“I pray that we’re able to make 10 albums in our lives and we can gain enough trust with our fans — that they just either won’t care or will be excited that we write a 10 minute song. Or maybe, I’ll just say fuck it and if we have no fans, I don’t care. I just want to do it for myself.”
While said half-kidding at the end of an interview, you honestly believe, Julia Steiner, the lead singer of Ratboys, will one day release a ten minute closing track . Over the last decade, this once acoustic project has expanded in so many ways. Steiner even quickly mentions as an aside, that, just a girl playing on an acoustic guitar is the old her. A song like A Vision, the fourth track on the new record might have stuck around as an acoustic track, but instead she opted to “make a little universe.”
This can partially be attributed to growth as a songwriter and becoming more comfortable as one does with age. But also, the music that’s happening around you can help push you to make decisions that may be outside of your repertoire. It can be something as simple as trying to pay homage to a little part of a song you heard ten years ago, or as big as giving a knowing nod to the bands that are responsible for you playing music in the first place.
Take a listen below and read along to the songs that influenced Ratboys’ newest record, Printer’s Devil.
Sum 41 – In Too Deep
There are so many little production moments. They’re really good at creating dynamics. It’s still poppy, but it rocks hard. With Alien With a Sleep Mask On, we specifically wanted to create something like that. The song In Too Deep is a direct inspiration.We were listening to it a lot on the road.
Hop Along – Sister Cities
Frances Quinlan is one of my heroes﹘mainly the way she uses her vocals. She is able to sing these really weird melodies, but make them very inviting and infectious. Nobody can do what she is doing, but I was kind of inspired by the way she attacks vocal takes. It seems that she doesn’t give a hoot. She throws herself into it with every note she sings. When I listen back to GN﹘”these vocals almost sound too perfect.” I was very interested in trying to push my vocals into areas where maybe it’s not a beautiful on pitch note, but you can hear the emotion through it.
The Beths – Future Me Hates Me
We got really lucky to cross paths with the beths on tour in 2018. We were with Wild Pink in Europe and randomly were booked on the same show as them. I was completely blown away. They are very sweet people and masters of their craft. They only have one album but they are so in control of what they are doing.
Green Day – Nice Guys Finish Last
For the song ‘Look To’,, we were definitely influenced by Green Day. We just wanted to bring that same sort of energy to the song, that very steady, upbeat feel. Especially in the bridge, right after the second chorus, we were having fun just pretending to be Green Day for a second. We wanted to have a Mike Dirnt & Tre Cool moment. I feel like everyone should do that at least once. It’s a great time.
Kacey Musgraves – Love Is a Wild Thing
She’s one of those country artists that’s pushing the envelope thematically. She would not just write about love or heartbreak, but poverty and weed. I remember the effect on the voice on the song we put on the playlist. It’s something I wrote down that I would love to try to get a reverb sound. We didn’t end up using it. We went with a dryer vocal.
Nature’s Neighbor – Worst Storm Since 69
When I lived in Kentucky ten years ago, I remember hearing it on bandcamp, and really loving the production. At the beginning of the song, there’s a lot of wind, and there’s this percussive element. It kind of sounds like a washing machine to me. I was like, “this is such a strange sound.” It was something that completely caught me off guard and stuck with me. When we went in to making A Vision, track four, I knew I wanted to try and replicate that washing machine sort of sound.
We were able to do that by taking these goat hooves and kind of playing them on a floor tom and tuning it down a lot. I don’t know if that’s what they did. I just wanted to make a part that was a homage to that song.
Laura Marling – Once
Laura Marling is one of my favorite songwriters. She is someone, to me, who can make a song sound so important and mythical. Part of it is her lyrics, but also it’s her delivery. It’s so intimate but very self-assured. I was trying to channel a little bit of that spirit. Honestly, I don’t know if I got the same level of confidence as she did. But, I wanted to try to channel her spirit of badass folk music.
Third Eye Blind – Semi-Charmed Life
They are like a classic rock band at this point. With track five, we had this big pop punk riff. We wanted to balance the emotional intensity of Death Cab for Cutie with the pop punk hook of Third Eye Blind. When we were mixing the song, we were like, “how loud should this be? Should dave’s pop punk hook be loud?”
(nodding) “Yeah, it should be. That’s the hook.”
Third Eye Blind made us feel okay about that because they are the kings of the big catchy riff. It’s just got to be tasteful. If you have a pop punk hook, you have to have thoughtful lyrics.
Death Cab For Cutie – Death of an Interior Decorator
They will always be a formative band for me. I first heard their music when they were on the OC. I was 13 and totally in love. Ben Gibbard writes a lot of lyrics about where he is, like the furniture in his room. I’ve always been attracted to his worlds. You’re curious about what he’s going through. He’s not just complaining. He’s analyzing what he’s going through. For anj, that’s what I wanted to do. I was feeling emotional, but I didn’t just want to cry. I wanted to look back and be very analytical about what had happened.
T.Rex – Rock On
We wanted Victorian Slumhouse to sound like a classic rock guitar celebration. T. Rex is a band, for me, that I didn’t really listen to much until a few years ago.They’re really goofy, but they have chops. That’s kind of the goal for Victorian Slumhouse. This song is about this very funny, strange, reality TV show I came across. We wanted the song to be kind of tongue in cheek, not taking itself too seriously. I feel like they [T.Rex] were really good at that.
Mazzy Star – Give You My Lovin
As soon as I started writing this song [Clever Hans], it sounded like a shoegaze song. I knew that I really liked her voice; kind of how it stood up to the rest of the instruments, but still sounds really delicate.We wanted to try to get a similar tone and reverb on my vocals and have those shimmery guitars in the background. It was not a thematic or a compositional influence, as much as it was a sound that we were going for.
Courtney Barnet – Need a Little Time
With the Courtney Barnett song, the influence was actually the chord progression I never really heard before. There’s a very traditional chord progression that you wouldn’t pick up on in songs unless you play guitar. With Death Cab’s I Will Follow you into the dark: C-B-A. It’s just ubiquitous. Coutney Barnett switched that and went to a different chord at the end of that phrase. It’s funny; That’s the simplest thing. It’s not like I had to learn how to play that. The idea of going somewhere else at the end of the progression﹘away from a standard thing was mind blowing to me.
Joan of Arc – Just Pack or Unpack
I know Tim Kinsella hates this record. He’s written about that stuff. It’s so confusing to me because I love this album. When Dave and I first met, I had never heard anything by Cap’n Jazz, american football, or Joan of Arc. I was really into this album [Boo Human] especially. The way he sings is so, almost nasally and dry. I’m into it and I wanted to do something like that on the last song a little bit. In certain phrases, I kind of wanted to have that thin vowel sound. It’s kind of nitty gritty.
Lambchop – In Care of
I got so into this album in 2016. I had never heard of lambchop before. My friend Claire was super into that album and gave it to me, and said, “you need to listen to this.” It’s very ambient. It’s not loops, just repeating an idea for a very long time. There’s a lot of cool digital textures. We had never really used that on a song. I like this record. It was hard to pick a song, but there were certain little drum sounds that we were like, “that would be really good to reference.” I would love someday to make a song that’s like 12 minutes long. I don’t know how to make music that way, but I want to.