Ratboys
All hail Ratboys! In August 2023, Chicago’s best self-described “post-country” indie-rock band released The Window, their fifth LP since Julia Steiner and Dave Sagan started writing songs together as college students in 2010. This album cycle marks a well-deserved, noteworthy boost in visibility for the group, whose second LP GN was on a list of “15 Great Albums You Probably Didn’t Hear in 2017” from Rolling Stone. “Go Outside,” the closing track of 2021’s Happy Birthday, Ratboy, appeared in a Walmart TV spot a few months before The Window came out, and the band spent most of the late spring and summer opening for The Decemberists. Ratboys are closing out 2024 with a November headline tour that stops at The Blue Room at Third Man Records on Friday. This run lets the band put a bow on The Window in a way the bigger shows couldn’t.
“We haven’t gotten to headline some of these cities on this record yet — Nashville and Atlanta and [Carrboro, N.C.] are kind of the big three,” says singer-guitarist Steiner. “We’ve been there with the Decemberists … but on that tour, we were opening and our set was shorter, and so we only got to play a couple songs from the new record. But this time it’ll be cool to play some deep cuts and stretch out a little bit. As soon as this tour is over, we’ll be full speed ahead focusing on a new one. … It’s a bit like being pulled in multiple directions, but it’s kind of cool. We just can do whatever we want.”
Recorded with former Death Cab for Cutie member Chris Walla in the producer’s chair, The Window is Ratboys’ first record made start-to-finish with their full lineup, including Steiner and Sagan on guitars, Marcus Nuccio on drums and Sean Neumann on bass. Though much of the record was written before COVID, the themes and sprawling sound are difficult to separate from the pandemic era.
On the heartbreaking titular song, the band doesn’t come in until after the first chorus, leaving Steiner mostly alone with an acoustic guitar as she sings about having to say final goodbyes to dying grandparents through the windows of a nursing home because of lockdown protocols. She notes that it’s the only song on the record that is directly about the realities of the pandemic, but that the way COVID forced musicians to slow down shaped the recording process.
“In the past, either it was me and Dave really hashing things out, just the two of us, or we would bring things to the band right before we went into the studio,” says Steiner. “But because of COVID, we had so much free time to work on it, and so I think the songs really benefited from that.”
“Black Earth, WI,” is an unusual song in the band’s catalog, a meandering eight-and-a-half-minute piece with an extended guitar solo in the middle that might feel familiar to fans of Neil Young or Wednesday. It has become a favorite of Steiner’s, and it’s emblematic of some key lessons the band got from making The Window. Years ago, she had portions of the song worked up, but the band took advantage of COVID downtime to put work they might not otherwise have into making it something they could play together.
“I’m still really proud of these songs. We just rehearsed for the first time, playing these songs, getting ready for tour a couple days ago — and it felt so good. We’re still kind of learning things about them. There’s still so much to love and enjoy. So I’m thrilled. It’s not always that way. Sometimes you get sick of stuff and don’t ever want to play it again.”
