JULIA STEINER OF RATBOYS TALKS NEWEST ALBUM, TOURING, MUSIC SCENES AND MORE
Ratboys (Credit: Miles Kalchik)
INTERVIEW | JULIA STEINER by Morris Shamah
Chicago-based indie-rock quartet Ratboys are touring in support of their sixth album, Singin’ To An Empty Chair, including a sold out show at The Garage in Islington on 22nd May as part of Footsteps Festival, with support from Sunday Mourners and Former Champ. Footsteps Festival is a brand-new festival of music and community, celebrating London’s independent venues and grassroots scenes, returning for it’s second year. The festival is made up of 24 different shows across 5 days throughout the capital. We caught up with Ratboys’ singer, songwriter, and guitarist Julia Steiner to discuss the festival, what makes a good music scene, their new album, touring, and more.
Footsteps Festival is a week-long celebration of grassroots venues and artists and scenes that make London the most exciting music city in the world. Interesting to have a Chicago band on that list! How does it feel to be part of that festival?
Oh, that’s awesome. I hadn’t heard that description before. To be honest, sometimes when we get booked on festivals, we don’t really know what we’re getting into, so it’s always kind of exciting to just show up. Right away, we usually pick up on what the energy is, and the format, and what the audience is and how they’re feeling. But that sounds awesome to me. London is truly one of my favorite cities on the planet. It’s a really inviting big city, and not just because the public transit is so well laid out and expansive and easy to use. There’s so many little places you can get lost and discover so much art that’s been made there for centuries, you know, going back to- thinking about Shakespeare now, obviously – and our shows there have always been really fun, and there’s tons of great venues around the city.
Do you have any specific venues that you can recall as being a particular favourite over here?
Well, I mean, the first show we ever played in London was this place called DIY Space for London, which no longer exists, but got us completely in love with the music scene from day one, because it just felt like a part of the neighborhood. That was in East London. We got to play the Windmill in Brixton for a whole weekend a couple summers ago. We were there three nights in a row, so it felt like we were really living there, which was cool. And we played the Lexington a couple times near King’s Cross and that’s like, just a classic, like tiny club as well. It feels like you’re above the pub. So yeah, it felt very British.
And there’s so much to discover, so many that we know of, that we want to play. The Garage! Scala, we’ve heard a lot about, so maybe someday we’ll play there. And I mean, obviously, the Roundhouse. Eventually, maybe we’ll get to play there!
Did Ratboys grow out of a specific scene?
Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think our scene when we first started was based in the South suburbs of Chicago. It wasn’t technically within the city limits, it was more so like Dave’s high school scene in the town that he grew up in, which is called Oak Forest, Illinois. Dave was so lucky in high school because he just came from a community where all of the teenagers were starting bands and really interested, not just in listening to music, but in writing music and playing shows, and DIY in general.
So when I first met Dave, when we were university students, like 18, he invited me back to his hometown that summer, and we played the first Ratboys shows in the summer of 2011, with all of his high school friends. It really did feel like a scene down there. So that’s kind of where we got our start, and then eventually we moved to the city of Chicago and became a part of the scene here, and we still feel like we’re a part of that, which I’m super grateful for.
What do you think makes a good music scene, a good music scene?
A few things. The most important thing is bands being supportive of one another and keeping open minds and hearts and ears and loving music and wanting to put on shows not just for their own advancement or like, you know, for any career aspirations. It’s more about just loving listening to bands and wanting to have a cool night in the city and be with each other. You know what I mean? It’s much more like, a human thing, and just appreciating art, than it is about climbing to the next rung of the ladder or whatever.
I think that’s what that scene in the south suburbs, what made it so special when we were first starting. It wasn’t about money or goals at all. It wasn’t really aspirational. It was more just living in the moment and, you know, enjoying songs and enjoying bills that were very diverse. We were a very folky band when we started. We didn’t have loud amps or anything, and it was exciting to be on a bill with bands that were really loud. We were kind of the quiet band at the time, but everyone accepted us and they were very encouraging. So I think just general encouragement of your peers is probably the most important thing.
It feels like these independent scenes are kind of in a bit of a weird place now where grassroots venues have to really fight for their survival. But like you said, the best part of these music scenes are when they’re really for the encouragement of the music and not necessarily the business of it. So I wanted to ask, how do you now discover new music, and new places to see music?
Yeah, that’s a really good question because like nowadays… You know, people sometimes message me asking for my help in booking DIY shows and stuff in Chicago. And it really causes me to pause and evaluate where I’m at, because I would say 99% of the underground music venues in Chicago that we knew about or ever played at are gone now. Just through the pandemic, people either moved out or those venues literally don’t exist anymore. Like, the homes got razed, and now they’re condos or whatever. So it’s a little daunting. And, I mean, we’re just older. I turned 34 this year. You know, I’m not, like, 21, putting on shows in my basement. I wish I was sometimes.
But I definitely do my best on social media to curate my feed. That’s what it is. I’m mostly trying to keep my ear to the ground and not get distracted by all the other BS that shows up on Instagram, but just trying to keep in touch with Chicago bands that way. And also I’m grateful for the proliferation of – I don’t know if you’d call them music blogs, but music newsletters. I find a lot of new music that way. There’s a guy named Josh Terry here in Chicago who has a really great newsletter called No Expectations. And he posts a lot, like, every week about new bands coming up here and all over the country and the world. So, yeah, just trying to be intentional about keeping up with what’s going on.
What is it that makes you interested in a band? If you’re reading about it in that newsletter, for example, what kind of thing is more likely to grab your attention?
I think for me, probably any sort of bold choice. I get really excited about music that just sounds weird or has some sort of– yeah, some sort of odd decision that I might not have made. I don’t know. I do kind of notice these days how a lot of music feels very… beholden to the algorithm, for lack of a better term. Like these short, kind of one-note, sanitized, kind of ‘soft’ songs. And I like that sometimes, but if you hear enough of that, for lack of a better word, safe, presentation, it just kind of starts to sound the same. So I get really excited when I hear something that feels completely outside of that world.
Like, the other day– so speaking of Josh Terry’s newsletter, he posted about this album by a band called Robber Robber. I had never heard of that band or heard any of their music, and pressed play on it, and it was just instantly– it just felt like a very kind of confident, off-the-wall approach to a song. So I was excited to keep listening. And that record’s really good. The whole thing is so cool.
Kalchik)
So how do you channel bold decision-making into your songwriting?
I think one thing is like, I get kind of bored sometimes, listening to music. I like to challenge myself to try to, especially on an album or within a track list, to not repeat ourselves too much, just embrace that sense of variety across a record. But at the same time, we’re never punching a wall trying to figure that out. Luckily, we’ve never encountered a situation where we feel like we need to force something in, just to live up to that idea of not repeating ourselves. But the goal with each song is to approach it like its own little world and just fully flesh it out as much as we possibly can until it feels right, and then trusting that our audience will be along for the ride. If we’re not bored and if we’re having fun, then hopefully that translates in the recording, and people will appreciate that and feel the same.
But I’m always excited to pursue any sort of weirdness or appreciate, you know, something that might have happened in the moment that would be hard to repeat, even if it feels like an imperfection. I’ve really come to embrace that over the years. So, any sort of thematic, subtle things we can do on the album to boost up the lyrics or the story is always really important to me. I’m thinking about the very beginning of our new album, the song Open Up. That song is– literally, the first line is about going back in time. And the very first sound that you hear on the album is like this reverse cymbal reverb from [producer] Chris Walla. He’s such a genius at making that kind of sound. And so that idea of like the reverse cymbal sound that leads right into a line about living in reverse. I’m just like, yes, Chris, you get us.
Singin’ To An Empty Chair is a real cohesive whole. It’s an album’s album, but each individual song is also a cohesive whole on its own. Which kind of begs the question- did you have any outtakes?
Yeah, we did. We had one song that didn’t make it on. And we also had one song that didn’t make it on The Window. It was slightly different with The Window because we always knew that song wasn’t going to make it on the record. But with this one, we were planning to have it on the album the whole time, so we worked on it very diligently. It was actually the first song that we recorded at Electrical Audio. We were really excited about it. But when it came time to sequence the final masters and making sure that everything fit in our vision, for whatever reason, we could not find a spot where it really worked on the track list.
It’s a song called You Were Gone, and it’s very much in the second person – talking to a “you”. But it is a “you” that is completely separate from this other main person who I’m talking to on the rest of the album. It’s completely different “you” from the rest of the songs, such as Just Want You To Know The Truth. It’s a different person, so it didn’t really fit. The outtake from The Window is about that same person, so we’re going to, I think, put those two songs together potentially and release them together at some point.
That’s exciting!
Yeah, we’ll see. TBD.
One of the things I really like on both albums are those longer jammed out kind of tunes, like, you know, Just Want You To Know The Truth on Singin’ To An Empty Chair or Black Earth, WI on The Window. Those instrumental sections, are those improvisational? Are they composed? Are they worked on in the studio? How do you go about that?
Yeah, it depends. They’re kind of different in the way we approach them. As far as Black Earth, WI went, for a while we were just jamming on that song. Eventually, over the course of weeks of just getting together every week at band practice, that guitar solo section in the middle kind of started to take shape. So that one is composed, where we have little subtle cues where we’re all transitioning to the next section at the same time. 99% of the time, when we play it live every night, we play it the same length. It’s pretty composed, and we’re really proud of the arrangement of that song, because it feels really right when the transitions happen for us.
But, Just Want You To Know The Truth, it’s an outro that’s kind of extended. That was an improvisation as far as the length of the outro in the recording of that song. We stumbled upon this really special, I think, like length of time, but also the way it slowly just falls off at the very, very end. I was really insistent on keeping it that way in the final mix and not not fading it out and not changing anything. It felt really off the cuff and natural. So when we play that one live, I actually don’t really know how long we’re playing it each night. It might change from night to night. I’m not really usually paying attention, which is kind of freeing.
Kalchik)
Do your shows change, do your set lists change night to night?
Sometimes, yeah. On this, on the album release tour, the bones of the set list are pretty consistent from night to night as far as what we’re opening and closing with. And then little transition moments, just because no one wants to sit there and like listen to me tune and talk between every single song. I already talk a lot at our shows, so trying to build some nice transitions is important to us. We’ve been playing the whole new record every night – except for the last song, which I love so much, but hasn’t found its way in yet. But there have been three spots in the set list where we’ll bring in an old song, and those three spots have been switched out every night. It’s a little bit of surprise mixed with some stuff you know you’re going to hear.
Have there been any kind of surprise moments in the set list for you guys?
Yeah, I get really stoked- we stumbled into a really cool transition, not to like give it away, because it kind of does feel like a surprise when we do this at the show, but playing Light Night Mountains All That coming out of Strange Love, which are two songs that on the surface have nothing in common sonically. But they’re in the same key, and Light Night out of Strange Love feels really, really exciting. And so discovering that combo, and then when I go into the intro of Light Night, which is pretty quiet and mysterious, I can feel people gradually picking up on what’s about to happen. And sometimes they hoot and holler and get excited. That makes me feel good because that’s how I feel on the inside. I’m getting really excited to play that song as I’m doing the intro. So that part’s cool.
Also, Just Want You To Know The Truth – I was pretty nervous going into the tour about playing that live. And I’ve found, ironically enough, that it’s my favorite part of the set. And not only do I not feel nervous anymore, but I enjoy that for myself in a way where I don’t even care. Like if the audience, like no offense, I hope everyone’s having fun, and I hope they’re enjoying themselves, but even if people do take the opportunity during that song to like, go get a beer or like go to the bathroom, I actually don’t care. I’m enjoying it for me, you know, and so I’m grateful that we get to play that song.
What about Just Want You To Know The Truth made you nervous in the first place?
It’s funny that you compared it to Black Earth, WI because both of those songs are pretty long and slow. But Just For You Know The Truth is long and slow and extremely directly about my own life and parts of my life that are kind of difficult to confront on the surface. So it kind of feels like you’re just standing up there- like the whole naked in front of class dream or whatever. But the thing that I didn’t realize or fully anticipate is just how the music itself is such a powerful– like those are the clothes I’m wearing. That actually it feels so protective and safe having the music part of it live on stage. So I’m grateful.
Although in England, it’s going to be interesting because we had a pedal steel player on this North American leg and they can’t make it to England. So it’ll be a little bit of a different arrangement. So yeah, maybe I’ll be nervous. We’ll see. I won’t have quite as many clothes on musically, metaphorically.
How do you prepare for an international tour like this? It’s a pretty grueling tour that you’re looking at, the May European tour. I was looking at the show dates- I think there’s seven in a row at one point. Is it a difficult thing to do as an American band touring Europe these days?
I mean, to be completely honest with you, it is. It’s really difficult from a financial perspective, just because, especially nowadays, we kind of had a rough go timing-wise, not just us, every band this year. Flights are so expensive because of America’s completely reckless and needless war in Iran that we’ve started for some reason. So the oil prices have gone up and the flights are so expensive now. All that to say- the financial costs are a very high hurdle to clear, and we don’t get paid as much at the shows. Which is why we have to play seven in a row. We need to play as much as we can in order to break even. And the jet lag of it all and figuring out how to bring the amount of guitars that we might need. We’ll definitely not have as many tools at our disposal.
But it is a fun challenge in that way, trying to kind of– it almost brings us back to our scrappy beginnings and how to problem solve and just do a lot with a little. Yeah, it’s nothing we can’t figure out on the fly. And every time we go over there, it’s like, where are our outlet converters? Where are our adapters? Where are they? We have them. I know we have them. They’re here in our house somewhere. So we’ve got to find those. You know what I mean? Just like the little things.
But at the same time, we get to see the world. And I’m so excited. And like I said earlier, I’m not just . I love London. And I’m actually going to stay for a couple of days at the end of the tour. So I’m really excited. All of that complaining is worth it, obviously, because we get to travel far from our home and meet people and experience different cultures and countries. So it’s going to be great. And we’re really looking forward to it.
With that in mind, for us over here internationally, is there anything in particular at the shows we can do to help support the band?
I mean, yeah! We’ll have some merch that we’re bringing, which we’re really excited about. We design and print our own merch, which is fun. I mean, we don’t print it ourselves, obviously, but we figure it all out ourselves.
But just being there is the most important thing. We’re just excited if anyone shows up in the room. Having the opportunity to be off our phones and be in rooms with people is such a gift. We learned that during COVID – that is something that we cannot take for granted. That’s our main goal – just to be in a room with people.
Footsteps Festival runs from 18 to 22 May in venues across London. You can see the full line-up and find tickets at footstepsfestival.com
Singin’ To An Empty Chair is out now from New West Records and available on streaming as well as at ratboysband.myshopify.com
Ratboys are touring the UK throughout May. Tickets to all shows can be found at ratboysband.com/tour
May 20 Southampton, UK – The Joiners
May 21 London, UK – The Garage – Footsteps Festival – Sold Out
May 22 Leeds, UK – Belgrave Music Hall
May 23 Bristol, UK – Dot To Dot Festival
May 24 Nottingham, UK – Dot To Dot Festival
May 28 Glasgow, UK – Mono
May 29 Manchester, UK – YES
