Update on Monday, May 4: Ratboys will appear on a special Zoom episode of Chic-a-Go-Go on Friday, May 15, at 6 PM. RSVP to host Mia Park at mia@miapark.com to receive an invitation 15 minutes before start time.
“It was really exciting, because we had never done a headlining tour,” Steiner says. “We’d done DIY tours, but those don’t have as much pressure or as much weight behind you. This was a new experience for us. And we were surprised—it looked like a lot of the shows were selling really well.”
“March 11 we did an AMA on Reddit, and we were telling people we’ll definitely be playing the rest of the shows, don’t worry,” Steiner says. “And then that night the NBA canceled its season, Trump held a White House press conference, Tom Hanks got coronavirus. It changed so quickly, and it was so disorienting. You’d think we’d be used to feeling disoriented, being on the road, but this was a whole new ball game for everyone.”
Bands often see touring as a gratifying payoff for the months or years they’ve spent writing, recording, and releasing a new album. The material on Printer’s Devil dates back to demo sessions Steiner and Sagan conducted in December 2017. Between the May 2017 release of Ratboys’ second album, GN, and the recording of Printer’s Devil, the band played to larger and larger audiences, opening tours for the likes of Diet Cig, Vundabar, Foxing, and Soccer Mommy. Their tour with Toronto band Pup included back-to-back sold-out shows at Metro.
When Ratboys released Printer’s Devil on February 28, ringing endorsements came from the likes of Pitchfork, the Alternative, and Paste. The latter not only published a positive review but also ranked Ratboys number one in a listicle titled “Bernie Sanders Thanking Bands for Their Music, Ranked.” Steiner and Sagan had performed an acoustic set at the senator’s campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa, on January 11, and when Sanders took the stage, he acknowledged them, adding a superfluous “the” and hesitating a little before saying “Ratboys” in his Bernie Sanders voice: “Let me thank the, uh, Ratboys for their music.”
Ratboys aren’t yet making much money from CDs, tapes, and vinyl of Printer’s Devil, because their label, Topshelf Records, wants to recoup its expenses—the recording advance, the video budgets, the cost of the pressings, the PR bill for the album cycle, and so on—before it starts paying royalties to the band. For now Topshelf is keeping revenue from online sales, streaming, and sales through Ratboys’ distributor, Redeye Worldwide. The band can pocket the profit from copies they sell hand to hand, and after the first 100 (which the label gives them free) they pay for them up front at cost. Right now they’re sitting on about 200 LPs, having sold perhaps 50 so far. Ratboys know they’ll be in the black with Topshelf eventually, but it probably would’ve taken 12 to 18 months without a pandemic. It’ll take even longer if they can’t tour.
