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While plenty of musicians have drawn from epic fantasy, few have truly lived the enchanted way of life. Sure, they may adorn their record jackets with creatures, goblins, chained damsels and strong fighters, but has any musician ever have to recover a missing horn from a unicorn from a wintry landscape in the heart of winter? Has a performer devoted hours peering in the rear of a road transport, repairing their own armor?

Immersed in the Legend

Created in 2019, Brooklyn’s Castle Rat have encountered such situations and additional ones as they act out their grand tales. Starting with heraldic, catchy anthems to breathtaking performances, costume design, videos and album art, they’re more than a rock act as a complete sensory journey.

“Castle Rat wasn’t meant to be a themed musical group,” states vocalist, guitar player, sword-carrier and artistic leader Riley Pinkerton as the band’s tour van drives from a full-capacity concert in Cologne to another in Aschaffenburg – they have five gigs in the UK this week. “After a couple of performances and received an offer on a spooky event, where I made a last-minute decision to dress up. It was all super-DIY, but we had a blast and the atmosphere was unforgettable. I thought, ‘How about if we could have this much fun always?’”

The Band’s Evolution

Since then, the band – which features Pinkerton as the “Rat Queen” together with a pestilence physician (bassist), proud bloodsucker (guitarist) and secretive shaman (percussionist) – haven’t looked back. The new record, the group’s sophomore release, brings to mind of legendary heavy bands uniting to struggle onward through a Frank Frazetta fantasy world – a heroic opus that places them on the verge of far grander things.

The release was a first for Pinkerton in that she welcomed contributions to her collaborators. “That contributed to a more powerful project,” she says of the group work. “I had difficulty at first – I’d always felt a particular degree of satisfaction as a female in music working independently. I’ve had multiple instances where I’ve got off stage and some guy will say, ‘The other members create awesome guitar parts!’ and I respond, ‘Hey – I wrote all that.’”

Artistic Expression and Vision

As their fame has expanded, so has the scope of their production design. “The saying I live by is always that if an effort matters, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton laughs. She was originally on track for a fine art degree before hesitating at the prospect of heavy loans. “What’s enjoyable about Castle Rat is there’s numerous methods to demonstrate creativity,” she says. “Whether it’s making masks, costume design, learning how to edit clips … these are all things I don’t know how to do, but it’s fun to learn on the fly.”

As if building the group’s detailed mythology (“People are encouraging me to document it because all the ideas are,” Riley says, pointing to her head) and sewing costumes were insufficient, the singer taught herself how to make chainmail – no mean feat, though she admittedly delegated her brand-new scalemail look to a professional in the city. “It seems like actual armour,” she smiles proudly.

Crowd Engagement and Difficulties

As for audiences? They loved the stage blood, foam swords and papier-mache rat skulls with as much gusto as the band. “We performed a gig in the Motor City and it resembled a historical festival,” recalls Riley fondly. “All attendees was in capes, animal hides, chainmail.”

This isn’t to say, though, that life on the road as fantasy adventurers has been smooth. “All our gear is constantly breaking and becomes duct-taped together,” Riley says. “Additionally I’ll have numerous thoughts as to how I want things to look, but we tour in a vehicle with restricted capacity. It’s a unique problem to create the impression like a larger-than-life story, then compress it into nothing.”

We’ve encountered further organizational challenges that didn’t affect mythic characters. “There was an ‘oh shit’ moment when we appeared at SonicBlast festival in the European country and my luggage – which had my weapon in it – got lost,” says Riley. “This became a worst-case scenario, because we don’t have an backup plan of the performance where I am without a sword.”

Future Ambitions

As a genuine leader, Riley is eager about the days to come. “I aim to reach as far as possible – let’s do stadiums,” she says. “The key element that’s deeply meaningful to me is maintaining the self-crafted look, making sure everything is crafted by us. This is a feature I want to stay authentic to, whatever we grow into. Oh, and I wish to appear on a magical horse at all performances. Think about how legends do the motorcycle thing? That, but using a unicorn.”