🔗 Share this article

While many musicians have drawn from fantasy lore, few have fully embraced the enchanted existence. Admittedly, they could decorate their record jackets with monsters, beasts, captive women and brawny barbarians, but has an artist ever needed to recover a lost horn from a unicorn from a frost-covered ground in the midst of winter? Did anyone taken the time straining their eyes in the back of a traveling vehicle, mending their own armor?

Living the Fantasy

Created in 2019, Brooklyn’s Castle Rat have dealt with both these scenarios and others as they act out their grand tales. From knightly, catchy tunes to stunning live shows, costume design, visuals and record designs, they’re not so much a heavy metal group as a full immersive experience.

“Castle Rat wasn’t meant to be a themed musical group,” says singer, guitarist, sword-carrier and visionary Riley Pinkerton as the band’s tour van travels from a packed show in a German city to another in Aschaffenburg – they have several shows in the UK currently. “We played two shows and received an offer on a spooky event, where I chose at the final moment to dress up. The entire setup was super-DIY, but we had a blast and the atmosphere was unforgettable. It occurred to me, ‘Imagine if we could have such enjoyment always?’”

The Band’s Evolution

After that, the band – which includes Pinkerton as the “Queen Rat” alongside a medic from history (low-end instrumentalist), aristocratic undead (guitarist) and enigmatic nature priest (rhythm keeper) – never turned back. Their latest album, the band’s second album, evokes images of classic metal icons uniting to battle their way through a mythical painted realm – a heroic opus that places them on the verge of bigger achievements.

The Bestiary was a new experience for Pinkerton in that she welcomed contributions to her fellow members. “That contributed to a more powerful record,” she says of the group work. “It was challenging at first – I’d always felt a certain amount of satisfaction being a woman in music going it alone. There have been so many times where after a show and some guy will say, ‘The other members create awesome guitar parts!’ and I think, ‘Listen – I composed all that.’”

Creative Output and Ideas

As the band’s stature has increased, 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 smiles. At first, she had been on course for a fine art degree before balking at the prospect of so much debt. “The exciting part about Castle Rat is there’s various avenues to apply creativity,” she says. “Be it making masks, outfit planning, figuring out video editing clips … these are all things I don’t know how to do, but it’s fun to discover in the moment.”

As if creating the ensemble’s complex backstory (“Everyone’s urging me to document it because it’s all in here,” Riley says, indicating her head) and stitching garments wasn’t enough, the singer self-educated how to craft metal mesh – a challenging endeavor, though she confessedly entrusted her completely original reptilian-inspired outfit to a New York-based specialist. “It seems like actual armour,” she beams.

Crowd Engagement and Difficulties

Regarding the fans? They took to the stage blood, toy blades and handmade props with as much gusto as the band. “We had a concert in Detroit and it resembled a historical festival,” remembers Riley with affection. “Everyone was in cloaks, animal hides, metal wear.”

That’s not to imply, however, that traveling lifestyle as sword’n’sorcery vagabonds has been easy. “Everything is always failing and becomes fixed temporarily,” Riley says. “Moreover I get numerous thoughts as to how I want things to look, but we tour in a van with only so much space. It’s a unique problem to give the sense like a larger-than-life story, then pack it down into nothing.”

We’ve encountered additional practical issues that would never have plagued mythic characters. “We experienced an ‘uh-oh’ moment when we appeared at a music event in the European country and my baggage – which had my sword in it – went missing,” says Riley. “That was a terrible situation, because there is no an different option of the performance where I lack a sword.”

Future Ambitions

In the spirit of a hero, Riley is gung-ho about the what’s next. “I want to go as far as possible – we should play stadiums,” she says. “The main aspect that’s deeply meaningful to me is maintaining the self-crafted look, ensuring each detail is crafted by us. That’s an element I want to remain faithful to, regardless of we scale to. Plus, I want to make an entrance on a mythical beast each show. Think about how legends use vehicles in concerts? The same idea, but using a unicorn.”