Ratboys - The Window
Listen to an audio version of this review by Greg
THIS! This is why I love this job. Well, for the most part, it doesn’t feel like a job. As much as my reviews have been a countless walk down memory lane, I love discovering new bands. That feeling you get: their songs pitch a tent in your head. You listen to them every time, and I mean EVERY time you get in the car. It’s like when you’re thirteen, and you meet that girl, and you can’t get them off your mind. That feeling. That feeling that makes you smile. You feel warm. You just feel happy every time you even think about their music. This is what music does to me.
I was driving to The Outlaw Fest with a new friend, whose musical tastes I understood were waist deep in 90s style alternative, for the most part. We were trading bands we were into who we thought were rare. We were discussing newer groups on the scene who have impressed us. When this name came up from my friend, I stopped in my tracks (if you can do that in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle) and exclaimed, “Who? The Ratboys”?
This is what I’m talking about. The world is so huge you’re constantly stepping on new bands every week! When I heard the band name, Ratboys, I immediately thought it was an underground 70s punk band out of either New York or London that I’d never heard of. But with a touch of a smart phone generated icon, the track, Black Earth, WI, played through the car stereo, and that was all I needed. I proceeded to go back the next morning and listen to the Ratboys album, The Window in its entirety. To say I am in deep infatuation with this record, would be an understatement.
The band you’ve likely never heard of, Ratboys was formed in 2010 by lead singer and guitarist Julia Steiner along with lead guitarist Dave Sagan. Steiner and Sagan were attending Notre Dame University when they met. After the realization that they liked a lot of the same music, they formed a duo, playing together on acoustic guitars. After a few years writing and recording with an initial drummer and bass player, current bassist, Sean Neumann joined them in 2016. Marcus Nuccio joined them a year later in 2017 on drums. Originally, Steiner and Sagan named themselves Ratboy. The name originated from a nickname lead singer Julia Steiner was given in high school. To this day, she is not sure why or where the name came from. A group of her friends were giving each other nicknames, and Julia’s seemed to be the only one that stuck.
In 2011, the band would change the name to Ratboys, plural, after stating they were getting strange, threatening emails from an artist in upstate New York, claiming to own the band name “Ratboy”. Rather than ignore or fight, they added the “s” and carried on.
12 years after releasing their first piece of music as a two piece, an EP titled, Ratboy EP, the quartet released their fifth studio album, The Window on August 25th, 2023. The album was produced by Death Cab for Cutie band member, Chris Walla, in Seattle, Washington at Chris’ studio, Hall of Justice. This was the first album the group would record completely on analog tape, as opposed to digital…..the OLD SCHOOL WAY! Although more time consuming, many would agree the sound quality sounds fresher, stronger, deeper and with more transparency around the instruments (meaning you feel like you’re in the room with the band and can single out each instrument individually in your ear. It’s supposed to feel like you’re standing in front of their amplifiers).
It’s difficult for me to articulate, but I suppose it comes down to feel. My wife always says, “I don’t know why I like a certain type of music. I just like the way it makes me feel”. I can agree with this sentiment. Although I also can recall the vibe I get from a band live in concert, their attitude (especially the rock n roll attitude in the 80s) and instrumentation. These vibes can prompt that feeling of desire from me. In addition to Julia’s vocals, the band’s semi - trippy 60s blended with 90s vibe, is what draws me in. This record doesn’t have Dickey Betts solos, Geddy Lee bass lines or Neil Peart drum fills, but what they do well is milk a good note. They don’t “overmilk”, but they will take a solid chord or riff, extend it for a while, and take it to another level minus a technical guitar solo or vocals. You’re just drifting to an attention-grabbing riff that takes you on a little journey. I don’t know many bands that do that anymore, at least newer bands. Although 2010 might be 14 years ago, in my brain, that’s like eleven minutes ago when you’re talking about music being released.
The album kicks off with the grungy track, Making Noise for the Ones you Love. This sounds like a garage band. A lot of feedback and distortion, I can see the flannel, doc martin boots, and winter hats being worn in mid-July! After about 1 minute of a grungy build up (my apologies to the band for using the word, “grunge”, but despite the hatred most 90s bands had for that word, I think it cuts straight through and tells the reader or listener what they’re dealing with), the song begins its direction. Mixed with soft acoustic breaks later in the song, the album’s opener piqued my interest, and I would say the same for the masses. This song encourages you to keep listening.
Morning Zoo, the second track, picks the party up a bit more. Does this happen to you guys? You’re a music freak like me. You hear a great song by a band you’re not familiar with. You then become encouraged to dig into the album more, only to be disappointed. That was the only song that spoke to you. Well, this is the whole reason I’m doing this review. Because GET READY. The Window just keeps going. And don’t get me started on the band’s previous albums. We will get to that in another review, but it’s ridiculous.
Crossed that Line taps into the heavier side of the band. This track reminds me a lot of those 90s songs from The Breeders, who in a few articles I read, were listed as an influence. I can certainly see this. Julia Steiner also noted in a 2023 interview that her favorite, or most influential bands include Wilco (her #1), Jenny Lewis, a country artist who I’ve never heard of but after listening, you can definitely hear similarities in her voice and Steiner’s, Hop Along (another band I wasn’t familiar with but am now going to binge), Death Cab for Cutie and Sheryl Crow. In my opinion, these 5 artists share a genre tag with Ratboys, for sure.
It’s Alive is yet another track that I think can transform any non-fan into a die hard. Have you ever wanted to get your friends interested in a band? Has this desire been so strong that you try really hard? When you get the opportunity, you freeze because you want to pick the perfect song by them, to hook your friend (or friends) in right away. It’s a sharing thing. We like like-mindedness! For me and Ratboys, that song is likely Black Earth, WI, but I think It’s Alive would be a very close 2nd. A very radio friendly track but with some trippy Dave Sagan guitar licks sprinkled in there, It’s Alive gives the listener a heavy dose of happy joy with a mixture of some fist pumping, head bobbing rock.
Am I sounding like a broken record yet? Well just wait! The track, No Way has essentially the same formula – a radio friendly verse and chorus. Julia Steiner’s vocals sound double tracked to give you a more stereo experience. Remember Hi Fi? When that was a thing?
What raises No Way above other tracks is the extended repeating note and lyric as the song closes, There’s no way you’ll control me…..again! Try getting this out of your head. This song made me think deeper about songs that repeat many of the same riffs and lyrics. If the formula draws the listener in, for many reasons they are going to want to stay on that hook (the listener). I will reiterate that Ratboys are not a jam band, but they have either organically created or later adopted that formula that finds the hook and drives it home. So not only do you hear There’s no way you’ll control me…..again” three to four times, you hear it fifteen times. As repetitive as this may sound, I invite you to taste test it. I’ve always applied the rule, “don’t knock it til you try it”.
Going through the entire catalog of songs by Ratboys, I heard the word, “window” mentioned a bunch of times, even on earlier albums. So, what’s the genesis behind this word being a part of the next track but also the name of the album? The Window, which of course is the title track, was written by Julia Steiner. It is a song about her grandfather having to say his final goodbye to his wife through a window during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a 2023 interview, Steiner said, “I wrote this song a few days after the death of my grandma in June 2020. She didn't have COVID, but because of the pandemic, my grandpa wasn't able to visit her in person at the nursing home to say goodbye. He ended up standing outside her room and saying goodbye through an open window”.
It goes without saying, this is a terribly heartbreaking story. And when I initially found this quote, I was distraught for Julia and her grandparents. This would certainly be something I would write about in a song if it happened to me or my family members.
After I dried my eyes listening to the title track, the record picks up the pace with Empty. Like the track, No Way, Empty forces you to try and get “I have” out of your head after listening to this, especially with the dirty, scruffy guitar and the piano. That Piano! Man! No Way will not win the award for most thoughtful or complex arrangement of lyrics, but it is another formula that draws the listener in, staying right on that hook. And like a largemouth bass in an upstate Maine Lake, I bit that hook hard and it took me for a ride!
I don’t want to gloss over the song Break, but I am also inclined to do a second dive into Black Earth, WI, the song that broke me into this band. Break is without any criticism. It is a strong, melodic, heavy hitting track but with a heartful emotion tied to it. Black Earth, WI is the Even Flow, the Sweet Child O’ Mine, the Comfortably Numb, the Jessica, the Bouncing Around the Room for me and my love of this band. It was my entrance…
With a relatively repetitive bass line, the song opens with a constant groove and some “trippy” soloing by David Sagan, who I must commend for his chops. At times during the song, Sagan teases a melody with his guitar that turns into an all-band hum-along at the end of the track. My kids weren’t huge fans when I played this in the car 3 times during our 5 hour drive up to Northern Maine. But by the 3rd go around, they were humming along with the rest of the band. I was, of course, always humming along!
Sean Neumann, the band’s bass player, recounts to music writer and blogger, Andy Hughes, a lengthy memory of the band writing Black Earth, WI, worthy of our mention. In Hughes’ blog, bassist Neumann, notes:
“‘The Window‘ is our most collaborative record to date, and no other song on the new album feels that way to us quite like ‘Black Earth, WI‘. The song has quickly become one of our favorites to play, whether it’s on tour, in the studio, or in the basement where it first started to come together back in late 2021. It happened in stages. We started piecing together a couple of different ideas that all happened to lock in together, which I always find makes for some of the most interesting songs – like finding secret threads of your creative subconscious that are tied together in ways you didn’t realize beforehand. And in the end, perhaps representative of that puzzle-piece songwriting method, it unintentionally wound up being this eight-minute-long, winding journey.
I still remember the first time I heard Julia (Steiner, guitar/vocals) singing the big, climactic riff we end up reaching about five or six minutes into ‘Black Earth, WI‘. It was back when I was living at the house on the westside of Chicago with Julia, Dave (Sagan, guitar), and two of our dear friends Marty and Catherine.
Julia and Dave were jamming on some ideas downstairs while Marcus (Nuccio, drums) was on his way over for our weekly practice. Julia was playing this sort of cloudy folk progression and singing some loose melody ideas over the top. But then a couple minutes into them playing together and spitballing some verses, Julia started to hum that “la-da-da-da” riff and Dave started playing along on the guitar, climbing up the neck to find this piercing, anthemic range. Listening upstairs, I knew right away it’d be a melody we’d chase down as a group once we all got together for practice. We’ve always rehearsed at least once a week, but during the dog days of the pandemic we had been spending a lot of that rehearsal time writing and hashing out new ideas for the 12 songs we recorded during ‘The Window‘ sessions in Seattle at the Hall of Justice recording studio.
Sometimes when we’re practicing, Julia will just start playing a song idea she’s had brewing that week and we’ll begin to follow along, seeing what comes of it. Because of that, Julia just sat back and played the chord progression for the verses in ‘Black Earth, WI‘ as the rest of us began to slowly noodle around. Julia swung back-and-forth between the open E and F-sharp chords for a few minutes, and Marcus and I began to fall into this meditative groove that wasn’t too heavy, but wasn’t necessarily sleepy either. The jam Marcus and I had going was a little faster and busier at first, mostly because we were excited and trying things out (the parts hadn’t had “a haircut” yet, as our friend and producer Chris Walla would say in the studio).
The riff Julia and Dave were messing around with earlier wasn’t originally intended to be part of the same song, but because the progression was so cyclical, we just kept going while each other went to work finding their own way with their parts. At one point (I don’t know how many times into playing the song idea), Dave took it upon himself to start riffing around the neck of his guitar and we all just started to sit back and watch him go. We were stoked and all felt a certain energy brewing with the track. And then something clicked and Julia recommended that after he walked his way up the neck, Dave should land on that high-note riff they had been working on earlier. Without sounding too up our own ass or cheesy, it was a magical discovery. There’s a certain dopamine rush as songwriters when you realize these separate ideas you love individually actually go hand-in-hand and they stack together perfectly to make something even better.
We all knew we had something super satisfying to play, which instinctually tells you it will (hopefully) be satisfying to listen along to, as well. After that initial day of discovery, we spent a chunk of time each week chiseling out the rest of the song. We added some subtle counting methods to give the song some structure, gave it steps to climb on the way to that climactic riff, and then wrote in an epilogue verse upon Marcus’ suggestion, which gives the listener (and Dave’s poor hands) some time to decompress after a few minutes of build up. Also, given that Julia wrote the song about a fictional tornado taking root in this small, forested town of Black Earth, Wisconsin, we felt it would be appropriate for the song to have this slow rise, take form, swirl into a stormy apex, and then disintegrate back into a lullaby once the clouds pass, so to speak.
We all fell in love with playing this song each week and when it came time to track the record out in Seattle with Chris, it was ironically one of the easiest songs to track. We nabbed it on the second take and then added in some of the fun stuff (percussion, pianos, vocal harmonies, etc) to finish painting the picture we’d been drawing out since that first practice”.
(from andrewdavidhughes blog on “Birthday Cake For Breakfast”)
The album rounds out with I Want You (Fall 2010) and Bad Reaction. I Want You (Fall 2010) was interestingly enough, the last song to be written for the album. The prior songs had been in the hopper for 2+ years. Julia Steiner wanted to write a song about the past and wanted to write a straight-up love song. She’s always intending to be as clear as possible in her writing, including very few innuendos, if any at all. 2010 was the year Ratboys (then named Ratboy) began, with just Steiner and Sagan. Steiner noted in an interview
“That song, oddly enough, was actually the newest one. We wrote it two months before we went into the studio, whereas we started working on some of the ones two years before. I’m just very fond of that time in my life and my personal history and relationship history. I came up with the chorus first for that song, and the whole “I want you” lyrics just came out. I was like, it’d be cool to write just a straight-ahead love song – no complications, no worries, just a love song. I hadn’t really done that as intentionally. Some of the songs in this record, my goal was to really just be as clear as possible and very direct. I’d done that with ‘The Window’, so I was like, maybe I could try to write as direct a love song as possible about that time and those memories. We went into the studio really fresh on that one, and it was fun to figure it out while we were in there because we didn’t have a lot of the parts figured out for that song”.
Bad Reaction, the final track is the perfect closer for the album. A mellow, acoustic guitar led song with small orchestral notes, void of drums, Bad Reaction brings Julia Steiner’s vocals to the forefront again. You feel as if you’re in a quiet, dark room listening to just Julia sing a heartfelt song.
“And what's the one thing you love?
What's the one thing you love?
What's the one thing you love now?
Got some bad habits fully formed
Everyone laughed at me until they could not breathe again
I was a magician writing on the wall
Talkin' big s**t over you”
Steiner’s poetic nature really comes out in this song once again, showcasing, in my opinion, that she’s a serious song writer. She continues singing:
“Drove to the gravеyard where you werе not
Found a nice little hill with an empty plot
I threw the wheels in reverse so fast
Lost in the headache, didn't look back”
These are deeper words that perhaps are referring to anger she’s harbored for some time from childhood.
Whichever way you interpret this song, it is another SOLID addition to a genuine album that is durable, stable and most of all, new (2023)! Well, newer! Folks, The Window is my pick for best album of 2023. Not to mention, the band’s four previous albums, dating back to 2015 are also all very strong. I mean this. Learning this on my own gave me a deeper sense of respect for this band. Ratboys are the real deal. And similar to the many bands I stumbled across as a teenager and in my 20s, which I ended up falling in love with, I’m in love with this band. Deep, deep love, and I think you will be too.
