Deaf Rat
Classic Rock Is Where We All Come Together

28.01.2020

Members of Swedish hard rock trio Deaf Rat have been playing together for a really long time – since 2005, to be precise. They were previously known as Billion Dollar Babies, releasing three full-length albums and playing over 250 shows under this monicker. Recently, however, Frankie Rich (vocals), Pat Kramer (guitar) and Max Lander (guitar) re-shaped themselves and returned to the stage with a new project. In connection with the release of the new (and first as Deaf Rat) album, “Ban the Light”, we reached out to Frankie in order to talk about creativity, the stadium rock era, music idols, pyrotechnic shows and Sweden’s music scene.

In fact, I’ve read that rats have a very sensitive hearing. They can even hear ultrasound. But you call yourself Deaf Rat. Why? What does this name stand for?

(laughs) To be honest, it’s not connected at all to the hearing of rats. We just put together a bunch of really cool words, which we thought would make people curious and fit well to the music that we play.

Okay. And I cannot not ask about your previous band as well, which’s called Billion Dollar Babies. Did it have anything to do with Alice Cooper’s album?

We had a band together, Max and Pat and me. Actually, it was formed all the way back in 2005 with only Pat and me playing in the band back then. We had a lot of different members, we released some really cool music and we did some touring and so on. And then, like, seven years ago Max joined the band. Then slowly we started to realize that we could not move on with calling ourselves Billion Dollar Babies, because we had gone so far away from the sound that we had when we started the band. The people were still thinking that we sounded the way we used to when we were that kind of band. And yeah, since everything just evolved, we figured that this was the right time to become something else. So we laid Billion Dollar Babies to sleep and started off with a fresh start.

So that was basically because you did not want to be associated with the sound that you had before?

Right, exactly.

I am interested who are your musical heroes? Because judging by the sound that you have there must be quite a few rock icons there, I guess.

Can I ask you a question?

Well yeah.

What bands do you hear in our music?

Well I guess Alice Cooper was actually the one who still sprang to my mind first, that’s why I keep bringing him up.

He did? That’s interesting!

But I mean it kind of generally gives me the vibe of this grand era of rock, like, 70’s I
guess. But it is kind of a combination.

Well, that’s it. Pat and Max and me, we’ve all grown up listening to classic rock and heavy metal bands. Like, Iron Maiden. Max has been a huge Iron Maiden fan. He also listens to a lot of Guns N’ Roses. Pat is also into Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin and so on. And I’ve always been a huge, huge fan of Kiss, Alice Cooper and W.A.S.P and so on. So we all have that thing in common. The bands that you now call “vintage”, I guess. Who are 30, 40, 50 years into their careers and still playing. And then everybody in the band have their own sort of side path, which they walk. I am the one in the band who listens to the heavier and darker stuff. I am also into Pantera and Rob Zombie – those kinds of bands. Max is more into really-really classic rock’n’roll stuff, he also likes Hardcore Superstar. Then Pat has sort of a funk twist: he is also into musicians like Lenny Kravitz. But the classic rock stuff is where we all come together. And that’s probably where we get the most of the sound that ends up on the Deaf Rat album.

Yeah, this is a very important basis I guess.

Yeah, and this reflects on everything: how the album is mixed, how we write the songs. It also influences the way we record the songs, because we’ve actually taken 30 or 40 years back to how you record albums. I don’t know if you know this, but traditionally you go into the studio and then you record the drums first, then you add bass, then you add guitars, later on vocals and then everything, so it all gets layered on each other. What we have been doing for like – I don’t know - 10 years, is we were recording everything live. Or at least our music tracks!

Oh wow.

Which means: everything is in the moment! So, one take never sounds the same as the other. Which makes music feel kind of alive, more than if we would just add one perfect drum track and one perfect guitar track and one perfect bass track – and so on. That would be like doing math – almost! That would become pretty boring.

But was that a conscious decision or did it just somehow occur? How did the first time happen?

That’s a very good question. I have to think. I guess it was like that: we did a collaboration with a producer and we had only one day to record a full song with all the instruments and all that needed to be there. And then he had only one day to mix it all. Which is a very tight schedule compared to how you usually record these days. And then we asked the producer, “How are we gonna do this?” And he said, “Well, you’re gonna play live”. Oh hell! We went like: okay, let’s see what happens. And the thing is we’ve always been fans of rehearsing a lot, playing music together. We think it is so much fun! So since we had done our homework right, it turned out really cool. And that was the first time we realized that it sounded way better than if we would have done it in the traditional way, same as we have done on the previous albums.

So the first time it was essentially due to the lack of time.

Yeah, exactly!

That’s amazing!

Then we realized that this was our strength. We can play really well together and have it as an extra, as an addition to the sound, to make the sound even more live.

That’s really impressive! And can you tell me a bit about the Deaf Rat debut album, “Ban the Light”? How did you work on it, how did the work evolve?

Sure! We wrote the songs during the period of – I think the date, which I have seen on the demos, was like five years ago or something. So the very first demo tapes were done 5 years ago in our own studio. And usually it is one of us sitting down with instruments or using his iPhone or something to just record an idea – if you have, for example, an idea for a chorus or an idea for a really cool riff or sometimes we even have the idea for the whole song. In my case I usually sit around in the studio just playing this and that and very often it takes hours, hours and hours and I hate myself and I think I do the worst music possible and I can’t play anything – things like that. And then one hour before I can take the last train home – that’s when the things start to happen. That’s really when the creativity gets a little loose and sometimes really great ideas come about. And then once there is one idea, we usually bring it forward to the rest of the guys in the band and they add on their inputs. So it is always the original idea that one of us has and it never sounds the same once it gets filtered through the Deaf Rat filter when the other guys add their stuff. And in my case I’ve been a drummer for many years, so I usually like to record drum parts by myself. I can play a little bit of guitar, but I am very bad at playing guitar, so what I usually do is I write a riff, then I try to record it, which takes forever, then I show it to Max and Pat and tell them: play it, but play it good! (laughs) And then it becomes so much better when they add their stuff on to it.

So, you essentially always sit together in the same room when you write music? You can’t do it like many people nowadays, being spread all over the country, in different places?

No, we actually all live in the same city. So it’s very…

…convenient.

…It’s a small city, very few people live there. And usually everybody is involved in songwriting in some way. There are certain songs on the album where I have not been involved in writing music, but I have been involved in lyrics and the vocals obviously. And then there are other songs where I’ve done almost everything: like, all the parts, even for guitars, even string arrangements – like in the song “Bad Blood”. So it differs from song to song. But in every song everybody is involved in some kind of way.

And in terms of the lyrics, the album is said to be inspired by contemporary news broadcasts and things like that. Did you have in mind any particular evens? What inspired you in terms of the story? Or was it some general kind of feeling?

The one thing that had actually sparked the whole idea was that I watched a movie called “Holy Hell”. It’s on Netxflix. You gotta watch it! This is a documentary that is filmed and captured from inside of a real cult during the 80s in Los Angeles. So everything you see in there, all that footage is captured by the people inside of the cult. In the beginning of the movie everything seems fine, everything is very nice, lawful, everybody’s taking care of each other, everybody’s having a great time and just seem to be having the time of their lives. And then along the story goes, and people start realizing that the things are not really the way they think they are. And in the end you’ve got to follow the people who eventually left the cult, who tell their stories of what really happened inside of it. And there is a really charismatic leader of the cult of course – as always. You’ve got to follow his way of leading the whole thing. It’s a really interesting piece and it sparked the idea to wrap everything, all the stories around that. We basically sat down and said: how can we make our own fictional cult and use parts of the story that really happened back then by ourselves. We came up with our own cult leader – in this case it’s the lady on the front of the cover. And then we built it all from there. Have you seen the actual album or you just got a digital version of it?

No, just digital.

It’s too bad! Because inside of the booklet there are letters from all of the members of the cult, who tell their stories. The lyrics from the album is hand-written and supposed to be the stories from the guys and the girls who were inside of that cult.

Oh I have to get a physical copy then! Physical is always better!

Of course!

Okay, to the next question. You have announced a European tour with H.E.A.T and Reach for May. Do you know them from before? Have you preformed with them before or is this something new for you?

They all are friends of ours. Sweden is a very small country, everybody knows everybody who plays music. I don’t think we’ve… No! We’ve played at one festival together with H.E.A.T. And apart from that I have been touring with them doing the pyrotechnic show. So when I am not on stage working with Deaf Rat, I work as a pyro technician.

Yeah, I know about it!

You do? Yeah, so I had some really cool bands to tour with – and H.E.A.T among others. I did a farewell tour of Twisted Sister. I’ve got to travel around with them for the whole summer – over the biggest festivals around Europe doing their pyrotechnic show! That was very cool!

You did some Sweden Rock as well, right?

I did, yes!

Okay, let’s get back to touring. As far as I understand you have not announced all the dates yet, right?

That’s correct, there are still a few dates in that tour with H.E.A.T that are missing. They will be announced pretty soon.

But Russia is not one of them?

I am not sure – I am not handling the bookings. I only go where people tell me to go. So it might be. Or maybe there will be like a second tour later on that year, when we reach Poland, Russia, Estonia and all these countries over there. That would probably make sense with the whole travelling thing. I will see if we will be part of that or if we will be on a different tour.

I see. And back to pyrotechnics, can you tell how did it start for you in that business? This is a pretty interesting occupation.

It started out with me loving to blow things up when I was a kid. It is only two times in a year when you can buy fireworks in Sweden, which are two dates when you celebrate. One is New Year’s Eve and another is a celebration during the autumn. I just always loved to blow up something. And then later on since I’ve been a huge Kiss fan, it was like: if I’m gonna start my own band, we need to have pyrotechnics of course. So playing with other bands in the past I got in touch with the biggest pyro company of Scandinavia, which is called Unique Pyrotechnic. They handle all the big tours that come to Sweden and all the Swedish tours that go outside of Sweden. So we started buying equipment and pyrotechnic effects form them. And then they asked me one day, like, how about you do some work for us when you are not on tour? And I said, sure, just call me. I did not hear anything for like 9 months and then one day they called me and said, “Can you do the show for Hammerfall, which is gonna be somewhere around your area?” I said, “Sure, when is it gonna be?” – “Oh, it’s in two days!” – “Oh, alright, sure. Anything else I need to know?” – “No, don’t worry about it. Just listen to their songs.” And when I got there it turned out they were doing there the recording of their official DVD that was gonna be released on Nuclear Blast on the same evening. And it was like a celebration of the 15-year anniversary of the “Glory to the Brave” album. That was my first professional show as a pyro technician!

Pretty big responsibility I guess! You can’t mess it up!

It is a big responsibility for sure! You know, lucky enough it turned out to be good, guys were happy. So I’ve done some really cool pyro shows after that.

And Hammerfall already had a show, right? So, did you just follow the effects, which were used by them already? Is it always like that?

Well, it’s a little bit different in different situations. In this case, if I remember it correctly, because it was so many years ago, it was already decided how many bombs they had paid for. And then I also had fire flames and some really cool smoke effects. And also, it was more like: you sit down with the band and they tell you, “Okay, during this intro we want the flames to behave in this way. During this chorus we want the smoke to be in this way. And in the next song we want the bombs to go up in this kind of way.” So it was a little bit like: listening to the songs, trying to figure everything out on the spot. It worked well and I had been listening a lot to Hammerfall music previously when I was younger, so I had a little bit of homework done already in the past. That was really helpful.

Do you ever come up with any special effects for your band?

Sure, we’ve used a lot. We’ve probably blown up more money than we could have used to buy a tour bus or something like that over the years!

Is it you who sits there and says: let’s blow something up here and there, or how does it work?

Yes, usually it’s me!

And with music you’ve started before that, right?

I started playing music when I was… I don’t know. I think I was 8-9 years old when I started playing my first instrument. Then I started playing guitar when I was 12 and I started my first band around the same time. It slowly moved me into playing drums, because it was way cooler. And my big brother had a band and they rehearsed in the basement of my parents’ house. So when they were not there I used to sneak down there and sit at the drum kit, trying to teach myself how to become a good drummer. And then eventually it turned out… Cos I was not allowed down there by my brother. Because he thought it was not cool to have his younger brother around when he was playing with his cool friends, you know. And then eventually I got to the point when they asked me, like, “Would you want to become a drummer of our band? Because we’ve heard you play and we think it’s time for you to get a real band.” So that was the start of it.

Oh that’s so cool! So are you self-taught?

I am self-taught… At drums I took a few lessons: I played a little bit with a really great drummer from our city, he is called Patrick Johansson. He’s been playing with Yngwie Malmsteen for the past 15 years or so, he’s done some touring with W.A.S.P. and other cool artists. I took some drum lessons from him. And I took some guitar lessons from the music school that we had in town. But apart from that it’s all self-taught.

Can you maybe share, which albums put up by other artists have impressed you the most out of those which were issued recently? Say, within the last year?

Which I liked the most?

Which impressed you the most. Not necessarily inspired.

I am a huge fan of Ghost!

Me too!

I think Ghost is the best band that has been formed in the last 20 or 25 years. I think it’s just a spot on to what I think is cool. And if anything, if I listen to a lot of their interviews or read bios, it strikes me that we have all the same heroes. And he (Tobias Forge – ed.)  is just as big of a Kiss fan as I am! When you are that big of a Kiss fan you can easily see how everything that Ghost does is like what Kiss would have done in the 70s if they would have been Ghost. Which is really cool. All the things with the masks – of course that is Kiss, the whole imagery; and the pyro stuff is there – they’ve finally started to use it a lot now. And everything in the details: like, the costumes of the guys that change from album to album. I am so impressed by the way they do it all and how good they do it. Like, everything around the music. And then of course the music itself is also is amazing. That sounds nothing like Kiss. But it’s really… I’ve always been a fan of this little dark stuff that gets combined with pretty… how do you say? It’s not death metal at all, because it’s softer rock or hard rock, but then they add these really nice flavors of darkness into it. It’s really spot on. I think, “Meliora” is the best album of Ghost – in my opinion. Apart from Ghost… I would almost say that’s over. I really think that Velvet Revolver, you know, the band that Slash had, after Slash’s Snakepit, was really cool. But that’s like 15 years ago from now.

Yeah, that’s quite old already.

For me that is new. That’s modern music! That’s my preferences (laughs). But yeah of course, it’s not new anymore.

No, I mean, there are things which are eternal. Thank you very much for your interview!

Thank you!

Deaf Rat on the Internet: http://deafrat.com

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova (AFM Records) for arranging this interview

Interview by Olga Stebleva
Photos courtesy of AFM Records
December 2019
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