Rogue Traders find new vocalist

Rogue Traders find new vocalist

Scott-Patrick Mitchell caught up with the new improved Rogue Traders to find out all the goss’ about their new lead singer – Mindi Jackson. Yes, Natalie has left the building and in her place is a vivacious new girl who knows how to kick out the tunes.

So, tell me, you’re starting with a whole new person?
James: Yes, indeed. Readers, I would like to introduce you to her future majesty, Miss Mindi Jackson.
Mindi: Hi!
So how did you come to join the band?
M: From my end, it all began for me when I got James’ message. Actually, I lie; it began for me a bit earlier than that, because Rogue Traders did enter my mind at the beginning when Nat did leave the band and my mum actually said to me “You should be their new singer!” So that was a long time before James got in touch with me.
J: Mums always know best.
M: They do, they do. But officially, February this year I got a message from James on my new MySpace site that I’d built with some of my new repertoire, because I’ve kind of had a few stages of my career. Yeah; there it was and I questioned whether it was actually him or not, because on MySpace you get lots of random messages from different people and yeah, thankfully it was him and I got back to him straight away and went “Yep, this could be an actual perfect match.”
So, why Mindi?
J: Why Mindi? Well, because she was the right person; that’s the shot answer. The long answer is we looked at lots of people, a lot of people that presented themselves as Natalie clones – which would have been a really bad move for us; we needed to find someone who was their own individual, really, and who could take the role but make it their own. Someone that was artistic, that was a great songwriter and was a beautiful girl with a unique look and that’s all qualities that Mindi had. So it did take a very long time to find her, and I’ve got to tell you, there were many times that we thought we weren’t going to. So we were close to giving up for a long time, but we never ever entertained the idea of finding a celebrity or anything like that, or doing a TV show; that was all offered but it would have been a terrible idea. It would have been rubbish.
So what do you think you bring to the band?
M: Well, I’ve been performing for quite a while with live bands, so I guess I bring sort of a stage energy, you know? My own stage energy, which is me, but also my songwriting ideas; we collaborate a fair bit and we’ve collaborated a fair bit for the album. I guess I bring myself and I’m different from that, you know? I’m my own person and my own artist.
J: She’s quirky.
M: I bring a bit of a quirk. For us, it’s just been about getting to know each other, and I think I fit in really well.
What can you tell us about the new single?
M: The new single, okay. Well, basically the energy behind the single is us coming back and saying “We’re back,” you know? It’s quite a high energy track – we’re planting the flag, and it was intended that way. It was our first collaboration as the three of us writing it, but when we were writing it, it was how we were feeling at the time, you know? As much as it’s about a light-hearted battle of the sexes, it’s about bracing yourself and strapping your asses to the floor, as our chorus says, which is how we felt at the time – “Hold on tight, cause here we go.” So it kind of represents the way we’re feeling; we’re jumping on this rollercoaster and we don’t really know where we’re going. But I think that’s what Love Is A War represents.
J: It is. On the one hand, it’s a song about the battle of the sexes, but it’s also, for us, exactly what Mindi said; it’s us shouting at the top of our lungs that we’re back and it’s also opening the doors to everything else that we’ve got to come, which hopefully should surprise people.
M: Yeah. In saying that, it’s not really a representation of what the whole album sounds like, by any means; we definitely have gone back the dancefloor route to the album.
J: Absolutely. This record is a dance album.
Tell us about the video clip. This is always one of the quintessential things; you have a great song, but you guys always have amazing video clips. So what can we expect?
M: How can we describe it?
J: It’s basically a big fuck-off food fight.
M: It’s boys and girls, men and women of all ages and shapes and types and colours and flavours, basically having a massive dessert fight.


Love Is A Wa
r
is available for digital download on Christmas Day. Be one of the first to own it from iTunes.

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