🔗 Share this article

While many musicians have drawn from epic fantasy, rarely any have genuinely embodied the mythical way of life. Admittedly, they may decorate their album covers with ghouls, beasts, captive women and brawny barbarians, but has an artist ever have to retrieve a missing mythical horn from a snowy field in the midst of winter? Has a performer devoted hours squinting in the back of a traveling vehicle, fixing their own armor?

Living the Fantasy

Created in 2019, New York’s Castle Rat have dealt with both these scenarios and more as they embody their epic fantasies. From heraldic, earworm-heavy anthems to stunning live shows, outfit creation, visuals and record designs, they’re more than a metal band as a complete sensory journey.

“The band wasn’t intended to be a outfit with characters,” explains singer, guitar player, sword-wielder and artistic leader Riley Pinkerton as the musicians’ transport speeds from a full-capacity concert in a German city to another in another town – they are playing five gigs in the UK now. “After a couple of performances and got booked on a October show, where I decided spontaneously to dress up. The entire setup was completely self-made, but we had an amazing time and the feeling in the room was unforgettable. I thought, ‘What if we could have so much excitement every time?’”

Development of Castle Rat

Since then, the group – which includes Pinkerton as the “Rat Queen” alongside a plague doctor (low-end instrumentalist), haughty vampire (six-string player) and enigmatic nature priest (percussionist) – continued forward. The Bestiary, the follow-up record, brings to mind of famous rock groups uniting to fight their path through a heroic art landscape – a grand composition that places them on the edge of far grander things.

The Bestiary was a new experience for Pinkerton in that she opened the floor to her bandmates. “That contributed to a much better record,” she says of the team effort. “It was challenging at first – I’d always felt a particular degree of pride as a female in music doing everything solo. There’ve been numerous occasions where I finished performing and some guy will say, ‘Those guys create awesome guitar parts!’ and I think, ‘Listen – I wrote all that.’”

Artistry and Imagination

As the band’s stature has increased, so has the breadth of their visual elements. “My philosophy is always that if something is valuable, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton smiles. She was originally on track for a university studies in art before pulling back at the idea of so much debt. “The exciting part about Castle Rat is there’s numerous methods to express creativity,” she says. “From creating face coverings, costume design, figuring out video editing clips … it’s all stuff I am unfamiliar with, but it’s enjoyable to discover on the fly.”

As if creating the band’s intricate lore (“Everyone’s urging me to write it down because all the ideas are,” Riley says, indicating her head) and sewing costumes didn’t suffice, the singer taught herself how to create armor – a challenging endeavor, though she admittedly delegated her completely original reptilian-inspired outfit to a professional in the city. “It’s as if actual armour,” she grins.

Audience Reaction and Challenges

What about the crowd? They embraced the fake blood, toy blades and handmade props with as much gusto as the musicians. “We had a concert in the Motor City and it seemed like a Renaissance fair,” reminisces Riley with affection. “Everyone was in robes, animal hides, metal wear.”

However, this doesn’t mean, nevertheless, that life on the road as sword’n’sorcery vagabonds has been smooth. “Everything is constantly breaking and gets repaired with tape,” Riley says. “Additionally I get countless concepts as to how I desire the presentation, but we tour in a bus with restricted capacity. It’s a unique problem to create the impression like a mythic tale, then compress it into minimal luggage.”

There have been other logistical problems that wouldn’t have troubled legendary fantasy heroes. “We experienced an ‘disastrous’ moment when we played a Portuguese festival in the European country and my luggage – which had my sword in it – got lost,” says Riley. “It was a nightmare, because we don’t have an different option of the show where I lack a sword.”

Goals Ahead

As a genuine leader, Riley is eager about the future. “I want to go as far as possible – we should play stadiums,” she says. “The only thing that’s truly essential to me is preserving the DIY aesthetic, ensuring all elements is crafted by us. That’s an element I want to keep true to, regardless of we scale to. Additionally, I desire to appear on a mythical beast each show. Think about how famous musicians do the motorcycle thing? That, but using a unicorn.”