awesome. Apart from that yeah I just love seeing new stuff, I love traveling so I’m lucky in that respect.
Do you have any funny or crazy fan interactions?
One time we were DJing at a club in Melbourne and a girl came up to us and requested this guy called Muscles. He’s an Australian singer who is pretty cool so I said, “yeah yeah let me have a look and I’ll play it for you in a bit,” and then she… punched me in the face. I was like bleeding from the mouth and everything, it was so weird. So yeah since then I don’t interact with any fans… No, I’m just kidding! I was just taken quite by surprise, she really wanted to hear that song I guess.
Wow. Speaking of fights, do you and Chris fight at all?
No, we are so chill, we are really lucky like that we never ever fight which is good because obviously we spend a lot of time together, and we are constantly traveling, not getting much sleep and feeling hungover and stuff we are lucky that we have such a chill relationship.
If you could collaborate with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?
Hmmm, maybe someone old school like Prince… oh they could be dead? Hmm okay then Mozart, definitely.
Have you ever been Star-struck by a Celebrity or another DJ?
Yeah, I mean I’m known to be kind of shy so I’m generally star struck by the person at the pharmacy or the cafe or whatever, but the most crazy one I can think of is when I was at a bar and someone told me that uh Guy [Manuel de Homem-Christo] from Daft Punk was there and I kind of freaked out, because of that whole thing where you never see them without the mask, so that was pretty cool. With my beer in hand I sort of just stood from across the room and not very subtly stared at him.
When you and Chris are working in the studio, if you hit a creative block, what do you do to clear your mind? Any tricks of the trade?
Yeah we are very big on going and having a coffee, or like going and having a beer is another thing we do. But, the beer sometimes backfires because we just end up just super drunk in the studio and then it’s like 3P.M and we’re saying “let’s get a beer, yeah we aren’t really having any good ideas” then before you know it it’s like 9 PM and we’ve had like 10 beers and there’s no way we are going to work. We still do it all the time though haha, it happens.
Haha, are you excited to come to DC?
Yeah we have played there once before, but we played a live show with Ellie Goulding so we have never really done our own thing there, and um yeah I’m excited to go there and play a lot of our new stuff in the sets we have been doing this past month. Which is pretty cool we have been getting a really good response. Unreleased stuff that hasn’t gotten any booing, or people throwing things at us yet.
Did you ever play a sport growing up, or did you just mainly stick to music and playing instruments?
I played soccer and stuff like that, I was okay at soccer but that’s about it, I played cricket a little bit, but actually my main number one sport is table tennis. I’m like a machine.
Haha, you’re like Forrest Gump!
Yeah they have table tennis backstage at festivals and I just hold it down, ya know? For just like 10 hours destroying people. It’s probably equally as fun, if not more fun for me than doing the show, haha.
If you haven’t already gotten your tickets to U St Music Hall in DC, get them here before they sell out.
And remember, please keep the fun punching to a minimum.
Connect with Bag Raiders:
https://www.facebook.com/bagraiders
https://twitter.com/bag_raiders
https://soundcloud.com/bagraiders
Connect with U St Music Hall:
https://www.facebook.com/uhalldc
https://twitter.com/uhalldc
http://www.ustreetmusichall.com
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