Rat Boy is ‘Sick Of It’ -rightfully so- on their latest single off the upcoming ‘Crash!’ out June 26th on Hellcat Records. Running through the streets of London and skating in front of Buckingham Palace, drenched in their signature punk defiance. The guys are fed up with the monotonous rat race we find ourselves succumbing to. The mind-numbing day-to-day is wrapped in distorted guitars, earworm melodies, and punchy, crisp drum patterns, as Jordan Cardy questions, “Why am I glued to a phone screen, like it’s a routine? Am I really living, or is this a false dream?”
“I wrote half of ‘Sick Of It’ at the end of 2024,” shares Cardy. “It’s about doing the same thing every day, caught in a cycle working just to get by, not being able to save up because everything is accounted for, so you feel like you can’t move forward or make plans.”
The Essex gang of four – Jordan Cardy (vocals & guitar), Harry Todd (guitar), Liam Haygarth (bass), and Noah Booth (drums) – collaborated with punk icon Tim Armstrong of Rancid for ‘Crash!’, harmonizing the band’s indie rock beginnings with their two-step / ska-punk evolution heard on ‘Internationally Unknown’ (2019) and ‘Suburbia Calling’ (2024).
Pulling back the curtain on their usual humor-coated lyrics, Rat Boy is locked in as ever on ‘Crash!’ The 18-track album was recorded in singer-songwriter Suzi Quatro’s garden, and co-produced by bandmates Cardy and Booth, alongside Armstrong. Coming in with a DIY mindset, the band set up two sheds in Quatro’s garden and had Booth run back and forth between them to hit record and play the drums, barely making the cut at times.
“The room wasn’t soundproof; it was a single thin wooden room with no deadening, so the drum kit sounded so insane and live,” explains Cardy. “We didn’t need to add any triggers to the drums; it’s all real! We all shared a headphone mix through splitters, and we pretty much couldn’t hear what we were playing. I think it might have only been in one ear, too, so we had to trust ourselves that we were playing tight.”
‘Crash!’ encapsulates the band’s last few years of touring, inspired by the crowds across Europe, a raw energy and pure passion that hasn’t been seen in decades. With live performances in mind, the band rehearsed the recorded tracks, determined to create something that conjured that unrelenting liveliness. Tracks like ‘Make Me Stay’ and ‘No Stars’ pull that mid-90s raw aesthetic, catchy hooks and rebellious spirit that defined an era. Between the bright, crunchy guitar riffs and low thumping bass lines, there’s no doubt Rat Boy have hit the sweet spot.
The artwork for ‘Crash!’ was just as thoughtful and DIY as the album’s approach, with Cardy sharing, “I wanted the process to be as close as possible to how it would have been done before computers, to keep the artwork feeling authentic and rooted in a physical, hands-on tradition. In the same way the album itself favors rawness and immediacy, I didn’t want the artwork to feel overly polished or digitally constructed.”
Rat Boy made an explosive comeback in 2024, blending ska, punk, hip-hop and hardcore on their third album, ‘Suburbia Calling’. They also hit the live scene hard, packing out venues with high-energy shows featuring both new tracks and fan favorites from the UK Top 15 debut ‘Scum’ and the Tim Armstrong-assisted ‘Internationally Unknown’.
Upcoming tour dates:
July 11th – Rock La Mures – Periam Port, RO
August 14th – Summer Punk Párty Volyně – Volyně, CZ
October 30th – Löwensaal – Nuremberg, DE
October 31st – HSD – Erfurt, DE
November 19th – Rockouse – Salzburg, AT
November 20th – Szene – Vienna, AT
November 21st – Rock Café – Prague, CZ