transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Hey there, if you're listening to this and you support us on Patreon, you can hear it via the Patreon page ad free. You're listening to Sound Opinions, and this week, we talk with Julia Steiner of Chicago's Rat Boys. I'm Jim DeRogatis.

Speaker 2:
[00:29] And I'm Greg Kot. But first, we've got a new record to review from Friko.

Speaker 1:
[00:34] Sound Opinions is supported by WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. With the WISE account, you can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. Terms and conditions apply. Be smart, get WISE.

Speaker 3:
[00:57] Sound Opinions is supported by the Goose Island Beer Company. For over 20 years, Goose Island has been brewing their iconic 312 beer for the best moments in our city. It's the Chicago thing. This month, we're asking listeners to go to soundopinions.org and leave us a voice message on the most Chicago thing you've ever seen or experienced. Like this story from Ed on how he scored tickets to a Cubs playoff game in 1984.

Speaker 4:
[01:24] Chicago Cubs incredibly made the MLB playoffs for the first time in like forever. I was really determined as a Cubs fan to go down to Wrigleyville and watch the game. There was a place on the corner of Clark and Grace. I got there about an hour before first pitch and it was really just me and the bartender there. I ordered my first beer and before you know it, I heard heavy footsteps right behind me, kind of shuffling. It was this big Chicago beat cop and he goes, hey kid, you know anyone wants a ticket for the game? I go, how much? Where's it at? 35 bucks, he says. Box seat, left field. I'll take it, I tell the cop and in the back of my mind, I'm waiting for a detective to walk in any moment and arrest me. Never happened. So, ended up watching the Cubs win big in that thrilling game, another beer in hand. And that's my most Chicago thing ever.

Speaker 3:
[02:21] 312 beer, it's a Chicago thing.

Speaker 1:
[02:42] Greg, that is a little bit of a song called Seven Degrees, which is the single from the new album by Freeko. Something worth waiting for. Friko traces its roots back to 2019, when Nico Capitan and Bailey Minzenberger were high school students at Evanston Township High. For a while, they were a trio, but by the time they signed to ATO Records, aka Dave Matthews Band's label, to release their debut, 2023, Where We've Been, Where We Go From Here, they were a duo and they toured a lot with some really prestigious gigs. And by that point, they were a quartet. It is now time for album number two. I think safe to say, one of the most anticipated records from Chicago and from the Indie Underground in the last couple of years to record this record, they worked with John Congleton, who we just mentioned last week when we were reviewing the Courtney Barnett record with a resume that runs from everybody, St. Vincent, to Ma Guaida, Courtney Barnett, Congleton seems to be the alt-indie underground producer of the moment. I said a lot of touring and that's reflected, I think, in Something Worth Waiting For from this much anticipated album. Let's play a song from this second album by Friko. It's called Guess. The album is Something Worth Waiting For on Sound Opinions.

Speaker 2:
[04:51] That is a song called Guess from the new Friko album, Something Worth Waiting For. Jim, as you said, Something Worth Waiting For is the album that everybody's waiting for. Everybody's waiting for. Who pays attention to indie rock.

Speaker 1:
[05:04] And yet, as Nico just sang, hardly enough in this world to make us happy.

Speaker 2:
[05:09] That song Guess is an example of what this album is all about. It keeps pushing you and the listener to the brink of exhaustion, and then it kicks it up another notch. With the guitars roaring, and then before it collapses, it escalates again. So there's like these crescendo after crescendo after crescendo, and then it drops down to a quiet, mournful moment. They're swinging for the arenas, Jim. They're going, they want to have these songs shouted back at them. I think the whole key to the album is that semi-ballad Alice. It's the one kind of respite in the middle of the record. You know, Alice, it's gonna be okay. And you can sing along anytime you need. You know, there's this desperation under that. You know, and I appreciate the youthful exuberance and, you know, the need to have the desperation for love and transcendence and something worth waiting for. You know, the vibe is, I'm gonna die as soon as I sing this song, so I'm going to pour everything I've got into this song. And the one thing about this album that sort of drives me nuts is the constant seeking for transcendence and catharsis. Like, how many catharsis do you need right in a row in the same song? It's almost like there's no sense of nuance or build.

Speaker 1:
[06:37] No.

Speaker 2:
[06:37] The great bands sort of save that moment for when you really need it. It's a build, and you're creating something. But it's almost like they see each of these songs as a discrete element, and they're not thinking of it in terms of an album. And I think they're just bashing you over the head over and over again.

Speaker 1:
[06:55] It doesn't sound like a Congleton production.

Speaker 2:
[06:57] It's weird, because I'm reminded of the debut albums by Arcade Fire, Japan Droids. Remember Connor Oberst when he was a Hot Thing? There's a lot of Connor Oberst here, yeah. Very emo-esque, kind of, you know. And Turnstile had some of that. And now we've got these guys.

Speaker 1:
[07:18] It's like they're aiming for neutral milk hotel, but playing it in an arena. And those two things don't go together.

Speaker 2:
[07:26] It just seems like... And again, I think there's some good songs here, but I just feel like they're, you know, Nico Capitan can contain himself. He doesn't know how to build a song.

Speaker 1:
[07:36] You want to kind of slap him upside the head. I hate this record. This is the most annoyed I've been spending a week, nonstop listening to an album since Geese Getting Killed last year. You know, I...

Speaker 2:
[07:49] I think they write better songs than Geese, I'll say that.

Speaker 1:
[07:51] Well, they don't have the schtick that Geese has about spewing random verbiage, but on the other hand, their lyrics are stupid. Like I said, hardly enough in this world to make us happy. And then they're singing about... Well, let's count down the modes of transit. We have trains, which they call Choo Choo's. Greg, Choo Choo's. They're talking about their bus, they're talking about the bicycle, they've got a song about hot air balloons. The only thing they're missing is a song about segways, for God's sake. Then there's those overblown arrangements. Your description was perfect. There can be too much crescendo, too much catharsis. And then his vocals, he's going for like Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse. You know, they toured with the Modest Mouse, they toured with the Flaming Lips, they've played all the big festivals. They've been infected by that 20, 30,000 people crowd in the park kind of disease. That kind of ruined Arcade Fire too, but Arcade Fire were better songwriters. This is a very annoying record. Why are we tackling it then? Because there's a lot of push behind Friko. There's a lot of buzz.

Speaker 2:
[09:09] They'll be filling those 15,000 seat arenas about another year, I think. There'll be headlining festivals over near the top.

Speaker 1:
[09:15] Well, I ain't going to be there. I don't know if you're going.

Speaker 2:
[09:19] The kids will love it, I'm sure. That's what we thought of the new album from Friko. We'd really love to hear from our audience. I know we've had a lot of listeners out there who do like this band. And I would love to hear from them. So share your thoughts in a voice message at soundopinions.org. And we might just play it on the show. Coming up, Julia Steiner of Rat Boys. That's In A Minute on Sound Opinions.

Speaker 1:
[09:45] Sound Opinions is sponsored by Quince. Spring is on the way. And this time of year always makes me rethink what's in my closet. Greg, I got shirts that are decades old. Quince makes high quality everyday essentials using premium materials like 100% European linen and their insanely soft flow-knit active wear fabric.

Speaker 2:
[10:07] You know, the best part is that their prices are 50 to 60% lower than similar brands. And how do they do that? Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So, you're paying for quality, not the brand markup. Quince has got a great selection of linen shirts and pants. And you know, when I go on vacation with Deb, this is the kind of clothes I like to wear. I can explore a new city, you know, and feel comfortable, and look good. Or somewhat good for me. What about you, Jim?

Speaker 1:
[10:37] Yeah, well, Greg, as listeners may know, both of us are now college professors, at least this spring. And Quince has plenty of well-made short-sleeve Oxford shirts, which keep me looking sharp in the classroom for a great price.

Speaker 2:
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Speaker 5:
[11:17] Sound Opinions is an independent production supported by listeners like me on Patreon. Join us in keeping independent music criticism in the world by clicking the link in this episode's description.

Speaker 2:
[11:33] And we're back. Ratboys has been added since 2010 and they've never been the kind of band you might imagine from a name like Ratboys. They began as an acoustic duo of Julia Steiner and Dave Sagan on campus at the University of Notre Dame. And after six albums, Ratboys are a confident quartet playing their joking genre of post-country all around the world, including Chicago's Millennium Park in July with Lucy Dacus.

Speaker 1:
[11:59] Ratboys are definitely on the rise, Greg, and they deserve it. Their latest album, Singin To An Empty Chair, is one of our favorites of the year so far. When we spoke with songwriter and singer Julia Steiner, we got a lot of insight into how the band got to this point and what matters to its members as artists. We started the interview by talking about the solid lineup they've had for a long time now, but realizing it wasn't always that way.

Speaker 6:
[12:26] We joke there's a whole Ratboys guild of drummers, like a union, Local 420 Ratboys Drummers Guild. We've toured with 10 different drummers over the years, so it's definitely been a winding road to get to this very solid four-piece unit that we operate as now, which has always been my dream to have this consistent lineup as a band. I think of my favorite band, The Beatles, they ended up where they ended up and it was so magical, but it wasn't always that way from the start. And so sometimes you just got to find your people eventually, like you said. So yeah, I mean, I got really lucky when I was 18, I met Dave, we met during freshman orientation at Notre Dame, like our first weekend on campus. And that was, that completely changed my life. Like he is still to this day, my most trusted collaborator and best friend, and honestly, like biggest inspiration musically. And so it was he and I, just the two of us for a while, and then started kind of adding his high school friends into the mix and, you know, people have lives and things, you know, like everyone needs to go their own way sometimes. So we would just take what we could get and play with any of our friends who would be down for even just one show. And eventually Sean and Marcus, you know, raised their hands and wanted to like really commit and be involved. And I'm so grateful, they're amazing players.

Speaker 1:
[13:56] But you guys started out, you and Dave started out playing as a duo, right?

Speaker 6:
[14:01] Yeah, yeah. So when we met, I didn't own an electric guitar or an amp really at all. Like I was playing acoustic guitar by myself pretty much exclusively. And so when we started, it was just me on acoustic and Dave was primarily playing bass.

Speaker 2:
[14:21] Was it a hobby? Was it like writing songs, playing guitar, thinking you might be in a band someday? Was that just sort of like a pipe dream, a casual hobby when you met Dave? What was your thinking about your future in music at that point?

Speaker 6:
[14:39] Oh yeah, very much so. We were not thinking about the future at all. We had very little like hustle or career aspirations at the beginning. We were seriously just like playing for the enjoyment of it and to entertain our friends and just connect with music in our friend groups. There was no room for disappointment because we really weren't like trying, which sounds kind of, I don't know, kind of funny in hindsight. But I think it actually kind of set us up well because we had zero pressure on ourselves, either like self-imposed or from any sort of outside source. So it was just a really slow, natural process of building this relationship over time. To be fair, we were both committed to finishing, to graduating from college. Dave was on a pretty big scholarship and my parents were paying a ton of money to send me to school and so we both wanted to finish what we started. So we knew we weren't, even if we had talked about playing music professionally, it definitely wouldn't have happened until after that.

Speaker 1:
[15:50] Do your parents at this point feel like they got their money's worth, Julia?

Speaker 6:
[15:56] Well, I mean, yeah. I'm so lucky. My parents are extremely supportive and have been this whole time. Yeah, I mean, I was an English major. I was hoping to be a journalist. That was like my professional plan going into school. And so I think they knew from the beginning that you were never going to make any money.

Speaker 1:
[16:17] Whether it was not making money in music or not making money in journalism.

Speaker 6:
[16:22] Right. They encouraged me to just to be a writer. And I'm so grateful for that because the world needs more writers. So here I am.

Speaker 2:
[16:31] Well, Ratboys, the name sounds like a hardcore punk band. You know, I would have been listening to that band right alongside Bad Brains or something like that in the early 80s or something. But obviously, you're not that. What are the origins of the name and how does that sort of stack up with getting booked early on especially, you know, like, Ratboys, what are you guys, right?

Speaker 6:
[16:56] That's pretty funny. Yeah, I think that definitely happened to us. Like in the early days when I was booking our shows myself, and it was very clear that the person who put us on the show had not pressed play on our bandcamp link because we were the only like not super heavy loud band on the bill. This is like especially back when it was just me and Dave. But yeah, I mean, we're all for that though. I mean, I love a mixed bill, so it was really fun. And we actually met some really good friends that way. But yeah, the name comes from it was my high school nickname. So one day when I was 14, all of my girlfriends and I were sitting around the lunch table and we were bored and decided to give each other disgusting, lewd nicknames. And mine was Rat Boy, and it was definitely the least crude of them. And probably the only one that's appropriate to say on the radio or in any public setting. I've read a lot of interviews with you, Julie.

Speaker 1:
[17:57] I've never read that story.

Speaker 6:
[17:59] Yeah, that was me. And so it became this little character that we would do. We kind of, we had aspirations of writing like a Rat Boy musical. And it just became kind of this like inside joke with my friends. And so when I started like recording the songs I was writing just by myself, like on a little tape recorder, I made a little burn CD, like demo CD, whatever, and called myself Rat Boy because that's what all my friends called me. And so then when I met Dave, no memories of having a conversation about it, but he was down to just keep that name and just keep playing. So we were Rat Boy for about a year. And then another Rat Boy found us and was very upset and sent us some threatening emails. And so we added the S.

Speaker 1:
[18:48] And where's the singular Rat Boy today?

Speaker 6:
[18:51] I don't know. We've never met. He lives in upstate New York, I think, or he did. And I wish him well. He mostly made like children's music. Another Rat Boy came up. There's a British Rat Boy, two words. White rapper from England. So I love to think we can just all coexist.

Speaker 2:
[19:16] We should point out that you have a background in Chicago. You went to school in Notre Dame. But were you were you born in Chicago? Did you grow up in Chicago?

Speaker 6:
[19:25] I didn't. I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. But my mom went to school up here and lived here for, I think, seven years after she finished school. Dave is from the South Suburbs. He's from Oak Forest. Yeah. When I met Dave and then came back to his hometown to meet the parents and meet his friends and stuff, there was this whole music scene happening in the South Suburbs in the early 2010s that was extremely vibrant and diverse and welcoming. So I just fell in love with it and met all these amazing people. So when I finished school, it was a no-brainer to just move here. I got some crappy internship at a PR firm downtown. Rent was really cheap in Avondale. So I just moved here with a roommate. I've been here ever since and I very much consider it home. I love it here.

Speaker 2:
[20:22] You and Dave, I guess, put out an EP in 2011, and first album came out in 2015. How did your songwriting evolve? I mean, were you writing songs right from the get-go and had a bunch of stuff and then got better at it as you went along? How did that emerge that you were writing these songs?

Speaker 6:
[20:43] Yeah. I mean, it's definitely been an evolution for sure. I mean, I started writing songs when I was like 13, I think, kind of right when I started learning how to play guitar. My, the very first songs I ever wrote were very much like to make my friends laugh, like inside jokes that we had, you know, that no one else would understand. These kind of like, yeah, just in references. And so from there it became very much, you know, me exploring like my feelings and like, you know, like even I look back to some of the songs I wrote as a teenager and it's very much like what I was learning about in school. Oh, we were learning about the Salem witch trials. Oh, like there's definitely, you know, pretty explicit references in some of the lyrics and, you know, it was pretty much like a filter for everything I was learning at the time. And I got a shout out. I went to this like kind of mini creative writing summer camp that my high school guidance counselor encouraged me to check out called the Young Writers Workshop at the University of Virginia. And did that in 2009, did like a 10 day songwriting course and that like really kind of opened my eyes to the idea of like workshopping and writing to a prompt. And you know, it gave me a lot of confidence and made a lot of friends, people I still talk to. And so that was a huge, huge step. And then, so yeah, I wrote some songs in high school and some of the ones that are on that first EP are those that I wrote during that time. And then yeah, when Dave and I met again, he was just a very inspiring person. And so I kept writing and haven't really stopped, which I'm grateful for somehow 15 years later, you know.

Speaker 1:
[22:30] I've read where you said you were never a very good fiction writer and obviously you didn't wind up pursuing journalism. Did songwriting, but you wanted to be a writer, right? And you start writing at 13.

Speaker 6:
[22:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[22:43] So did songwriting just become that outlet you needed?

Speaker 6:
[22:48] Yeah, it did. It did very much in the context of the other writing that I was doing in college, which there was lots of writing going on in addition to songwriting. It rose to the top, but not at the expense of those other things. It was just something that I could do for my own clarity and enjoyment. And yeah, it's something I take seriously. It's fun.

Speaker 2:
[23:17] When did the songwriting get to the point where you felt like this was a real thing? I mean, I assume it always was in some ways, but you've taken a rap voice. There's an incredible amount of longevity here in a track record that you have. You've done a bunch of recordings. You've toured. When did this become, oh, this is going to be the center of my life now. As a writer, did you feel you made some steps in that area where stuff was starting to get, it was almost becoming too good to ignore, so to speak?

Speaker 6:
[23:51] That's a really good question. I've definitely thought about that in the terms of our career more so. Because there was a moment in 2017 where we started working with a booking agent, and that was a huge stamp of validation that we could actually maybe pursue this in a professional way and not just play basements forever. So that was huge.

Speaker 1:
[24:15] I got to interject for people who don't understand, right? You go from nonstop emailing phone calls, begging the local dive or somebody's basement to let you play, to now you don't have to worry about that. Somebody says, here's 12 gigs we've lined up for the next three months.

Speaker 6:
[24:36] Yep. I mean, that was huge. If you look back at our Instagram or just the NLs of Ratboys, you can see when that switch flipped because all of a sudden, we got to open for bands on these cool tours and all of these opportunities were presented to us that I would have had to really seek out. I didn't even know they were out there. So that was huge. I got to say, back in my day, it was Facebook messaging. That was the main mode of communication for the late early aughts, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[25:09] Your phone just shows how old I am. You used to have to call the club. Tuesday between two and four.

Speaker 6:
[25:18] Yup, yeah. Luckily, the rise of email and instant messaging made that a little bit easier for us. And I gotta shout out the Chicago Venues, who answered my emails, like Subterranean and Bee Kitchen and ShoeBuzz and all these. But they were down to book a band who had never really played shows. And so that's kind of how we got our start. But anyway, so, but beyond that, like, writing wise, I have never thought about that really. But I remember I wrote a song called Elvis Is In The Freezer, which is about my cat Elvis, who passed away and we kept him in the freezer because we didn't, we weren't ready to say goodbye. And so I remember like hearing my mom say that sentence and thought, oh, that's so incredible, like I need to write that down. And so putting that in a song, and then I remember showing it to my roommate at the time. I think I was a senior by that point and she loved it, you know, and she was like so encouraging and was like, that one is so, so, so good. And it felt just really like I had done a good job. And I think that was a moment for me where I, yeah, just like felt like I kind of knew what I was doing a little bit, just a little bit more confidence, which you can never get in. Well maybe you can't get enough of that, but yeah, it's nice to have some thumbs up sometimes.

Speaker 2:
[26:55] When we return, more of our interview with Rat Boyz, that's in a minute on Sound Opinions. And we're back. We're in the middle of our conversation with Julia Steiner of Rat Boys. So far, we've been focusing on Julia's writing, but one thing we love about Rat Boys is the band's musical dynamics.

Speaker 1:
[27:17] The lyrics are only less than half of the equation. If we didn't have this incredible music backing things up.

Speaker 6:
[27:23] Of course.

Speaker 1:
[27:24] So that brings us to the title of the sixth album, Singin To An Empty Chair, which I've read in a couple of places what that's about, but it's therapy, isn't it? It's catharsis. It's like, I got these feelings. I gotta get them out.

Speaker 6:
[27:42] Yeah, totally. It's kind of this last-ditch effort to, yeah, say out loud all of these cloudy thoughts that are occupying your brain. I don't know if you guys have heard of this. It's this thing called the empty chair technique, which my therapist, she kind of gently recommended to me as a way to figure out what's going on and kind of clarify things, you know? And so basically what you do is you just sit in a room alone and sit across from an empty chair and have a conversation as if someone is sitting there who either physically can't be present or it's too difficult or strained or anything like that. So I did that and recorded myself and listened back and it helped a lot. And I was able to kind of, yeah, see things in a clearer way. And it ultimately helped me finish this song, where the song title comes from. And yeah, I'm excited for people to hear it. It's vulnerable and long and kind of everything I have to say.

Speaker 1:
[28:48] Well, yeah, and it's even more powerful than talking is to be singing to this chair, to this forest. You know, if I had to break down what characterizes Rat Boy's albums, you know, to one thing, there's this mix of vulnerability and quiet and tenderness that will suddenly erupt into wonderful squalls of noise, right? Just like life. How do you and Dave and your bandmates balance, I mean, you know, it's the age-old formula, the quiet, the loud, right? That mix, that, but how does that play out when a song is coming together and you're playing it for the first time as a band? I mean, do you turn to them and just say, all right, freak out here?

Speaker 6:
[30:14] I should do that. I honestly, that's a good move. Yeah, it's kind of different each time. Like I think I usually bring a voice memo or some sort of really sparse demo to the guys and we'll listen to it together. And yeah, just kind of start playing it. And I think the key, and this is something that Dave helped me realize early on, is becoming comfortable with repetition and just playing something a lot and kind of allowing it to change and for certain things to jump out at you or reveal themselves is kind of the name of the game. And that doesn't mean like playing it 10 times in a night. It's more so playing it once a week for like 10 weeks. And you kind of, you return to it. We've gotten in a good practice too, and I'm grateful Dave handles this, but we record our practices. So we're able to listen back and kind of chart how things are developing. And I mean, dynamics are like that kind of push and pull between loud and quiet is really important to us. I think we all realize by now, like how that's kind of the secret ingredient to so many amazing recordings and records overall, like throughout the track list of our favorite records, the way that that like tension and release, that like interplay happens. And so we pay, yeah, we like, we're sensitive to that and enjoy kind of those moments of release and like, and building tension on the other side. But I don't know if we talk about it too much. It's just kind of a, something we were all on the same page about.

Speaker 1:
[31:51] Nothing beats recording your rehearsals, Greg, right? Because there's nothing worse than coming in after the last week and everybody says, man, that was so good. Let's do that again. And you can't remember what it was.

Speaker 6:
[32:05] Totally. I still make the mistake sometimes when I'm just playing guitar alone of not recording myself. I'll never remember what it was, but I try to remember.

Speaker 1:
[32:15] I swear it was better before. But we go through this as writers. Every once in a while, Microsoft Word eats your piece, and then what you rebuild is never as good as what you had.

Speaker 2:
[32:25] Right. Totally. Well, you want to find that magic moment, right? Where, oh, that was some moment, and it's hard to replicate. Like, okay, the first time was the best time, you know?

Speaker 6:
[32:38] First thought is almost always best thought, or quite often, I should say.

Speaker 2:
[32:42] I'm curious because it sounds like, okay, so you bring in a skeleton of, you've got this idea for the song and you've got some words, and it sounds like with the band in the room, you're flushing it out. It becomes something, it turns into something. Correct me if I'm, but I'm getting that impression. Then where does Chris Walla, who's produced the last couple of records, formerly of Death Camp For Cutie, I really admire Chris as a producer and also a songwriter and guitarist and all that. But where does he fit in with what you're doing as a band?

Speaker 6:
[33:18] Yeah, he's added so much. I think this time where he comes in, for both of these records, I think, we brought him in when we were pretty far along with the writing process and the arranging process for all of the songs. And luckily for both of these, for The Window and this new record, we had more ideas on the table than we were going to end up using. So Chris was really valuable in a lot of the pre-production, helping us decide which ideas to focus on. And oftentimes we would be so on the same page about it, which was so cool. There's a song on the new record called What's Right, which features these two different worlds that are bridged together. And those two different sections of the song were two different demos that the four of us had already talked about potentially combining. And we hadn't mentioned that to Chris and then he had the same idea. So things like that are are always really exciting. And just when we're really copacetic like that. But yeah, I mean, the first time that we got to work with him on The Window, I just sent him all the voice memos I had in the pot. You know, I shouldn't say all the voice memos I had. I made a folder with like, you know, 25 or something like selections, you know. And Chris sent back, I think this is still to this day, the favorite email I've ever received. He sent pretty much like two to three sentences, or even just a phrase for some of the songs, just like describing them. And some of them were, this was our first introduction to kind of the way that Chris approaches music, which is very much not like, oh, maybe bump this up a BPM or like, oh, maybe we should change the key. It was like, oh, this, this sounds a little bit like, like 7 p.m., but I wonder what it would sound like if it was more 3 p.m. or maybe 3 a.m. Like, like, or he was like, this, I remember one of them was, this sounds like if you went to the cat store or like the animal shelter to adopt a cat, but you ended up taking home a ferret. And we were like, great, you know, yes. And so like, he is just such, he has this intangible like curiosity and sense of fun that he brings to the studio, combined with this like, you know, like massive level of experience and technical know-how. And he's really good at recording to tape and knows how to do that. And that's kind of a lost art. And so, yeah, it's everything, you know, and he's a great friend and we really trust him. And we just clicked right away, which is something I wasn't fully expecting because he was a hero of ours growing up. And they say, don't meet your heroes, you know, but I'm really glad to say that he, like, proved that wrong in our case.

Speaker 2:
[36:14] You know, you talk about vulnerability, too. I think that's very apparent on this new record, obviously. And we were blown away by The Window, the COVID record. The COVID record.

Speaker 6:
[36:24] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:25] Everybody of any worth has a COVID record.

Speaker 2:
[36:28] Your experience with your grandmother, I guess, right, was in a nursing home or retirement home where they wall you off from people you love, which happened, you know, the same thing happened with me and my dad, where I literally could not see him in person for about a year. You know, it was all, you know, phone calls and things like that.

Speaker 6:
[36:51] Yeah, that's really hard.

Speaker 2:
[36:53] So my question is, though, this vulnerability, you know, talking about real life things, real life emotions, is there ever a point where you sort of say, well, I don't want to spill my guts here. I mean, how do you sort of evolve as a writer in terms of being able to be that honest about what's going on in your life and then universalizing it?

Speaker 6:
[37:18] Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the big, like, quest that I'm on. Or I don't know if quest is the right word, because I'm not sure it'll have an end point. But yeah, that's like kind of what I'm really interested in is, finding that sweet spot where I feel really honest, and where I feel like I am adequately and expressively sharing who I am with anyone who chooses to listen to our music, and at the same time, leaving things open enough for people to be able to relate, or put themselves at the center of the songs. Yeah. It's something that I don't take for granted. I think that's something that kind of makes us uniquely human, our ability to connect and be vulnerable, and I'm proud that there has, I think I have, I don't know if I've gotten better is what I want to say, but I feel like I'm getting somewhere with that idea of being authentic to myself in writing. I think back to track one on The Window, which is called Making Noise For the Ones You Love, and that song was kind of all about me confronting this urge to repress my grief or emotions in real time. The chorus is like, I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to rip my brain apart or whatever. And now here we are like three years later, and I'm talking about that for like eight minutes, you know?

Speaker 1:
[38:59] To An Empty Chair.

Speaker 6:
[39:00] Heidel track or whatever. To An Empty Chair, but still, you know, it counts. And so, yeah, it's a process, and I don't know, we'll see where it takes me. But yeah, some of my favorite, so many of my favorite songwriters are just really generous with sharing who they are. And sometimes it feels a little scary to be the one doing that, but at the same time, I remind myself, like, that's something I really admire in other writers. And so, why not, you know, like who am I to deny that for anyone else?

Speaker 1:
[39:29] Well, Julia, I'd love to hear you talk about the phenomenal one-two punch at the end of this record. Burn It Down, penultimate track, maybe the angriest, I think, Ratboys has ever been. Certainly kind of a flame thrower. And then we have At Peace in the Hundred Acre Woods, which is a Winnie the Pooh reference.

Speaker 6:
[39:52] Yes, my favorite. Yeah, these two songs feel kind of linked in this cool way. We are really big album sequencing nerds. If I ever get an opportunity to teach one of these little songwriting courses or whatever someday, there's going to be a whole day about album sequencing because I really do think it does so much to elevate individual songs or contextualize them. But yeah, these two songs together, we were very intentional about putting them at the end of the record. Burn It Down has this big fiery climax that feels like you have to really get there, like get through all of these experiences, all of this communication and emotion to really let yourself feel it. Yeah, that was a song that has taken a long time to write, and I'm really just so grateful that it's out. And I started working on that one in the summer of 2020, when all the protests were happening up in Minneapolis in reaction to the murder of George Floyd.

Speaker 1:
[41:08] The first protest in Minneapolis.

Speaker 6:
[41:09] The first protest in Minneapolis, exactly. And it's so crazy that we are back there now, and it's spooky and so disheartening. But yeah, I think the idea there was that I was feeling so powerless, just witnessing this from afar and this idea of, when have things gone too far? When do we decide that it might actually be a good idea to start over, or just to fully reset the way that we think about how we treat each other and how our society acts as one. Obviously, these are big ideas, but you can't tackle it all in a song. But the feeling hopefully is there, and it's something that we played that song live for the first time, two days after Trump got elected again in 2024. It felt immediately very important and cathartic to play this song live, so we are going to do it every night this year that we can, and every show we play, and just talk about our country, because life's too short not to try to make it better.

Speaker 2:
[42:30] Well, we were just talking about that. I don't think people perceive you necessarily, they're a political band, but when you talk about Burn It Down or World Gone Madly, there's definitely a sense of that. And the fact that you were Bernie Sanders' opening act. You know, so clearly that's there. You know, that's a sensibility that you bring to what you're, how you're perceiving the world and in your songwriting. So the whole idea of addressing the world, political commentary, social commentary, some people look askance at that, like, oh, stay in your lane, don't do that. What's your attitude towards those kind of elements in art and music?

Speaker 6:
[43:18] I mean, yeah, we're, we definitely wouldn't want to be preachy or, or seem like we feel like we know more than someone else or that we, you know, there's no desire to condescend. I think, yeah, my thought is like, I'm very grateful that I was raised in a pretty empathetic household and that compassion was, you know, you know, part of my outlook from a young age. I don't know if, oddly, ironically, perhaps now, because I'm not religious at all, but I was Catholic growing up and, you know, raised going to Catholic school. And the good part of Catholicism really does focus on social justice and people caring for one another and, you know, loving your neighbor and, you know, you know, like embrace the stranger, all that stuff. And so it's just part of my, part of our belief system. And I think anyone who is empathetic or wants to be, that inherently, you know, becomes a political choice. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's something that we should prioritize and we can all, you know, unite in that and, and yeah, try to love each other more and, and, and figure it out. I mean, God, we're just all, everything's so divided and fractured nowadays. Social media makes it so much worse. It's so easy to forget how little interaction you actually have with people who might think differently from you. And so trying to, trying to be self aware about that and, and bridge that gap somehow is, is a good goal to keep in mind.

Speaker 1:
[44:56] Well, we kind of blew past At Peace in the Hundred Acre Woods. But if you, if you look at, you know, the denizens of Pooh Corner, right? You know, they're all damaged in some way, right?

Speaker 6:
[45:09] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[45:10] And the way they survive and succeed in the world is through community.

Speaker 6:
[45:16] That's exactly it. And, and they do so in a way that's very patient and very non-judgmental. And yeah, I grew up reading those stories and appreciated them at the time as just, you know, being sweet and fun and, you know, memorable. And but now I look back and I'm like, whoa, this is kind of like a template for, I think, how the best relationships could be. And Marcus had this really nice image that I keep coming back to, which is that, you know, sometimes in nature, you know, what's the word, arborist, psychologist, whatever, we'll do this sort of controlled burn in a forest and, you know, to stimulate the health or the regrowth of an area. And so in my mind, it's like, that's sort of what's happening on Burn It Down. And then we like to think that for the last track, we've fast forwarded into the future. And, you know, the forest is regrown and the wood is flourishing. And here we are, you know, not perfect, but trying to support each other and, you know, it's a brand new day, literally. It sounds maybe a little bit utopian, but I just, I think that's a worthy goal, you know, or like a sort of thing to aspire to. And we wanted to leave the record with that sense of hope and not just, you know, this feeling of things are miserable and what are we going to do?

Speaker 2:
[47:09] It's a steady climb. You're not a new band, and you're not a superstar band, but you're kind of in that solid mid-tier. What's that world like now for a band at your level? Because I think you're in kind of a unique space right now. There's not many bands of your vintage that can say, we've done this for 15 years.

Speaker 6:
[47:30] That's a really good question, because I think a lot of the bands that we kind of consider role models or look up to, who do that? Like who have been around for a long time and have this sort of consistent relationship with their audience and ticket sales and they're touring and they're still active. Those bands are pretty much all Gen X. And so I don't really know. I mean, we still tour in a van. Like the four of us each have side jobs when we're not touring very much. And so it's not an easy prospect for anyone to depend on this to be your income, especially with the streaming model. I really do wonder kind of what the future is, because the way that the music is now, it's almost treated more like a public utility or something. It's like if suddenly you weren't able to get water out of your sink or turn on the lights, there would be riots. Music is kind of just a dripping faucet now, or just fully turned on. And so it's just a totally different way to look at things. And that jump of touring in a van versus a bus is a huge jump. And I honestly, I don't know if we'll get there, that there's so many logistics that goes into touring as it scales up with hiring a crew, and just the added costs of extra hotel rooms and tolls. And there's so much that goes into the logistics financially of being a band. And we've managed to keep things really scrappy so far. And that's, I think, really the only reason besides our love for doing this. That's the only real like practical behind the scenes reason that we've been able to keep doing this is because we've never had a crew. And we all work when we're home. And so it's, yeah, I don't really know how to answer your question because we're kind of figuring it out still. But I am grateful that we're still able to do this. And we have peers who are like crushing it as well. And so we look to them as a model for that. And God, especially like, you know, we have friends now who have kids and they bring them on the road sometimes. And just like that whole part of it, too, we're all in our 30s trying to figure out if having families is going to be a part of our lives. And so it's an ongoing, you know, discussion. We're taking it one day at a time.

Speaker 2:
[50:16] I think you did sort of answer the question because you said the word love came up, you know, which is, you really love doing this. And, you know, I think the flip side of that is that eventually something you love, you burn out on it because it's kind of a really, it's not an easy way to make a living, let's put it that way. Those two hours on stage, I'm sure are magical, but, you know, the time all that goes around that, it makes it difficult, right?

Speaker 6:
[50:45] Yeah, I mean, yeah. And we, so far, we, you know, sell our own merch most nights, and we love that stuff, and I like love driving, so that part of tour, if we did ever end up in a tour bus, I would miss, you know, because I love that experience of like being in control behind the wheel on the road and listening to records. We pretty much constantly listen to music when we're in the van, so that's like a part of tour we do enjoy, but yeah, I mean, the early mornings, the like inevitable tours, sickness, you know, there's always, there's a lot that goes into it that's outside of those hours on stage, like you said, that is pretty taxing, but it is all about the music, and I don't know, we have a good time.

Speaker 1:
[51:30] So you once jokingly said, Rat Boys is post-country, and now all the bloggers who come to interview you, it's like, what do you mean by post-country?

Speaker 6:
[51:41] Oh my God, they were like up in arms, I don't know, or they were just really, really wondering what I meant. And I was kind of joking, but jokes on them, because the tables have turned and post-country has come to roost. So I feel a little vindicated, I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 2:
[51:59] Because of that, people would reach for country influences in your songs.

Speaker 6:
[52:04] They do, they say that, and it kind of shocks me. People have mentioned that in certain songs of ours I don't think sound country at all. And it always kind of blows my mind. I think I just have this latent accent, kind of, from growing up in Kentucky. And sometimes I lean into it and I feel it and I like it. But other times I'm not thinking about it at all, but it somehow comes across. I don't know. But I love country music, so I take it as a compliment. The whole joke with post-country was like, right when I first met Dave, he was, he earnestly, like straight-faced, and he described something to me as a post-rock band. And I was like, and then kept talking. I was like, hold on, hold on. Like, what? What did you just say? I had never heard that before, and I just thought it was the funniest thing ever. And so I was like, okay, great. We can put post on anything and call it a day. So I love it.

Speaker 1:
[52:58] We've been talking to Julia Steiner of Rat Boys, fantastic new album, Singin To An Empty Chair. Thank you, Julia, for spending some time with us.

Speaker 6:
[53:06] You too, we're big fans of y'all. So thanks for wanting to chat.

Speaker 1:
[53:15] That wraps up our chat with Julia Steiner of Rat Boys. And as always, we want to hear from you. Leave us a voice message with your thoughts on our website, soundopinions.org. Greg, what is on the show next week?

Speaker 2:
[53:29] Next week, Jim, in depth look at Lou Reed's career, especially the solo stuff. A lot of focus on the music as well, with Will Hermes, who wrote a fine biography of Lou. Don't forget to check out our bonus podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts, and join us on Patreon for our Monday podcast, everything else.

Speaker 1:
[53:51] Thanks as always to that Patreon community, especially Kendra Schuerlein of Tucson, Arizona, who listens to AZPM Public Radio. This episode of Sound Opinions was produced by Andrew Gill, with help from Alex Claiborne and Max Hatlam. Our business development manager is Gary Yonker, and our social media consultant is Katie Kott.

Speaker 7:
[54:19] Hi, I am Mandy Moore.

Speaker 5:
[54:20] Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan, and we host the podcast That Was Us, now on Headgum.

Speaker 7:
[54:26] Each episode, we're gonna go into a deep dive from our show, This Is Us. We're gonna go episode by episode. We're also gonna pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors.

Speaker 4:
[54:39] Are we gonna cry? Yes.

Speaker 6:
[54:41] A little bit.

Speaker 4:
[54:42] Are we gonna laugh?

Speaker 6:
[54:42] Often. A lot.

Speaker 5:
[54:43] A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man.

Speaker 1:
[54:46] Listen to That Was Us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.