Ratboys have been making music together for over a decade. Two 18-year-old college friends who played songs in their dorms eventually turned into a four-piece band with five albums and a world tour.
The indie-rock band, composed of Julia Steiner, Dave Sagan, Marcus Nuccio and Sean Neumann, took the Bud Light stage on Thursday afternoon for their first time playing Lollapalooza. Andy Krull from Free Range also joined them for their live performance, playing guitar and pedal steel.
Following the performance, Ratboys spoke to The Daily Illini about the band’s beginnings, the relationship they have with each other and all the feelings that come with being at Chicago’s biggest festival.
DI: Can you tell me a little bit about the origins of the band?
Steiner: The origins of the band are pretty epic … just joking. Dave and I met in college, actually when we were 18, and quickly became friends because we both liked to play music, shared a lot of bands and burned CDs for each other. And we started working on songs together that I had written in high school. So for a few years, the band was just the two of us, and we played in dorm rooms and basements.
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Sagan: We snuck into the band room and used their amps.
Steiner: Yeah, we were pretty sneaky in school. But then, eventually, when we moved here to Chicago, we met Sean and Marcus. Well, we knew Sean for a long time … And so we all started playing together in 2017, and we’ve been making music this whole time.
DI: What do you feel has contributed to your longevity as a band?
Steiner: We all like spending time together. I’m grateful that you all still want to be in a room together. That’s the most important thing beyond musical chemistry and enjoying playing our instruments in the same room, but also being friends and spending time together. Travelling all over is a really big part of it. We couldn’t have made it here without going out on the road as often as we could, and we couldn’t do that as often as we can without becoming the best of friends and just being completely open and understanding to each other. So that goes a long way.
Nuccio: Friendship, love and trust. And we all like the same sandwiches. Mostly.
DI: What sandwich is that?
Nuccio: Every kind.
DI: Do you feel like your relationship with each other comes through in the music?
Nuccio: Big time. I would definitely hope our chemistry as people comes through in the music. We like to make music as a unit. We like to record all together and be in the same room while we’re recording. So, I think that all lends itself to the sound of the songs that we make on the record. And then live too, we’re very focused on getting a live performance kind of dialed in together. And when we’re on stage, we’re all listening to each other and looking at each other.
Steiner: I’m just really grateful that none of us takes ourselves too seriously and we all like to be goofballs together … except for Sean. Sean’s a very serious guy. But we all love to go to shows and be a part of the Chicago music community, and talk about music and nerd out together.
DI: How was your guys’ performance?
Steiner: How was it, guys? Because I thought it was pretty great.
Nuccio: It was amazing to look out and see the skyline of the city from the stage and just feel the breeze off of the lake, and I don’t know, feel a kinship with the city. It was very special.
DI: How do you prepare for a festival like this?
Steiner: Prepping for a festival is a little funny because you know you might not have as much time to kind of get things situated on stage. You kind of just have to run and gun and just jump off the cliff. But knowing that there’s a beautiful, pristine lake that you’re jumping into — a great lake, you could say. It’s exciting. We just embrace all of the craziness of a festival, and we’re just so happy to be here.
DI: How was the crowd?
Steiner: Oh, it was great! We didn’t know what to expect because we were on the first day, you know what I mean. But our friends were kind of giving us the silver lining. They were like, “You know, people won’t be too drunk yet. Like, people might remember your set.” And people were there. We were stoked, and it felt pretty full, and we couldn’t ask for anything more.
DI: How do you expect the band to evolve as you continue to make music?
Sagan: The songs will get longer and longer.
Nuccio: Pretty soon, our songs will be four hours long.
Neumann: It’s really cool playing music or doing any sort of art or something, where you can have a benchmark of yourself growing up. Like, we could look back and see all of these records that we put out every couple of years, and actually listen to what type of people we were then and hear our influences at the time. It’s kind of like building our own little archive. So going forward, it’s exciting to see who we’ll become.
DI: Do you guys have anything else you want to share that I didn’t touch on?
Steiner: Well, we just finished an album, it’s coming out early next year. I’m really excited about it. It’s my favorite one so far. We can’t wait to put it out.
Nuccio: Free Palestine, f— the police and go start a band.
