Friend hangs around specific events — a birthday, a big game, Flag Day — can be pretty great. But some of the best ones happen for no particular reason at all.
Such was the case for Monday’s Studio Milwaukee Session with Ratboys. While the overwhelming majority of these performances take place in the midst of a tour or album drop, the quarter from Chicago had neither. They’ve started rolling out singles in advance of their next album, Singin’ to an Empty Chair, which is still nearly three months from its release date. They’ll hit the road in support of that record (including a March 14 stop at the Vivarium), but not until the end of February.
This was, essentially, a “we were in the neighborhood” Studio Milwaukee Session.
Like a good friend does in that situation, we invited them in to hang out, eat a little pizza and talk about what everyone’s been up to. In Ratboys’ case, the answer was: Hanging out with famed producer Chris Walla in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin and making what sounds like another kick-ass album.
We can say that with some confidence because the session’s entire set list was songs from Singing’ to an Empty Chair, starting with new single “Anywhere” and its canine backstory (courtesy of guitarist Dave Sagan’s family dog, who “loses his mind a little bit whenever Dave's mom goes away,” as lead vocalist Julia Steiner put it).
That and the other three tracks the band played live made it pretty clear the things we love about Ratboys — hooky instrumentation, locked-in lyrics, a healthy amount of good ol’ rockin’ out — found their way into the album. One of the new elements is the more personal approach to songwriting for Steiner, who started therapy a couple years ago and was working through some rough waters with a family member.
“It feels kind of radical to me, but in a very exciting, sort of liberating way,” Steiner told Erin Wolf during the mid-set interview. “I never had the experience until now of directly using a therapy exercise as a way to sort of unlock my own communication, but also songwriting. It really ended up being so copacetic in a way that I was not expecting.”
She and bass player Sean Neumann also talked about working with the Willy Wonka-esque Chris Walla (whose dance moves informed one of the album’s tracks), how they all ended up recording in a cabin in rural Wisconsin, which band member is a Real Chili enthusiast and which one is a true chili savant.
You can hear the broadcast portion of the session using the player at the top of the page, and if you want to catch the next one in person, visit our membership page to find out how to score an invite to every single one of our Studio Milwaukee Sessions.
Studio MKE: Ratboys set list
- “Anywhere”
- “Penny in the Lake”
- “What's Right?”
- “The World, So Madly” (non-broadcast performance)
