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While numerous artists have borrowed from high fantasy, only a handful have genuinely embodied the fantasy existence. Sure, they could adorn their album covers with creatures, beasts, captive women and strong fighters, but has an artist ever needed to retrieve a missing horn from a unicorn from a frost-covered ground in the midst of winter? Did a performer devoted hours peering in the interior of a tour bus, fixing their own chainmail?

Living the Fantasy

Formed in 2019, Brooklyn’s Castle Rat have had to face both these scenarios and more as they embody their epic fantasies. Starting with medieval-inspired, catchy anthems to breathtaking performances, costume design, music videos and album art, they’re more than a metal band as a total artistic immersion.

“It wasn’t planned to be a outfit with characters,” says singer, guitarist, sword-carrier and artistic leader Riley Pinkerton as the group’s vehicle drives from a packed show in Cologne to another in another town – they are playing several shows in the UK this week. “We played two shows and got booked on a Halloween gig, where I decided spontaneously to put on an outfit. It was all completely self-made, but we had so much fun and the energy was electric. I thought, ‘Imagine if we could have this much fun every time?’”

Development of Castle Rat

Since then, the band – which includes Pinkerton as the “Rodent Monarch” together with a pestilence physician (low-end instrumentalist), proud bloodsucker (six-string player) and mysterious druid (percussionist) – continued forward. The Bestiary, the band’s second album, brings to mind of classic metal icons uniting to battle their way through a heroic art landscape – a heroic opus that sets them on the verge of greater success.

This album was a new experience for Pinkerton in that she welcomed contributions to her collaborators. “This helped a lot stronger project,” she says of the collaborative process. “It was challenging at first – I’d always felt a particular degree of satisfaction as a woman in music doing everything solo. There have been so many times where I’ve got off stage and an audience member will say, ‘The other members create awesome guitar parts!’ and I’m like, ‘Listen – I created all that.’”

Artistic Expression and Vision

As their fame has expanded, so has the scale of their visual elements. “The saying I live by is always that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton smiles. She was originally on course for a fine art degree before hesitating at the possibility of so much debt. “The fun thing about Castle Rat is there’s so many different ways to apply artistry,” she says. “From creating face coverings, costume design, figuring out video editing clips … it’s all stuff I don’t know how to do, but it’s exciting to figure it out in the moment.”

As if developing the group’s detailed mythology (“People are encouraging me to record it because it’s all in here,” Riley says, tapping her head) and sewing costumes were insufficient, the vocalist learned on her own how to make chainmail – a difficult task, though she admittedly delegated her all-new reptilian-inspired outfit to a New York-based specialist. “It’s as if actual armour,” she grins.

Fan Response and Obstacles

As for audiences? They loved the fake blood, foam swords and crafted rodent bones with as much gusto as the musicians. “We played a show in the Motor City and it seemed like a historical festival,” recalls Riley with affection. “All attendees was in capes, animal hides, armor.”

This isn’t to say, however, that touring existence as sword’n’sorcery vagabonds has been plain sailing. “Everything is constantly breaking and gets repaired with tape,” Riley says. “Plus I get countless concepts as to how I want things to look, but we tour in a van with restricted capacity. It’s an interesting challenge to give the sense like a larger-than-life story, then compress it into a small space.”

We faced additional practical issues that wouldn’t have troubled legendary fantasy heroes. “We experienced an ‘oh shit’ moment when we played a Portuguese festival in Portugal and my luggage – which had my blade in it – was misplaced,” says Riley. “It was a worst-case scenario, because there’s not an different option of the concert where I don’t have a weapon.”

Future Ambitions

Like a true warrior queen, Riley is gung-ho about the days to come. “My goal is as far as possible – we should play large venues,” she says. “The only thing that’s really important to me is keeping the DIY aesthetic, making sure all elements is handmade. It’s a component I want to stay authentic to, whatever we grow into. Oh, and I want to appear on a unicorn at all performances. Remember how legends do the motorcycle thing? That, but on a mythical creature.”