Interview: Ray Zarnowitz (Rat Henry)
Stab me in the back, stab me in the back, back of my head. It's execution.
With another entry in Minimum Table Stacks’ “outta nowhere” series, Rat Henry is a blindsider. Never heard a whisper before the record announcement but it sent me on a mad scramble to cobble it all together. Dove headlong into Material Pop Volume One as well as the two preceding tapes. While the VU vibes shine bright on the first two tapes, MPVO swallows some downers and smears on the ambiance.
“Horrible Person” cracks it open with a croaking rasp over Reed-riffin’ with field recordings playing interference. A six minute opener could be a kiss of death, but the vibe hooks you and eases you through. Before you know it, it’s over. Time warping, like the one time I drank Monster and vodka and hours disappeared in a blink of an eye.
Ya know, I’ve spoken bold about never wanting to hear another band borrow anything from The Velvet Underground and I gotta say, Rat Henry smashes that logic like plates across the floor. Speaking of, “Smashing Plates Across the Floor” is the one that really dips into the VU, like Lou Reed zonked outta his head on ludes.
Ok enough already with the VU mentions. Material Pop Volume One’s got a lot more going on and I don’t want to shortchange anyone. The pop hits are the ones that soak in immediately, but there’s plenty ‘a growers littered throughout.
Across the 13 tracks there’s a handful of directions. You get the “keep you on your toes” ambient bubblers and album closer “Sound Collage.” “The Down and Out Cop” is spoken word fiction over a pseudo-industrial background, like a son-of-Armand-Schaubroeck sorta thing. It’s followed by “Burn,” settling into a Death In June neo-folk groove. “Cherry Guitar” has a David Gedge jammin’ with The Clean thing going on that’s a real winner. A plentiful album to sink your teeth into if you like any of the sounds mentioned above.
Sit back, relax, it’s time for Rat Henry.
BBR: When did you start Rat Henry? Did you have any specific trajectory for it?
RZ: It started in 2017 when my friend gave me a four track. l had made up some silly songs on guitar over the years, then started recording some very crude versions on the four track. There was never expectation of anyone hearing the music, but as I became more invested I bought an old drum kit, and though I didn’t know how to play, started recording a song every week. I’d make demos at my kitchen table on a little porta02, then in my small painting studio track drums over them, erasing the demo tracks, and building from there. I hadn’t really showed anyone what I was working on, then I met my friends Abe and Jose while working a job. We were talking about music one night after going out drinking, and I got up the courage to play these clips I’d recorded of the tapes just playing out of the monitors. They ended up telling a few people about a guy that was recording a song every week. Those people became some of my closest friends. I think getting some positive feedback gave me the final push to make tapes and release my first tape.
BBR: Have you been in groups besides Rat Henry?
RZ: No. For a long time I was a music fan in the way that it always seemed completely out of reach to make something myself. It was really strange in a way to become so obsessed. It was almost annoying sometimes, like getting a song stuck in your head, needing to listen to it, but the songs didn’t exist so they needed to be made.
BBR: Do you play all the instruments on the recordings? Are live shows solo or do you have a backing band?
RZ: Yeah I play and record all the instruments onto a Tascam 424 using cheap mics, a few pedals, percussion, and field recordings dubbed onto homemade loop cassettes. I do a stereo mix live off the four track and that’s basically what gets released.
I had never thought of playing live, but in 2018 my friend Mike, who I’d just met, asked if I wanted to front a Jabbers Halloween cover band. I said sure, but ended up being away during the practices, so I went in cold to the show straight from the airport in full GG Allin attire, bald cap, sunglasses, and fake mustache. None of us had played together, and we ended up forming a live band for Rat Henry shortly after, which was Mike Liebman on guitar, Dylan Stjepovic on bass, Matt Morrison on drums, and me on vocals. I started playing live shows at the beginning of this year solo. I’ve played around 8 using a mix of tape loops and synth, alongside some solo acoustic songs.
BBR: How has your sound and process changed across your three releases?
RZ: On the first tape, I was just learning the rudiments of recording, chasing down a kind of rough and ready communist agitprop ala The Desperate Bicycles.
After that I became interested in getting a very polished sound within the limitations of the equipment, tuning drums, drawing diagrams to squeeze 8+ tracks onto the four track, getting cheap preamps and compressors, using the 424’s sweepable mids instead of just cranking everything, just reading everything I could all led to a new batch of songs which became the Prankster's Whip tape, which I half jokingly labeled “Maoist Power Peace” as a play on the powerpop leanings.
BBR: Was there a conscious effort to expand your sound on Material Pop Volume One? Bleed Brat Blues and The Prankster’s Whip are definitely more straight forward.
RZ: I think so. I had been focusing on painting, but also taking lots of field recordings, filling tapes with noise, learning to make longer tape loops, and writing some longer form things. I started thinking about combining different interests into an album that was cohesive, yet oscillated between a variety of material.
I think when just starting it was helpful to have a kind of blueprint to work within. Even though I loved people like Ghédalia Tazartès, or Nurse With Wound, that kind of openness would have been totally intimidating, left to real musicians. Over the years though, I was able to loosen up and be more playful with the process, letting some improvisation come more to the forefront.
BBR: Have you read any outlandish comparisons that surprised you? Has anyone thrown out a comparison that you hadn’t considered but ended up agreeing with?
RZ: I'm not sure what the most outlandish is, I’ve learned of a few really fun things through comparison, especially Storm Bugs who I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of as they’re so good. I liked hearing someone at a show say The Shadow Ring, I would never think of that, but I like it.
BBR: Are there any people or groups that you feel are kindred spirits?
RZ: Coil is my favorite group, and was a big inspiration for this record. Without exhausting a list of favorite bands, my friends Home Blitz, Chronophage, Pharmakon, Jackson Pratt, Scant, Tan Saturn, Shredded Nerve, Masaki, Straw Man Army, The Follies, Tower 7, Dimmy, Grace Ave, Spiral Dub, Shots, American Nudism, Street Sweeper, are all great, and I always enjoy seeing what they’re up to. Joe Frivoldi’s Abasement series, and the guys at Thousands of Dead Gods consistently put on great shows that make life a bit better.
BBR: What came first, music or painting? Which one comes more naturally?
RZ: I’ve made both from a young age, but have spent much more time painting. There’s a bit of a similarity in the rush that comes in the capturing of things that can easily go wrong or be destroyed. My friend and I joke, painting is like gambling. Even on this past record, at one point, a cassette containing three finished tracks with months of work somehow broke and chewed and spit itself out. Funnily, I think if I hadn’t had to re-record those tracks I wouldn’t have found my footing with this album. Painting, music, cooking, so many things have these combinations of chance and control. I think maybe it just takes a while to get to a point where you’re able to stay focused for long enough to make interesting decisions on the fly.
I always think of this scene from Chris Marker’s documentary on Tarkovsky where in the final scene of The Sacrifice, which he made while dying of cancer, the large house and central set for the film burns down in one long orchestrated shot, but something goes wrong with the camera, so they rebuild the house, burning it down again for one final shot.
BBR: How do your music and art interplay? Are you able to balance the two or do you focus on one at a time?
RZ: Writing I kind of have to let come randomly then shape, but once I start recording, it’s one or the other due to space constraints. My studio is quite small so to totally rearrange it to set up a full drum kit in there is kind of nuts. I usually end up recording pretty intensely for a few months. Mixing everything off of the Tascam down to a stereo mix on the computer can take another few months since fades and changes are all done live during mixdown. The rest of the time is spent painting.
BBR: Have you had art showings? What’s it like navigating the art world compared to the music world?
RZ: I’ve done four solo shows, two of which have been with my friend Macrae who runs Starr Suites. We initially bonded over music and going to shows 10 or so years ago. He’s been involved in the New York experimental music world since the 90s, and shows visual art from a few different musicians such as Keith Connolly from No Neck Blues Band, Jaiko Suzuki from Electro Putas, Ed Askew, and others. So there’s been a bit of a nice back and forth as that’s concerned on my end.
BBR: Are you formally trained in art?
RZ: I studied painting as well as film history at UC Davis. Mike Henderson, who I met there who I consider a mentor, has toured all over the world playing blues guitar in addition to being an accomplished painter. While in school I lived at a falling down punk house where we had shows all the time called Hausler Haus, another called The Bomb Shelter. At the time, partly because of the local radio station, and the experimental techno-cultural studies program at the school, there was a pretty active noise and experimental electronic scene. Bands would stop through on tour between San Francisco and Portland, Blank Dogs, Sex Vid, and many others played our house, the Homosexuals played at our friend’s house. It was a fun way to be exposed to a lot of different music.
BBR: How does NYC affect your art? Are you from the city?
RZ: I was born in New York City, and grew up in California, but I’ve lived in Brooklyn for 12 years. Sometimes I think I’ll lose my mind, but I do really enjoy the madness mostly. I keep myself busy.
BBR: Artists that inspire you, past and present.
RZ: Andrei Tarkovsky, Walter Benjamin, Peter Christopherson, Robert Bresson, Diego Velasquez, Marcel Proust, Dee Dee Ramone
BBR: Any future plans? Touring?
RZ: I have a show coming up March 4 at Paradise of Replica in New York.
No plans for touring at the moment, though I’d like to. I may be in England this fall.