Ratboys returns to Salt Lake City with a highly-anticipated show at Urban Lounge on Saturday, April 11. Doors are at 7pm and villagerrr opens.
When I asked Ratboys’ lead singer Julia Steiner what she thought of SPIN declaring their band the “band of the moment” last month, she’s quick to brush it off. Yes, it makes her and the others in the band happy, and they’re grateful to receive that kind of loud recognition.
“But I don’t think it changes anything in our day to day,” she shares while inside her car and via Zoom, speaking over the occasional loud dump truck roaring by. “It’s just extra … a bonus.”
As for 2026’s Singin’ to an Empty Chair goes, however — the band’s sixth studio album since 2015 — that effort feels like way more than a bonus. It feels like a huge leap forward. With songs that stemmed from Steiner’s own therapy sessions, emotional honesty is its calling card, and it’s readily apparent.
“My overarching goal is to always figure out how to be the most authentic version of myself in my art. What comes along with that is making records, taking this snapshot of our lives and distilling it into complementary fragments that people can enjoy in the context of their own lives,” Steiner says. “This album feels like the most fully realized version of what we’ve been able to achieve so far. It feels cohesive and essential to who I am, but also to my relationships with my bandmates and who we are as open hearted and creative people. It feels like we’ve figured it out this time. At the same time, I don’t think we’ll ever fully figure it out, and that’s what’s exciting. It’s why we’ll keep doing this.”
For those who may be seeing Ratboys for the first time on Saturday, she hopes the show encourages them to investigate their own feelings, or appreciate their lives in some new way, possibly tapping into a sense of community and hope for the future by the time the final song is played.
“I think art can provide that for everybody,” Steiner says. “It’s good to lean into that.”
It may even be surprisingly cathartic, as it is for her.
“It feels viscerally wonderful to strum a super loud guitar chord and know people want to hear that. Even if they didn’t — even if I was in a room alone — it would still feel really good to do that, and that’s comforting to remember, that it feels amazing and always will,” Steiner says. “People who say guitar music is dying have no fucking clue what they’re talking about, because that feeling will never die.”
Tickets are extremely limited and many dates have already sold out. Get yours.
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