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Although many artists have taken inspiration from fantasy lore, few have fully embraced the enchanted way of life. Admittedly, they could decorate their album covers with monsters, imps, manacled maidens and strong fighters, but has an artist ever been forced to recover a lost horn from a unicorn from a wintry landscape in the midst of winter? Did a performer taken the time straining their eyes in the rear of a road transport, repairing their own metal mesh?

Immersed in the Legend

Formed in 2019, the Brooklyn-based Castle Rat have had to face both these scenarios and more as they live out their grand tales. Starting with heraldic, earworm-heavy anthems to stunning concerts, costume design, music videos and album art, they’re not just a metal band as a total artistic immersion.

“Castle Rat wasn’t meant to be a themed musical group,” says singer, guitarist, blade-handler and creative overlord Riley Pinkerton as the group’s vehicle drives from a sold-out gig in Cologne to a second one in another town – they’re also doing multiple performances in the UK currently. “We played two shows and were scheduled on a October show, where I chose at the final moment to wear a costume. The entire setup was highly handmade, but we had a blast and the energy was electric. It occurred to me, ‘How about if we could have so much excitement every time?’”

The Band’s Evolution

Since then, the group – which includes Pinkerton as the “Queen Rat” joined by a plague doctor (low-end instrumentalist), haughty vampire (lead guitarist) and secretive shaman (drummer) – continued forward. The Bestiary, the follow-up record, conjures visions of legendary heavy bands collaborating to battle their way through a mythical painted realm – a heroic opus that places them on the brink of bigger achievements.

This album was a initial step for Pinkerton in that she invited input to her bandmates. “This helped a more powerful album,” she says of the team effort. “It was challenging at first – There was a sense of a particular degree of accomplishment as a woman in music doing everything solo. There’ve been so many times where after a show and a person will say, ‘Those guys create awesome guitar parts!’ and I’m like, ‘Wait – I wrote all that.’”

Artistic Expression and Vision

As their fame has expanded, so has the breadth of their production design. “The saying I live by is always that if something is valuable, 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 fun thing about Castle Rat is there’s various avenues to demonstrate creativity,” she says. “Be it making masks, costume design, learning how to edit music videos … everything is I don’t know how to do, but it’s exciting to learn as we go.”

Even though developing the group’s detailed mythology (“The team is pushing me to write it down because all the ideas are,” Riley says, tapping her head) and sewing costumes wasn’t enough, the singer learned on her own how to create armor – a challenging endeavor, though she confessedly left her completely original scale armor design to a professional in the city. “It’s as if actual armour,” she grins.

Fan Response and Obstacles

Regarding the fans? They embraced the stage blood, soft weapons and crafted rodent bones with equal enthusiasm as the band. “We performed a show in Detroit and it looked like a historical festival,” recalls Riley with affection. “The whole crowd was in cloaks, animal hides, chainmail.”

This isn’t to say, nevertheless, that touring existence as fantasy adventurers has been smooth. “Everything is frequently damaged and gets fixed temporarily,” Riley says. “Moreover I’ll have countless concepts as to how I envision the aesthetics, but we tour in a bus with limited room. It’s an interesting challenge to create the impression like a larger-than-life story, then store it into minimal luggage.”

There have been other logistical problems that didn’t affect fictional warriors. “We did have an ‘disastrous’ moment when we performed at a Portuguese festival in the European country and my suitcase – which had my sword in it – got lost,” says Riley. “This became a nightmare, because we don’t have an different option of the show where I am without a sword.”

Upcoming Plans

Like a true warrior queen, Riley is gung-ho about the future. “I aim to reach as far as possible – let’s do stadiums,” she says. “The key element that’s truly essential to me is maintaining the self-crafted look, making sure everything is custom-made. It’s a component I want to remain faithful to, no matter what we achieve. Plus, I desire to appear on a unicorn each show. Remember how legends use vehicles in concerts? The same idea, but with a unicorn.”