DEAD RAT SOCIETY – AN INTRODUCTION TO AND INTERVIEW WITH

‘Charli XCX may have made this a ‘BRAT’ summer, but there’s still time for us to turn it into a ‘RAT’ one.’

Sometimes you’re just not able to put a band into a specific box. Enter London based quartet, Dead Rat Society, who take cues from the likes of The Beastie Boys and Nine Inch Nails, although that probably oversimplifies their sound. The band fuse together hip-hop, spoken word, dance rap and rock and their ingenuity has caught the ear of Radio X’s John Kennedy, who featured Dead Rat Society’s track Girls on his X-Posure show.

The Dead Rats have settled on calling their music dance punk, for now, but say it is more of an umbrella term that gives them the freedom to keep playing with genre boundaries. Dance punk also serves as an ethos statement and sums up their no holds barred approach to music.

Initially formed when friends Ben and Ed set themselves the challenge of recording an entire album on a Nintendo Switch during lockdown, Dead Rat Society started as an electronic project with no intention of playing live. In those early days there was a rage and pessimism to their music compounded by the pandemic.

However, as restrictions were lifted, the idea of playing live slowly became more of a reality when the band drafted in drummer, Will, who had previously worked with Ed on another project. This led to their first show at Camden’s Dublin Castle in 2021 which they thought would be a one off.

Today, Dead Rat Society now consider themselves a live band and regularly contend for the highest energy spot on the bill. They’re a band who stand on a creative precipice, constantly rediscovering the art of the possible, hence their apprehension to attach themselves to one genre.

The band explain it best. ‘We really struggled to pin down what we wanted to label ourselves as without being restrictive. Part of the joy of this band has been the unexpected journey it’s taken us on musically – the evolution of our sound has been completely organic and unplanned, a mixture of coalescing tastes within the band and responses to our live shows, seeing what gets the best reaction from a crowd.’

Despite the band’s punk-like ethos, Dead Rat Society have also found space to inject humour into their shows. Primarily this has been achieved with how overtly the band lean into that dance punk aesthetic, both live and on social media.

Attend a Dead Rat’s show and expect to the see the band wearing dark eye makeup, boiler suits and Ed emerging from the crowd wearing a rat mask. These costume choices have allowed both the band, and their audience, to embrace a kind of mad-hatter levity in the dark.

‘We just wanted to get people’s attention and have some fun with it, but then the response was so galvanising and encouraging that we felt like we couldn’t leave it there. That theatricality became baked into the shows as we discovered ourselves as performers, and then was only exacerbated when Connor joined the band on bass – that man can JUMP while he plays.’

Equally as mad as their outfits are their songs. Sprawling, high-octane and even unforgiving at times, you’re never quite sure where a Dead Rat’s song is heading, even after a few listens. This is best encapsulated Dead Rat Society’s 2022 LP, Eyesore. There is plenty for listeners to dip their toes (or paws) into here, although the band recommend their most popular song, Girls, as a place to start. ‘We’d say start with ‘Girls’. It’s our bounciest, most accessible track, with a real simple earworm of a chorus that we hope will make you want to jump and yell it back to us at a show. It was just featured as John Kennedy’s X-Posure Big One on his show on Radio X, so it’s getting some love right now. Sex positive, fun and fast. Let us know what you think!’

Other highlights include opening track Fall which has elements of Gorillaz, Does It Offend You, Yeah and Bob Vylan, all crammed into a just over two-and-a-half-minute run time. Advert For Toys is nearly a minute and a half of whimsical trap that harks back to the Nintendo Switch days. However latest single, Bounce Back, released earlier this year, represents an unexplored area by the band and leans into spoken word, jazz and disco rap. ‘That track fills what had been a gap in our sound until now, and we maybe didn’t even realise was there until it was made. It’s chilled, laid back, breezy and confident. It’s simple and effective, like so many of the most impactful tracks end up being. It’s exactly what the name suggests – it’s about bouncing back. From what, that can be up to you, but there’s a resilience to it there, under the fun and bravado, that we think makes it something hopeful and sincere, despite being light and groovy.’

Dead Rat Society play their next show at the Sebright Arms in Hackney on Saturday 13th July, supporting Nixer, and have promised to showcase tracks from their new album, Reflecting Light and Causing Chaos, releasing soon. This will include new song No Doubt, Freak Out which aptly features the lyrics, ‘Everyone’s invited, the rats are so excited.’