🔗 Share this article

While numerous rockers have drawn from high fantasy, only a handful have genuinely embodied the fantasy existence. Admittedly, they could adorn their album sleeves with ghouls, imps, captive women and brawny barbarians, but has an artist ever been forced to find a missing mythical horn from a snowy field in the depths of winter? Has a guitarist taken the time squinting in the back of a traveling vehicle, repairing their own chainmail?

Embracing the Mythos

Created in 2019, the Brooklyn-based Castle Rat have encountered these exact challenges and others as they live out their epic fantasies. Starting with knightly, catchy anthems to eye-popping performances, attire styling, visuals and cover artwork, they’re not just a metal band as a total artistic immersion.

“It wasn’t planned to be a outfit with characters,” explains singer, guitarist, blade-handler and visionary Riley Pinkerton as the band’s tour van drives from a full-capacity concert in a German city to one more in another town – they are playing several shows in the UK currently. “Initially, we performed twice and received an offer on a spooky event, where I made a last-minute decision to dress up. The entire setup was super-DIY, but we had a blast and the feeling in the room was unforgettable. I realized, ‘Imagine if we could have this much fun always?’”

The Band’s Evolution

Since then, the ensemble – which features Pinkerton as the “Queen Rat” together with a plague doctor (low-end instrumentalist), proud bloodsucker (six-string player) and mysterious druid (drummer) – continued forward. The new record, the band’s second album, brings to mind of classic metal icons uniting to battle their way through a heroic art landscape – a heroic opus that places them on the verge of far grander things.

The Bestiary was a new experience for Pinkerton in that she welcomed contributions to her collaborators. “This helped a lot stronger record,” she says of the team effort. “I had difficulty at first – There was a sense of a particular degree of pride being a woman in music doing everything solo. There have been so many times where I’ve got off stage and a person will say, ‘The other members compose cool melodies!’ and I’m like, ‘Listen – I wrote all that.’”

Creative Output and Ideas

With their growing popularity has grown, so has the breadth of their production design. “My motto is always that if an effort matters, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton smiles. Initially, she was on track for a university studies in art before balking at the idea of financial burden. “The exciting part about Castle Rat is there’s various avenues to apply creativity,” she says. “From making masks, attire creation, figuring out video editing song visuals … it’s all stuff I am unfamiliar with, but it’s enjoyable to figure it out on the fly.”

Even though developing the band’s intricate lore (“The team is pushing me to record it because everything is stored,” Riley says, tapping her head) and sewing costumes wasn’t enough, the singer learned on her own how to make chainmail – a difficult task, though she admittedly delegated her brand-new scale armor design to a New York-based specialist. “It feels like actual armour,” she smiles proudly.

Audience Reaction and Challenges

As for audiences? They took to the fake blood, soft weapons and crafted rodent bones with equal enthusiasm as the group. “We had a show in the Motor City and it resembled a historical festival,” remembers Riley with affection. “The whole crowd was in capes, wool garments, armor.”

This isn’t to say, however, that touring existence as sword’n’sorcery vagabonds has been easy. “Each item is always failing and gets fixed temporarily,” Riley says. “Additionally I’ll have endless ideas as to how I want things to look, but we’re traveling in a bus with only so much space. It’s a fascinating test to make it feel like a larger-than-life story, then pack it down into nothing.”

There have been additional practical issues that didn’t affect mythic characters. “We did have an ‘disastrous’ moment when we played a Portuguese festival in the European country and my suitcase – which had my blade in it – got lost,” says Riley. “That was a terrible situation, because there is no an backup plan of the performance where I don’t have a weapon.”

Goals Ahead

Like a true warrior queen, Riley is enthusiastic about the days to come. “I want to go as far as possible – let’s do stadiums,” she says. “The only thing that’s really important to me is maintaining the DIY aesthetic, making sure all elements is crafted by us. That’s an element I want to remain faithful to, whatever we achieve. Plus, I want to make an entrance on a magical horse at all performances. You know how legends use vehicles in concerts? Exactly that, but on a mythical creature.”