Rounding the corner on a decade of playing together and releasing their sixth album, Chicago indie rock quartet Ratboys are recommitted and reinvigorated in their craft as emerging scene elders and an established touring act.
“We’ve been doing this for a while now, and we’ve been through many different things that you can encounter – either on the road or making records or within the ‘industry,’” says drummer Marcus Nuccio. “Something I’m always telling myself is to realize my place in this whole thing and be open and just be a resource if I can be.”
Watching younger acts come up and stumble over some of the same lessons they encountered amid a different landscape, the band feels somewhat lucky to have come of age before social media dominance. Still, they know they faced a lot of the same challenges of insecurity and comparing themselves to other acts as the music industry morphed around them.
“The through line between all of those changes for me is what it feels like to write a song and play music in a room with people,” says guitarist and lead vocalist Julia Steiner. Flipping through Facebook photos, she reminisces about sending out invites on the website, shifting to Instagram, and watching the rise of TikTok and streaming platforms. “I can sometimes get freaked out about the way that the world is changing, but it gave me this renewed sense of faith that music is music, and it makes me feel like a person, and that will never change.”
When the pandemic put touring bands through another dizzying somersault, quietly and internally Ratboys acknowledged that this would be the time to call it quits – or the time to double down.
“All four of us unspokenly really hunkered down and bought fully into what we’re doing. And I think that comes through on the last two records,” says bassist Sean Neumann. Pushed, like the rest of the world, into tighter and more hushed social corners, the four began composing all together in a new way. Whereas Steiner and lead guitarist David Sagan had carried the songwriting on previous records, 2023’s The Window cracked open a new level of collaboration with Nuccio and Neumann as well.
“There’s more layers of intention and creativity that goes into it naturally when it’s four people versus two,” says Steiner. “When we’re all there together, [everyone] has this feeling like nothing’s off limits, and everyone can just come up with ideas and propose things in real time.”
Putting together the songs that would become last month’s Singin’ to an Empty Chair, they decided to return to that secluded pattern, booking a writing retreat weekend in Wisconsin and staying on top of a steady rehearsal schedule.
“We all kept showing up, and I think feeling inspired by what we were making together, and that kept us wanting to show up,” adds Steiner. “Just the fact of being there in a room together is an unspoken vote of confidence in what everyone else is doing, and that’s what we continue to do every week.”
That confidence, and earnestly practiced coherence, is palpable in Singin’ to an Empty Chair’s secure melodies. Spring-scented album closer “At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood,” just as its title suggests, sets the group’s plaintive assurance amid a sun-filled meadow not unlike the record’s cover. Steiner’s fluid vocals make a meandering path through the track’s easygoing, twang-accented indie rock.
“Light Night Mountains All That,” an onstage favorite for the group, bursts with an opposite energy, building to what Nuccio calls a “freak out point,” with newfound insistence and a brisk-winged rhythmic catharsis driven by his drumming.
“It always seems to shapeshift a little bit and it’s so fun to strap in and ride this roller coaster of a song every night,” he says as the band set out to tour the February release. “I’m excited to start playing it consistently every single night and see where it takes us. It’s always really exciting.”
Ratboys play at Mohawk on Saturday, March 28.