‘My Fantasy Is to Ride a Unicorn Nightly’: Medieval Heavy Metal Group Castle Rat

While many artists have drawn from fantasy lore, only a handful have fully embraced the mythical lifestyle. Certainly, they could decorate their record jackets with monsters, imps, captive women and muscular warriors, but has any musician ever needed to find a lost unicorn horn from a frost-covered ground in the depths of winter? Has anyone taken the time squinting in the back of a tour bus, mending their own metal mesh?

Embracing the Mythos

Established in 2019, Brooklyn’s Castle Rat have had to face both these scenarios and others as they live out their grand tales. Starting with knightly, earworm-heavy songs to eye-popping performances, attire styling, videos and cover artwork, they’re not so much a metal band as a complete sensory journey.

“The band wasn’t intended to be a themed musical group,” says vocalist, guitar player, blade-handler and creative overlord Riley Pinkerton as the band’s tour van drives from a full-capacity concert in a German city to one more in another town – they are playing multiple performances in the UK currently. “Initially, we performed twice and received an offer on a spooky event, where I made a last-minute decision to wear a costume. Everything was completely self-made, but we had so much fun and the atmosphere was incredible. I realized, ‘Imagine if we could have so much excitement at every show?’”

Development of Castle Rat

After that, the ensemble – which features Pinkerton as the “Queen Rat” alongside a pestilence physician (bass player), proud bloodsucker (lead guitarist) and mysterious druid (percussionist) – never turned back. The new record, the follow-up record, conjures visions of legendary heavy bands collaborating to battle their way through a Frank Frazetta fantasy world – a heroic opus that places them on the edge of far grander things.

This album was a new experience for Pinkerton in that she invited input to her fellow members. “This helped a more powerful album,” she says of the group work. “I struggled at first – There was a sense of a specific level of pride as a woman in music going it alone. There have been multiple instances where after a show and a person will say, ‘The band compose cool melodies!’ and I’m like, ‘Listen – I wrote all that.’”

Artistry and Imagination

As their fame has grown, so has the scope of their production design. “The saying I live by is always that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” Pinkerton chuckles. She was originally on course for a fine art degree before hesitating at the idea of heavy loans. “The exciting part about Castle Rat is there’s so many different ways to apply artistic expression,” she says. “From making masks, outfit planning, mastering post-production clips … these are all things I have no experience with, but it’s enjoyable to learn on the fly.”

Even though developing the band’s intricate lore (“The team is pushing me to record it because all the ideas are,” Riley says, pointing to her head) and stitching garments didn’t suffice, the vocalist self-educated how to create armor – a challenging endeavor, though she confessedly left her brand-new scale armor design to a New York-based specialist. “It feels like actual armour,” she beams.

Fan Response and Obstacles

As for audiences? They took to the theatrical gore, toy blades and crafted rodent bones with equal enthusiasm as the band. “We had a show in Detroit and it looked like a historical festival,” reminisces Riley fondly. “All attendees was in cloaks, animal hides, metal wear.”

However, this doesn’t mean, though, that life on the road as sword’n’sorcery vagabonds has been smooth. “Each item is always failing and gets fixed temporarily,” Riley says. “Plus I get endless ideas as to how I desire the presentation, but we tour in a vehicle with limited room. It’s an interesting challenge to give the sense like a mythic tale, then store it into nothing.”

There have been other logistical problems that didn’t affect mythic characters. “We experienced an ‘uh-oh’ moment when we played a Portuguese festival in Portugal and my suitcase – which had my blade in it – was misplaced,” says Riley. “That was a nightmare, because there is no an different option of the performance where I am without a sword.”

Goals Ahead

Like a true warrior queen, Riley is eager about the days to come. “I aim to reach as far as possible – let’s do huge arenas,” she says. “The key element that’s truly essential to me is maintaining the DIY aesthetic, ensuring each detail is crafted by us. This is a feature I want to stay authentic to, no matter what we grow into. Additionally, I wish to ride out on a mythical beast at all performances. Remember how some artists do the motorcycle thing? The same idea, but using a unicorn.”