RAT BOY have recorded in Los Angeles with Tim Armstrong of Rancid, played festivals as far afield as Japan and China, and toured North America with The Interrupters. Yet for all those globe-trotting adventures, there’s no place you know quite as well as home. That’s the central topic that RAT BOY explore on their upcoming third album SUBURBIA CALLING, which will be released on October 4th via Hellcat. The band today launch the album by sharing its new single ‘BADMAN’. Listen HERE.
SUBURBIA CALLING sees RAT BOY exploring stories from their roots in Essex. It’s the land of wheeler-dealers and dodgy geezers, and home to nosey neighbours, rowdy clubs and Joey Essex. For readers outside of the UK, it’s the land of Blur, Depeche Mode and The Prodigy: a place not so far outside of east London, but in other ways it’s a world away. And it’s not only an immense font of inspiration for RAT BOY, but the place where everything happens for them.. Just outside of Chelmsford sits a converted barn where the band can jump in and be creative whenever the mood takes them – a HQ that is a recording studio, a rehearsal space, an art studio, a storage space and a hangout spot all-in-one.
Frontman Jordan Cardy says, “I wanted to sing about Essex. Essex is where we live and when you’ve grown up somewhere you notice things about it. There’s so much to draw on. Essex is really close to London but it’s different in a lot of ways. We’ve got a lot of freedom here, we built a place where we can record and rehearse and hang out, somewhere you wouldn’t be able to have in London.”
Sonically pulling on the sounds of Britpop, 90s indie and classic melodicism, with a little scattering of 2-Tone’s propulsive grooves in there too, ‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ is a record paying homage to true British greats at the same time as pushing things forward. As we’ve already heard from the recent singles ‘ONE IN A MILLION’ (think an intergalactic take on The Specials featuring lil aaron, a track premiered by Ska Punk Daily) and the title track
SUBURBIA CALLING (a big beat Blur, or a Britpop-era The Streets) it’s an album of many different shades.
Those shades take on even more varied hues with the new single ‘BADMAN’. Mixing jangly indie-pop, rousing brass and infectious gang-call “heys!”, it’s a bright, sun-kissed sound that looks at the dark underbelly of the kind of small-town gangsters that plague towns across Essex and the wider UK. It’s a lifestyle that people live and die by, and when one inevitably meets a bleak fate it’s only ever going to be a matter of time before the next pretender is trying to assert their dominance.
RAT BOY – completed by Liam Haygarth (bass), Harry Todd (guitar) and Noah Booth (drums) – approached the making of the album in unorthodox fashion. They recorded a home demo and a live performance of each song, which were then sent to producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur) to edit together like a tapestry puzzle.
SUBURBIA CALLING is now available to pre-order / pre-save HERE.
‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ tracklist:
- MOB
- RUDY’S WORLD
- ONE IN A MILLION
- BEST IS YET TO COME
- EVERY LITTLE HELPS
- SUBURBIA CALLING
- BADMAN
- SHE’S THE ONE
- ESSEX LAND
- HANDBAGS AT DAWN
- DAY TRIP TO LONDON
- BOY WONDER
- TAKE MY PLACE
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