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While many musicians have borrowed from epic fantasy, few have fully embraced the enchanted lifestyle. Admittedly, they may embellish their album sleeves with monsters, beasts, chained damsels and strong fighters, but did a member ever been forced to recover a misplaced mythical horn from a snowy field in the heart of winter? Did a performer spent time peering in the interior of a traveling vehicle, mending their own armor?

Living the Fantasy

Formed in 2019, the Brooklyn-based Castle Rat have dealt with these exact challenges and additional ones as they live out their epic fantasies. From heraldic, memorable anthems to eye-popping performances, attire styling, music videos and album art, they’re not just a rock act as a full immersive experience.

“Castle Rat wasn’t meant to be a outfit with characters,” states singer, guitarist, sword-wielder and artistic leader Riley Pinkerton as the group’s vehicle travels from a sold-out gig in Cologne to one more in Aschaffenburg – they are playing several shows in the UK currently. “Initially, we performed twice and got booked on a spooky event, where I decided spontaneously to dress up. The entire setup was completely self-made, but we had a blast and the feeling in the room was unforgettable. I realized, ‘What if we could have this much fun at every show?’”

Development of Castle Rat

From that point on, the group – which includes Pinkerton as the “Queen Rat” together with a plague doctor (bassist), haughty vampire (six-string player) and mysterious druid (drummer) – haven’t looked back. The new record, the follow-up record, evokes images of famous rock groups uniting to fight their path through a heroic art landscape – a epic masterpiece that sets them on the brink of far grander things.

The Bestiary was a first for Pinkerton in that she opened the floor to her collaborators. “It made it a lot stronger project,” she says of the collaborative process. “It was challenging at first – I’d always felt a particular degree of pride being a woman in music working independently. There’ve been so many times where after a show and an audience member will say, ‘Those guys write great riffs!’ and I respond, ‘Hey – I wrote all that.’”

Creative Output and Ideas

With their growing popularity has expanded, so has the breadth of their production design. “My motto is always that if an effort matters, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton chuckles. She was originally on course for a fine art degree before pulling back at the possibility of heavy loans. “The exciting part about Castle Rat is there’s various avenues to apply artistry,” she says. “Be it crafting disguises, outfit planning, mastering post-production clips … everything is I am unfamiliar with, but it’s fun to discover as we go.”

As if developing the ensemble’s complex backstory (“The team is pushing me to write it down because it’s all in here,” Riley says, tapping her head) and stitching garments didn’t suffice, the vocalist taught herself how to make chainmail – a difficult task, though she confessedly left her all-new scale armor design to a professional in the city. “It feels like actual armour,” she smiles proudly.

Fan Response and Obstacles

As for audiences? They loved the stage blood, toy blades and papier-mache rat skulls with similar excitement as the group. “We had a concert in Detroit and it looked like a historical festival,” recalls Riley with affection. “All attendees was in capes, sheepskin, chainmail.”

That’s not to imply, however, that traveling lifestyle as fantasy adventurers has been smooth. “All our gear is constantly breaking and ends up duct-taped together,” Riley says. “Moreover I come up with numerous thoughts as to how I envision the aesthetics, but we tour in a vehicle with restricted capacity. It’s a unique problem to make it feel like a mythic tale, then pack it down into minimal luggage.”

We faced further organizational challenges that didn’t affect mythic characters. “There was an ‘uh-oh’ moment when we played a Portuguese festival in the European country and my suitcase – which had my blade in it – got lost,” says Riley. “This became a terrible situation, because there is no an alternative version of the concert where I lack a blade.”

Upcoming Plans

In the spirit of a hero, Riley is gung-ho about the future. “I aim to reach as far as possible – let’s do large venues,” she says. “The only thing that’s really important to me is keeping the handmade style, ensuring all elements is custom-made. That’s an element I want to stay authentic to, regardless of we scale to. Oh, and I wish to ride out on a magical horse every night. You know how famous musicians ride bikes on stage? Exactly that, but on a mythical creature.”