10 years ago this April, Chicago’s Ratboys put out their first collection of songs. The RATBOY EP, consisting of five indie-folk dorm room recordings, was free to download on Bandcamp and humbly passed around to friends on social media.
Cut to 2021, and Ratboys would normally be celebrating their 10-year anniversary on the road, playing a mix of songs from their very first release to their most recent, last year’s critically-acclaimed Printer’s Devil. Instead, just two weeks after the album’s February 2020 release and mere days before heading out on their first headline tour, the COVID-19 pandemic forced all touring to a halt. Despite not being able to play in-person shows for the past year, Ratboys has managed to stay busy by performing their music online via their own Virtual Tour series and by finding a different way to celebrate their first decade of being a band.
Julia Steiner fronts the Chicago band Ratboys; Carmen Perry fronts the Philly band Remember Sports, and plays solo under her own name. Both bands put out new records last month — Ratboys’ Singin’ to an Empty Chair and Remember Sports’ The Refrigerator — so to celebrate, the two friends got on a call to catch up about it all.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Julia Steiner: I just gotta say, I’m truly in love with your new album.
Carmen Perry: Thank you!
Julia: I listened to it again before this call, but the first time I heard it, I was like, “Man, these songs are great.” Then I was thinking more about it and I was like, “It sounds really good.” And then, I swear to god, two minutes later I was scrolling and I saw that picture of you guys in the control room at studio A at Electrical [Audio]. I was like, “Ah, that’s why it sounds so fucking good.”
Carmen: That room is amazing.
Julia: I just think it’s so cool that we made our records that came out a week apart in the same room.
Carmen: It’s crazy. I wasn’t aware of that until a few weeks ago. And, gotta say, I love your record a lot, too. Actually, just before we started talking, I went back and I listened to The Window, because it had been a while. Also a great album, but I was really struck by how leveled up it seems like that album and this album, Singin’ to an Empty Chair, are for you guys. It obviously sounds amazing — I feel like the room is very much present in there, that nice room sound from Electrical Audio. I was wondering, what was it like to work with Chris Walla, not only once, but then get to work with him again? Did you find that you got to know each other’s styles better?
Julia: He’s a very knowable person. He wants to be known. He’s not one of those, like, aloof music geniuses who’s mysterious and afraid to be himself. He is a genius, and he’s so down to earth. I was so excited to meet him the first time — we met at a show in Montreal years and years ago, and I was really nervous because he’s a hero of mine.
Carmen: Yeah, I would be too.
Julia: I just said hello and then ran away.
Carmen: That’s kind of my vibe, too, when networking. [Laughs.]
Julia: [Laughs.] So I figured he would not remember that we had met. Then years later, the first time we actually really met in Seattle, we went to the studio that he owned at the time where we ended up making The Window, and he was just from the moment we opened the door so chill and fun. I remember we walked to a grocery store and it was pouring down rain and we were getting soaked but still having a good time. He just put us at ease right away and has shared a lot of his life with us. Like when we were making The Window, his wife Diana — who’s also a genius, in a different field — she was pregnant with their child. So that’s a big sacrifice to leave home for that long. And then this time when he came, their son was two-and-a-half or whatever. We don’t take for granted that he’s leaving home. They would FaceTime every morning and we would get on and say hi. We felt very grateful and connected to his whole world. He’s a good person.
Carmen: It must be cool to work with an idol and get to know him as a person, and he wants to make time for you and your band.
Julia: Yeah, he’s a good dude. It’s been really, really gratifying. And I think one of the reasons that the record sounds so good is he really does know how to do that. He’s so good at dialing in room sounds and the atmosphere of a recording. So his know-how and instincts combined with the rooms themselves at Electrical, I think, is what made this new record sound so sweet.
Had you guys visited there before you recorded?
Carmen: None of us had been there before, but we had heard about it, and knew that the price was right for us. We wanted to try working in a nicer studio than we ever have before, and we all really love Chicago, so it was fun to hole up there for a week. The Airbnb we stayed at was a bit nasty, but we were really close to the studio, so we just walked there every day. We had a nice time. It just felt so cool to be in the same room that a lot of awesome bands have recorded in.
Julia: Were y’all in studio A the whole time?
Carmen: I think so. There’s just so many cool things to use there. But it also is all very much analog stuff — I remember we wanted to try something out on a keyboard synth for a second, and they didn’t really have a keyboard synth. They don’t have stuff that’s not instruments. We added a lot of stuff afterwards. But it just had a very cool ethos and vibe. And we were there right after Steve [Albini] died, which was heavy. But we definitely could tell that everyone liked working there and believed in the ethos and was on the same page and loving music, and that was just such a cool environment to be around.
Julia: Dang. What a crazy time that must have been.
Carmen: Yeah. What a legend. It’s an awesome place. I think it would feel good to me to know that that was the kind of legacy I was leaving.
Julia: Absolutely. It feels very still alive when you walk in there.
Carmen: Yes.
Julia: It’s hard for me to have a frame of reference because I never went there when Steve was still alive, so I don’t know how it felt before. But it still feels like a very active, happening place. I want it to keep going forever.
Carmen: Us too. I’m like, “I want to come back here every time.” But speaking of the room, I think what struck me first when I press play on Singin’ to an Empty Chair was just that atmosphere. It’s hard to talk about atmosphere in a song, because it’s not necessarily sound; it’s silence also. But I’m a big Death Cab fan too, and it felt to me like the same kind of atmosphere as Plans. And obviously not in the way of like, Death Cab producer comes and puts that on you guys. But it just felt like, Wow, this is the sound that I love from that band, but this is totally, 100% Ratboys classic. It just feels like such a good melding of those two things. I love that first song.
Julia: Thanks. We love Death Cab too, so the fact that our taste and Chris’s taste is pretty aligned, we want to go to the same places. A big part of the way that it actually sounds is, we started in studio B, which is the smaller half of Electrical but one of the coolest things about it is it has this huge tall ceiling, super live space. So “Open Up,” track one on the record, is very much us trying to harness that room.
Carmen: I think that I’m stealing this from either Catherine [Dwyer] or Jack [Washburn] who said this, but I feel the same way: I didn’t really know what people meant by the “room sound,” or “this room sounds good,” before we went there and I was like, “OK, yeah, everything sounds good in here.”
Julia: How long had y’all been working on these songs before going in?
Carmen: I think four years, or a little bit more. We did a lot of demoing in Pennsylvania leading up to it. And a lot of this stuff, just me, Jack, and Catherine would work on together, and then we would work with Julian [Powell], our drummer, on it afterwards.
Julia: Do you all live in Philly?
Carmen: Julian lives in Boston. Jack did live in Rochester for the last four years, but he just moved back to Philly this summer, which is nice having him back. So we were pretty spread out apart throughout the process of working on this album. A lot of the music we’ve worked on in the past, we really learn what we want the recording to sound like through playing the songs together and being on tour. We did some touring in the last four years, but not as much as we have in the past, so a lot of this we ended up building just out of our house or sharing files with each other and then taking it to the studio. We came in with a pretty good plan of everything we wanted to get done, and still were able to play a fair amount, which was nice.
How long were you working on yours?
Julia: It was kind of similar: We were touring a decent amount in 2023 and 2024. It’s hard to pin down ‘cus the actual time that we were working on it was I guess a little less than a year. But some of the songs are really old, or they’re ones that I’ve been, quote-unquote, “working on” for seven years or whatever. I guess this one was a bit of a quicker writing process than The Window, just because with The Window, we had endless time because it was that COVID period, so we didn’t really have any semblance of a deadline.
It’s crazy to me that it’s six years since [COVID] — 2018 to me still feels like two years ago. I’m getting really, really confused. [Laughs.]
Carmen: I feel like the COVID years really condensed in my brain and have whooshed by. Part of it is also the age we are. I think time just starts moving a little quickly at this age. But it’s like, Dang, I feel like I was 28, like, yesterday. And now I’m not. [Laughs.]
Julia: I mean, I remember 2016 very vividly. It’s wild it was a decade ago. And that’s when we met!
Carmen: Which I wanted to talk about too, because I want to compare memories. We first met at that house show in Chicago?
Julia: Yeah. We had passed the baton without actually meeting, ‘cus we were both opening for Pinegrove. We had played five shows opening for them on the East Coast, and then we went home and you guys took up the opener slot and did the rest of the US. And it ended in Chicago if I recall. It was the last day, right?
Carmen: I think so. It was a crazy tour, because — well, it was our first big tour, and I think it was five weeks long. And then we also were on tour with a different band for two weeks before that. So it was so long. I think we played in Chicago three separate times on that tour. So I think by that point, we were all pretty delirious. I remember somebody at some point gave us some Justin Bieber temporary tattoos, and I was giving them out that night. So that was just a really funny night in my memory.
But it was the first time we saw you guys play. And I had been a fan — I remember unpacking my room in Philadelphia when I first moved here and listening to AOID and being like, This is that shit that I like. I remember just immediately feeling so taken with your band and, yeah, we had passed like ships in the night so many times with that Pinegrove tour. And then, have we played together since then?
Julia: I don’t think so. Well, we were supposed to in 2020, for anyone who cares…
Carmen: Exactly. We’ve been foiled a couple times.
Julia: It’s frankly bullshit.
Carmen: I feel like the universe has always put us in similar planes, but not actually the same plane at the same time… But, yeah, I remember listening to that album and feeling like it was so familiar. I feel like we probably have a similar experience of coming up in music, just working with friends who have the same level of passion and enthusiasm that you had. And I remember when we were all really into that album, it just felt like you guys were friends from a different city.
Julia: That’s so cool to hear because that’s the exact same feeling that I had with you guys. I feel like the Philly-Chicago connection is quite strong. Our buddy Seth Engel recorded AOID and he is from Philly.
Carmen: There are so many good bands and good people in Chicago. I do feel like Philly and Chicago are very similar towns. Chicago feels more like a real city than Philly, but…
Julia: It’s a little bigger, I guess. But it’s the similar kind of down to earth, no pretensions attitude, which I really appreciate. And general friendliness. I guess Philly could be a little bit more… not rough around the edges, but just even less bullshit. Which is nice, to be honest.
Carmen: Yeah. Probably the difference is the Midwestern friendliness versus—
Julia: East Coast gruff.
Carmen: Or just people being an asshole here. [Laughs.]
Julia: I kind of appreciate it. And, I mean, you guys have Wawa. There’s room for cultural exchange.
Carmen: Absolutely.
Julia: I wanted to ask before I forget: Do you write all of the background vocals, like the harmonies and such?
Carmen: Usually I will sort of write them or tell people what to do, but on this album, Catherine especially has taken an interest in filling that part of it out. So a lot of these background vocals were Catherine or Jack’s ideas.
Julia: Nice. I’ve been listening to “Thumb” a lot, and the background vocals on that song — the little [sings] “oooh-oooh” — it’s the craziest ear candy. I just want to keep hearing it.
Carmen: Oh, I’m so glad.
Julia: All the harmonies on that song are so, so, so addicting to me. And it carries through the record. There’s really thoughtful vocal production — and some of it’s really quiet. I love quiet harmonies.
Carmen: I also love quiet harmonies. I feel like you are also big on harmonies. It’s usually my favorite part of the music process because obviously I sing, and I sort of grew up on GarageBand trying to harmonize with myself. So that’s always a pleasure to come up with. But with this album, we did all the major tracking at Electrical Audio, and then we did a few more days at this place in Brooklyn called the Honey Jar that Julian works out of, so we got a good few weeks to sit with everything we did in Chicago and then just really think about exactly what we wanted to add in addition to that. So all the harmonies, guitar overdubs… Some of our past albums — I think All of Something we literally made in three days. So we’ve always been sort of short on time and vocals get pushed to the end, so every time we put out an album, there’s a song or two where I come up with a harmony that I would have added later and I’m just forever regretting it. But this time, we really got to sit with it and plan them out. So I’m glad you noticed my Josie & the Pussycats-inspired vocals.
Julia: Dude, I’ve actually never seen that movie.
Carmen: Really? You gotta watch it. That was a big one for me when I was a kid.
Julia: I didn’t realize that Adam Schlesinger did the music for it.
Carmen: Yeah, he wrote “Pretend to Be Nice,” which is a really good song that’s got vocals like [sings] “oooh-oooh.” So that was sort of my inspiration for that.
Julia: I missed that era of movies. I’ve been thinking a lot about 10 Things I Hate About You and late ‘90s teen rom-coms or teen comedies. Someone needs to make a movie like that again and put — I’m calling [your record] The Fridge — put The Fridge on the soundtrack.
Carmen: And put Singin’ to an Empty Chair on. Y’all could fit into that genre too.
Julia: How can we make this happen?
Carmen: If any movie producers are reading…
Julia: I can’t act, but I’ve got some mp3s I could share…
