Review/Interview: Ratboy
[caption id=”attachment_7717” align=”aligncenter” width=”350” caption=”Ratboy’s self-titled EP”]
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While chit chatting with a friend of mine who attends Notre Dame, I was linked to Ratboy’s bandcamp, and from the start of the first song I was hooked. Singing that will lull you into a trance and warm atmospheric instrumentation are at the core of Ratboy’s sound. Together, Julia Steiner and Dave Sagan make tranquil folk music unlike anything else out there. Here are my two favorite tracks off of their self-titled EP and an interview with the band.
Review
“The Stanza”
The guitar trickles in like the slow trip before a torrential downpour. Then the drums rush in, bouncing and taking you away. Vocals so soulful and sweet it could make you cry. Then the soaring chorus with dissonant guitar and rusty echoes in the background.
“The Key”
Funky laid back feel. Child like singing. Skipping bass in the background. A joyful chorus. Just like the rest of the the stuff. Peaceful and relaxing. Beautiful singing. Happy guitar leads. It all comes together perfectly.
Interview
How did you start making music together? How do you write songs?
We met when we both came to school at Notre Dame. We became friends pretty quickly and just started playing music really informally on the weekends and stuff. Eventually, we recorded 5 songs over the course of 3 weeks in March 2011. We released them on a whim, and we’ve gotten a pretty good response so far. We haven’t written many lyrics together, but we hope to from now on. All of the songs that we’ve released were written previously by Julia.
Influences?
Man. Julia’s favorite band is Wilco, and she gets a lot of her influences from their singer-songwriter, Jeff Tweedy. We both love St. Vincent and Radiohead and The Microphones and stuff like that too. Pretty much everything. Dave used to play in a post-hardcore band Mishu and currently plays shows with our friend Kyle in the band Easter. We’re really influenced by our friends’ music too, like Freudian Slip, Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, Portland, and the Island of Misfit Toys. Swerp.
Are you working on any upcoming releases?
We kind of are. We have a few songs that we know we’ll record eventually, but we don’t really have a timetable as of now. We usually end up recording when we’re not planning on it. Like a let’s get drunk and jam kind of thing, and somewhere along the line we press the record button. Of course we refine it afterward, but we like to make it really loose and fun I guess.
Are you involved with a local scene? Have you played with any other reputable artists? Any plans for future touring or shows?
We try to stay involved with the South Bend/Notre Dame scene, although both are pretty hard to access/not really existent. It’s easier to consider ourselves a part of the Chicago scene (especially the south suburbs) because Dave is from there and a bunch of our friends live there and make music there. We’ve been lucky to play with Maps & Atlases and Jeff Pianki in South Bend and Frontier Ruckus in Mount Pleasant, Michigan at Midwest Fest. Both times were a lot of fun, and we love mixing up our live lineups. Sometimes it’s just the two of us, but a lot of times we ask some friends to join us to make more of a full band sound. So if you ever come out to a show, you never know what you’re going to get. It’s like a grab-bag at the dollar store (Julia likes to think anyway). We’re kind of taking a break from traveling or playing big shows right now, but hopefully next spring we’ll release a few new songs and get back into it.
Story behind the name and/or album artwork?
Ratboy has been Julia’s nickname since 11th grade, and no one really knows why, I suppose. We never really had a conversation about what we would call ourselves, so it just kind of happened that way. The album artwork is my friend Mary Margaret’s friend Jake’s dad running on a beach and looking worn out/mad as hell. He has no idea he’s on the cover, so don’t tell him!
