Emerging UK talent RAT BOY has already kicked plenty of goals this year, appearing at Glastonbury and winning NME’s Best New Artist, amongst other accolades. Now, he’s capped it all off by releasing his anticipated new record, the Get Over It EP.
With a broad range of influences, RAT BOY effortlessly merges various samples with elements of hip hop, indie and punk, packing a huge array of sounds into the EP’s 17 minutes.
Not stopping at his music, RAT BOY takes the reins on plenty of other aspects of his productions as well, from designing artwork to directing his video clips. With an unwavering creative drive, we were keen to chat to him about the creative process behind the new EP, and he was happy to run us through it – read on below.
Intro
For the intro I wanted a fun track to kick things off – it’s a sample of some arguments from YouTube, and I also used an Optigan which is the world’s first sampler.
It rolls the EP in nicely and shows where things are sounding now… Lots of colour and bounce, and a lot more electronic. I’m not about all songs being three minutes long for albums or EPs, I enjoy interludes.
Get Over It
‘Get Over It’ is the main single. It talks lyrically about people making too many comparisons to things, and not just enjoying them for the sake of enjoying them. The chorus talks about it getting in my mind a bit and how I’m over that way of thinking.
There was a moment where I was bothered about every comment that wasn’t positive, but I get that you please yourself and not everyone. I’m happy making art and staying creative and that’s what keeps me going.
For this song I sampled some obscure record and track I found on YouTube with 100 views. It lived as a voice note on my phone for ages. This felt like the right song to finish and step back in for my next single. I’m going more into the production side of things and sampling.
Kicked Out Tape
This is a preview version of what’s to come on the album. It’s two songs merged in one and the ‘Kicked Out Of School’ part is where it all started. I’m getting this ready for the record but it will be a totally different version.
This felt right for the EP as I wanted a different feel to some tracks and for it not to feel too safe, so this sits right in the middle of the EP.
Cash In Hand
‘Cash In Hand’ was written in a day and felt like the double A to ‘Get Over It’ – it’s inspired by Beck’s Odelay. I was playing around with production, pushing things a bit more on modern beats with fuzz guitars and toying around with vocal tricks and ideas.
The chorus talks about the dodgy man that makes money with cash in hand, he doesn’t really know anything else. Then you’re behind a regular job, while he’s spending his money and pretending to be a normal guy. I sampled Knucklehead at the end.
Good Bye
I wanted to end the EP on something chilled out. I’ve made so many tracks at 3, 4, 5am at the studio and now there’s a lot of dreamy wavey tracks that I’ve collected up.
This one I wrote and recorded with my drummer Noah Booth – we started with the real drum beat on a live kit and then put electronics on it, layered it on till about 6.30am and then went to sleep. Then we woke up and fixed any bits on first listens that we thought needed it. There are no windows or phone signal in my studio room so there’s no normal ‘time’ when we’re there.
