Chicago‘s Ratboys haven’t rested on their laurels during this last year of worry and disruption. Their Virtual Tour series, described as “part musical performance and part Wayne’s–World-style public access variety show,” has been ongoing throughout the pandemic, and they even played a special locked down show at Lincoln Hall for Audiotree.
Not content with all that streaming stuff, Ratboys recently released a new single, ‘Go Outside’, their first new music since last year’s Printer’s Devil on Topshelf Records. The song was written in 2019, but is eerily relevant to our current predicament. “It’s this carefree and wistful, totally innocent song about wanting to travel and spend time with loved ones,” says lead Julia Steiner. “We didn’t realize that we wouldn’t be able to do either of those things before long.”
Perhaps most notable of all is the move back towards the style of earlier releases, shedding a little of the punk rock steel of Printer’s Devil in favour of something more organic. In fact, this is the band’s most “Country” moment yet. They’ve always had that lyrical storytelling (and even a little twang) in amongst their rockier moments, but ‘Go Outside’ embraces it and then some. Pat Lyons’s pedal steel sits front and centre, and the whole atmosphere is unapologetically sun-kissed and sincere. Check it out below: