🔗 Share this article ‘Every Night, I Dream of Riding a Unicorn’: Medieval Heavy Metal Group Castle Rat While numerous artists have drawn from fantasy lore, only a handful have truly lived the fantasy lifestyle. Certainly, they could embellish their record jackets with creatures, beasts, manacled maidens and muscular warriors, but has an artist ever needed to recover a lost horn from a unicorn from a snowy field in the heart of winter? Did a performer devoted hours straining their eyes in the rear of a traveling vehicle, fixing their own armor? Living the Fantasy Formed in 2019, the Brooklyn-based Castle Rat have had to face these exact challenges and others as they live out their epic fantasies. Starting with knightly, memorable songs to breathtaking live shows, attire styling, visuals and cover artwork, they’re more than a rock act as a full immersive experience. “Castle Rat wasn’t meant to be a outfit with characters,” explains singer, guitarist, sword-wielder and creative overlord Riley Pinkerton as the musicians’ transport drives from a full-capacity concert in Cologne to one more in another town – they’re also doing multiple performances in the UK now. “After a couple of performances and received an offer on a October show, where I chose at the final moment to dress up. Everything was super-DIY, but we had a blast and the energy was incredible. It occurred to me, ‘How about if we could have this much fun at every show?’” The Band’s Evolution After that, the band – which features Pinkerton as the “Rodent Monarch” together with a medic from history (bassist), aristocratic undead (guitarist) and enigmatic nature priest (drummer) – never turned back. The new record, the band’s second album, brings to mind of famous rock groups uniting to struggle onward through a mythical painted realm – a epic masterpiece that places them on the edge of bigger achievements. This album was a first for Pinkerton in that she welcomed contributions to her bandmates. “That contributed to a more powerful album,” she says of the collaborative process. “I had difficulty at first – I’d always felt a certain amount of pride as a female in music going it alone. I’ve had so many times where I finished performing and some guy will say, ‘The other members compose cool melodies!’ and I respond, ‘Hey – I composed all that.’” Artistry and Imagination As the band’s stature has expanded, so has the breadth of their stage presentation. “The saying I live by is always that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton chuckles. She was originally on track for a university studies in art before pulling back at the prospect of financial burden. “The fun thing about Castle Rat is there’s so many different ways to express artistry,” she says. “Whether it’s making masks, outfit planning, figuring out video editing song visuals … it’s all stuff I have no experience with, but it’s fun to discover as we go.” Even though developing the group’s detailed mythology (“People are encouraging me to write it down because all the ideas are,” Riley says, indicating her head) and stitching garments were insufficient, the singer self-educated how to make chainmail – a difficult task, though she confessedly entrusted her completely original scalemail look to a professional in the city. “It seems like actual armour,” she smiles proudly. Crowd Engagement and Difficulties As for audiences? They took to the theatrical gore, foam swords and handmade props with similar excitement as the musicians. “We had a gig in the Motor City and it resembled a medieval event,” reminisces Riley happily. “The whole crowd was in cloaks, wool garments, chainmail.” However, this doesn’t mean, nevertheless, that life on the road as fantasy adventurers has been smooth. “Everything is constantly breaking and ends up fixed temporarily,” Riley says. “Additionally I come up with countless concepts as to how I want things to look, but we’re traveling in a bus with only so much space. It’s a unique problem to create the impression like a mythic tale, then pack it down into nothing.” We faced further organizational challenges that didn’t affect legendary fantasy heroes. “There was an ‘disastrous’ moment when we appeared at a Portuguese festival in the European country and my suitcase – which had my weapon in it – was misplaced,” says Riley. “This became a terrible situation, because we don’t have an backup plan of the performance where I am without a weapon.” Future Ambitions Like a true warrior queen, Riley is gung-ho about the future. “I aim to reach as far as possible – we should play huge arenas,” she says. “The main aspect that’s truly essential to me is keeping the DIY aesthetic, guaranteeing each detail is crafted by us. This is a feature I want to keep true to, regardless of we scale to. Oh, and I desire to make an entrance on a mythical beast at all performances. Remember how legends use vehicles in concerts? That, but using a unicorn.”