10 years ago this April — April 1st to be exact — 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.
Lots of time at home last year gave Ratboys a chance to hit the studio, which has led to
Happy Birthday, Ratboy, a surprise party of a new album featuring 10 brand new
recordings of the band’s earliest songs + a newly-written bonus track entitled “Go
Outside.”
Although written in 2019, the lyrics of “Go Outside” take on a special sense of relevance
and yearning today more than ever. “It’s this carefree and wistful, totally innocent folk
song about wanting to travel and spend time with loved ones,” songwriter Julia Steiner
says. “We had no idea how much it would mean to us when we wrote it, but hopefully this
song will provide a light in someone’s day and help us all wait out this weird ride a little bit
longer,” Julia shares.
Released as a surprise on April 1st, 2021, Happy Birthday, Ratboy comes 10 years to the
day since the release of the band’s first EP. New recordings of the 5 original RATBOY EP
songs make up the A-side of the record, with 5 new versions of rare college-era tracks
and the newly-written “Go Outside” on the B-side.
Featuring mainstays from their live show over the years, including “The Stanza” and
“Space Blows,” pressed to vinyl for the first time and given the full band treatment, Happy
Birthday, Ratboy introduces new Ratboys fans to the band’s beginnings while also raising
a toast to those who’ve been there from the start.