Inside Rogue Traders’ explosive comeback with pop royalty Dannii Minogue

Exclusive: Forget casting calls and long shortlists. When Aussie icons Rogue Traders set out to find a collaborator for their latest track, Dirty Disco, they only ever had one name in mind – Dannii Minogue.

Speaking exclusively to nine.com.au, band members James Ash and Natalie Bassingthwaighte revealed that pop royalty Dannii Minogue didn’t just top their wishlist for the track – she was the only person on it.

"This seemed like a really good opportunity to take a track which we knew had so much potential, and bring that to another artist and let them add their magic to it," Ash explained. "Dannii was at the top of the list – actually, there wasn’t a list, it was always Dannii."

Bassingthwaighte agreed the pairing was an absolute no-brainer.

"Dannii is such a powerhouse icon with such a distinct voice and style. She’s such a queen of pop it just felt right," she added.

The track originally appeared as To The Disco on the band's June album Midnight Alarms, before Minogue stepped in to give it a high-octane refresh. Far from just lending her famous vocals, the pop titan took complete creative control of the transformation.

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"She has a lot of passion and a lot of heart and soul. She’s such a great human as well as super talented," Bassingthwaighte said. "She actually rewrote the melody, she wrote some lyrics... she’s just so creative."

Ash chimed in: "And deeply involved. She had a lot of input throughout the whole process and about how we did the rollout. The whole idea of teasing it on socials, that was all Dannii’s idea."

That hands-on energy spilled straight onto the set of the song's high-glam, sequin-drenched music video.

"Filming the video clip was a real hoot. You know, we both love to dress up. We both love the fashion and the makeup," Bassingthwaighte said.

Ash, who directed the clip himself, recalled asking the disco diva how she preferred to be handled behind the camera – only to get an unexpected response.

"I asked her, 'How do you want to be directed today?'" Ash said. "And she goes, ‘However you want, just shout at me’. I went, ‘Okay, cool’. But there was no shouting."

Instead of diva antics, set chaos was met with pure hysterics – including when the sound system completely packed it in mid-take.

"There was a really funny moment when the audio playback totally failed right in the middle of the girls looking the most glamorous, and it sounded like everything kind of broke, and that was the moment where we all collapsed and kind of lost it for about five minutes," Ash laughed.

"It can be quite intense when you’re filming because you’re trying to just cover so much and do as much as you can in a fairly limited amount of time, so that was hilarious."

The high-energy single release comes as Rogue Traders celebrate their milestone 21st anniversary tour, bringing their signature electronic sound to fans across Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.