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While numerous rockers have drawn from high fantasy, few have truly lived the fantasy lifestyle. Admittedly, they could adorn their record jackets with ghouls, goblins, chained damsels and strong fighters, but has any musician ever been forced to find a misplaced mythical horn from a snowy field in the heart of winter? Did a guitarist spent time peering in the rear of a traveling vehicle, repairing their own armor?

Embracing the Mythos

Established in 2019, the Brooklyn-based Castle Rat have dealt with these exact challenges and others as they live out their heroic dreams. From knightly, memorable anthems to eye-popping live shows, costume design, music videos and album art, they’re not so much a rock act as a total artistic immersion.

“It wasn’t planned to be a outfit with characters,” explains vocalist, guitarist, sword-carrier and visionary Riley Pinkerton as the band’s tour van drives from a sold-out gig in Cologne to a second one in another town – they are playing five gigs in the UK now. “After a couple of performances and were scheduled on a October show, where I decided spontaneously to wear a costume. Everything was highly handmade, but we had a blast and the energy was incredible. I thought, ‘What if we could have so much excitement every time?’”

Development of Castle Rat

After that, the band – which features Pinkerton as the “Rat Queen” joined by a medic from history (bass player), proud bloodsucker (guitarist) and mysterious druid (rhythm keeper) – never turned back. The new record, the follow-up record, conjures visions of famous rock groups joining forces to battle their way through a Frank Frazetta fantasy world – a heroic opus that places them on the edge of bigger achievements.

This album was a first for Pinkerton in that she opened the floor to her collaborators. “This helped a much better album,” she says of the collaborative process. “I struggled at first – There was a sense of a particular degree of pride being a woman in music working independently. There’ve been so many times where I finished performing and a person will say, ‘The band write great riffs!’ and I respond, ‘Listen – I wrote all that.’”

Creative Output and Ideas

As the band’s stature has expanded, so has the scale of their production design. “The saying I live by is always that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton chuckles. She was originally on track for a university studies in art before hesitating at the idea of financial burden. “What’s enjoyable about Castle Rat is there’s so many different ways to express artistry,” she says. “Whether it’s crafting disguises, attire creation, figuring out video editing music videos … everything is I am unfamiliar with, but it’s exciting to figure it out in the moment.”

As if building the ensemble’s complex backstory (“The team is pushing me to record it because all the ideas are,” Riley says, pointing to her head) and making clothing wasn’t enough, the vocalist learned on her own how to create armor – a challenging endeavor, though she admittedly delegated her completely original scale armor design to a New York-based specialist. “It feels like actual armour,” she grins.

Fan Response and Obstacles

What about the crowd? They embraced the fake blood, soft weapons and papier-mache rat skulls with equal enthusiasm as the band. “We performed a gig in the Motor City and it resembled a Renaissance fair,” reminisces Riley fondly. “The whole crowd was in cloaks, wool garments, armor.”

However, this doesn’t mean, nevertheless, that life on the road as fantasy adventurers has been easy. “Each item is frequently damaged and becomes fixed temporarily,” Riley says. “Additionally I get countless concepts as to how I desire the presentation, but we are on the move in a vehicle with restricted capacity. It’s an interesting challenge to create the impression like a grand epic, then compress it into a small space.”

We’ve encountered additional practical issues that didn’t affect fictional warriors. “We did have an ‘uh-oh’ moment when we played SonicBlast festival in Portugal and my suitcase – which had my weapon in it – was misplaced,” says Riley. “It was a nightmare, because there is no an different option of the concert where I lack a sword.”

Future Ambitions

Like a true warrior queen, Riley is gung-ho about the what’s next. “I want to go to the top – I dream of large venues,” she says. “The key element that’s truly essential to me is preserving the DIY aesthetic, ensuring all elements is handmade. This is a feature I want to stay authentic to, no matter what we scale to. Plus, I desire to ride out on a magical horse every night. Remember how some artists do the motorcycle thing? Exactly that, but with a unicorn.”