Over the last five years Rat & Co have established quite a following behind their unique brand of music. Being a three-piece electronic band that plays entirely instrumental music, fusing ambience with futuristic grooves has become the staple sound of the band and has amazed crowds all over Australia at festivals including the likes of Sugar Mountain and Strawberry Fields.
The band have just finished the mixing on their third full length album and according to founding member Joshua Delaney, the recording process was quite overwhelming. “I haven’t had enough time to process it to be honest. We literally finished it a week ago and I haven’t had time to sit on it and think about it too much yet.
“It’s definitely different from our last releases and that’s about all I can tell you. It’s still the same genre, still the same band, still sounds the same, it’s just the song writing has changed substantially and we have got a few featured singers on it. I am singing lyrics now, so there is a bit of difference in that respect.”
During the last few years with the band, Josh has well and truly experienced what Australia has to offer in terms of the electronic scene. “The only reason I would put electronic as a little community is because there isn’t actually that many of us and it is a fairly new genre, so it’s constantly changing. People will only last like two years and then drop off completely and you will never hear of them again. It’s different in the rock scene. A band can be on their fifth album and they are still playing in the front bar at the Tote. But I think there is actually a better community in the rock community to be honest.
“There is a certain number of people [in the electronic scene] who have been going for ages and we seem to all know each other because you have to kind of play gigs with each other. If you play like three or four festivals, you have most likely played with half of Australia’s electronic line-up.”
The boys will be hitting the road on a five stop Australian Tour, finishing off at this year’s leg of the beloved Kennedys Creek Music Festival. According to Josh, this festival set will be a little bit out of the bands comfort zone but are still very keen to see what’s in store.
“[It] Should be fun. We are kind of the token weird electronic band it seems at the moment, which I am fine with because like every other act on the bill is completely rock, so we are going to have to pull out all our stops to fit on the line-up at all.
“A lot of festivals aren’t diverse at all so it’s weird to be on one of those festivals [that is musically diverse] because we are a lot different to all the acts, so it will be interesting.”
If you’re not going to make it to the festival, Rat & Co are also playing at Howler in Melbourne on the 16th of September.
Written by Alex Callan
When & Where: Kennedys Creek Music Festival – October 21-22