RAT:ATT:AGG Interview

Yet another Fly53/Vice promo booklet interview.

RAT:ATT:AGG

RAT:ATT:AGG sound a bit like the muppets house band playing post-hardcore. Spinning, weird sounds are underpinned with urgent rhythm while Arab On Radar screams jump out all over the place. I saw them play a while ago at the Barfly and the show ended with a load of kids onstage helping break their drums. Considering half the band are on the dole they might have regretted this in the morning. It was the first show I’d enjoyed in ages, total chaos. In other words: really fun. They all have silly names too like Connan.

Hi Connan. How did you end up in such a silly band?
We’ve been together about 6 months. Rory had written a bunch of songs and The Semifinalists asked him to go on a week UK tour before he’d sorted a band, so we met up and practiced for 3hrs on Wednesday night and went on tour Thursday morning. I’d never met anyone else in the band before that day. Luckily we all get on. We’re thinking of all moving in together so we can be like The Monkeys.

You’ve got a record out now but you seem to enjoy the stage…
We fully admit we are in no way the tightest live band out there and that’s not really our aim. Personally I don’t wanna see a band that just replicates what they do on record I wanna see some energy and chaos and unique things happening and that’s what we try to do. We always make songs up on stage, people probably hate it but whatever… I think they are the best bits of the shows. Stuff always gets broken and people fall over break strings knock drums over, I think a lot of the crowd generally don’t get it but the ones that do seem to have a great time.

You maintain a pretty DIY approach to you’re output, are you all punks or something? I know you were in Abandon Ship…

Most of us grew up listening to loads of Punk Rock and Hardcore as well as indie rock stuff so from Swing Kids to Blur really. Everyone is a pretty big Destinys Child fan as well. Rory used to be in some band, Balls or something, Robin was in Bullet Union and Matt still does a punk band called Navajo Code. We sort of take our approach in those bands and try and do something new.

Anything else?
Ummm… We’re gonna write loads more songs, quit our jobs, actually have a proper band practice, go on loads of tours, buy some stuff to keep our equipment in, stop losing really really expensive guitar pedals and get more free stuff.

Thanks

www.myspace.com/rataattagg