"The folks there, they were enthusiastic about us coming to play, and that was really encouraging.
"They were like, yes, please come."
That kind of enthusiasm is welcome talk for a woman who has decided to ditch the day job and hit the road in a Mazda stationwagon - which she says she is likely to be living out of if she runs out of friends' to stay.
"But I've got lots of lovely friends, who tell me 'we don't mind you sleeping on a spare bed for the umpteenth time this year'."
Her press release makes tour hardships sound better, plus it reads like a song: "[our] station-wagon is small, but carries a lot of weight: the lyrics, the guitars, the histories and hopes; stories of the ashes and rubble left lining streets both real and metaphorical".
She laughs when it is read back to her.
"Well, it's a press release, you've got to make it good."
Rossiter, from Auckland, says she worked in the music industry, but felt a bit bad her commitments to her tours and albums meant little time at work.
"I had a great job, with amazing people, I had been there for three years.
"I just decided it would be a really good idea, get out my house, go on tour.
"So I gave up all the responsibility and tried this.
"I mean, you are only in your early-mid-late twenties once."
She says it is the first time they have tackled Wairarapa.
"We're really excited - people in Wairarapa are really interested and engaged in local music."
She says Nadia is much more "in the folk music vein", playing acoustic guitar.
"Just really lovely, simple, great melodies."
Rossiter plays electric guitar.
"I'm a little bit noisier.
"They're still songs, but a little bit more rockin"'.
She puts herself somewhere between rock and indy music.
The pair are frequently mistaken for each other, or assumed to be sisters, she says.
"I've had people say: I saw you playing at that bar, you were on Facebook. Nope, not me."The Ballads and Badlands Tour will be visiting the Tin Hut in Featherston on May 18.
Tickets available from www.undertheradar.co.nz.
