{"id":10006956,"date":"2019-04-24T09:35:13","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T13:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/?p=10006956"},"modified":"2019-04-24T09:36:37","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T13:36:37","slug":"ratboys-road-to-good-luck-is-paved-with-post-country-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/2019\/04\/24\/ratboys-road-to-good-luck-is-paved-with-post-country-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Ratboys’ road to \u2018good luck\u2019 is paved with post-country music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ratboys<\/b><\/a> have Illinois alternative music history down to a science. So much so, that when lead singer and guitarist Julia Steiner recalls the styles of fellow in-state groups Uncle Tupelo and Wilco, she puts forth her own burgeoning genre on the (turn)table: Post-country.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>Post-country music to me is music that draws influence from the alt-country music that came before. Bands like Uncle Tupelo and The Jayhawks and even Lucinda Williams\u2019 and Tom Petty\u2019s ’90s and 2000s records have influenced a massive amount of contemporary indie and DIY bands, and to me, it shows,” she explains to Vanyaland<\/em>. \u201cI agree that genre semantics shouldn\u2019t be taken too seriously, which is largely where the idea for post-country came from in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly, if current phenomenon \u201cOld Town Road\u201d by Lil Nas X has proved anything, it\u2019s that country music knows no single form — and Ratboys have been running with that idea for eight years now.<\/p>\n

Following the release of last year\u2019s EP GL<\/em> (which stands for “Good Luck,” prefaced by its counterpart album GN<\/em> –\u201cGood Night\u201d), the Chicago group performs alongside PUP and Diet Cig this Thursday (April 25) at Royale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read on below for Vanyaland<\/em>\u2019s chat with Steiner about Ratboys\u2019 forthcoming LP, writing outside of her personal experiences, and why exactly post-country is a totally valid subgenre.<\/p>\n

Victoria Wasylak: It\u2019s been a year since the release of GL<\/em>. What\u2019s next for you, release-wise? Did you know you were going to release a follow-up of sorts when you recorded GN<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Julia Steiner: We recently recorded our third LP here in Chicago at a studio called Decade. Out of 10 songs, we recorded eight of them live, with drums, bass, and two guitars all being played in the same room at the same time. We\u2019ve never tried that approach before, and we\u2019re really excited with how it turned out. These new recordings sound much closer to how we sound on stage these days i.e. a bit more present and rockin\u2019.<\/p>\n

When we recorded GN<\/em> we knew we had a few extra songs on the table that we still wanted to record. We had some free time a couple months after we recorded GN<\/em> so we went back to the same studio with the same engineer (our friend Mikey Crotty) and laid down the songs on GL<\/em>. It all came together really quickly and felt like a good extension of the LP.<\/p>\n

Most people write songs about themselves or people they know personally. Turning the focus outward — towards people you don\u2019t know — tends to be much more difficult. On songs like “Crying About the Planets” [about Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson] and “Peter the Wild Boy,” why did you choose to write about people you\u2019ve never met? What was that like, and how did you pick those two people in particular?\u2028\u2028<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s weird, I find it to be almost the opposite of what you mentioned — I have a lot of trouble writing about myself, mainly because I, like everybody, have a tendency to repress memories of pain or discomfort that I\u2019ve experienced. So digging up the stuff that feels important and necessary to grapple with in a song takes time and hurts. Also, I sometimes get self-conscious that writing about details of my own life will keep people from relating to the songs or enjoying them. But, I usually snap out of that and let myself write lyrics for me. And then let people do whatever they want with them.<\/p>\n