Rat Boy announces ‘Internationally Unknown’, his new album with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong

"Tim helped me discover what I really wanted to make for this record and what’s me"

Rat Boy has teamed up with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong to produce his new album, titled ‘Internationally Unknown’. You can check out the title track exclusively below on NME.com.

The Essex youngster will release his second full-length offering on January 25 via Parlophone and Armstrong’s Hellcat Records label.

It comes after the singer, whose real name is Jordan Cardy, headed to Los Angeles to record with the punk legend, having frequently cited him as an influence in interviews.

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In turn, this led to Armstrong’s manager discovering Cardy and the young musician eventually heading into the studio with the star.

Describing his work with Armstrong, Cardy told NME: “Tim’s manager, Kevin, had found my mixtape on Soundcloud a few years back. They got in touch as they felt it was a good match. It was sick as fuck. When I was a kid, my sister had bought the first Transplants album that my dad actually fell in love with. It was always being played when I was a kid.”

Discussing what working with the punk star taught him, he added: “Tim helped me discover what I really wanted to make for this record and what’s me. He also made me feel comfortable to try different shit.

“He taught me so much about making a record. Compared to the first one where, looking back, I think I kinda fucked up. We made the whole record and mixed it before showing it to anyone at the record label. Also playing in a room together before tracking a song so we could work out chord progressions and transitions instead of where I would normally just make loops on the guitar/bass/drums in logic.”

Check out the tracklist and album artwork below.

  1. ‘CHIP ON MY SHOULDER’
  2. ‘MY NAME IS RAT BOY’
  3. ‘DON’T HESITATE’
  4. ‘I WANNA SKATE’
  5. ‘FOLLOW YOUR HEART’
  6. ‘INTERNATIONALLY UNKNOWN’
  7. ‘SO WHAT’
  8. ‘NO PEACE NO JUSTICE’
  9. ‘FLIES’
  10. ‘NIGHT CREATURE’
  11. ‘CRASHED DAD’S CAR’
  12. ‘SILVERLAKE’
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Ratboy’s Internationally Unknown…

Cardy also revealed one of his favourite creative processes from the recording sessions. “One of my favourites would be when we were tracking to a Studer reel-to-reel machine as a live band then Tim’s engineer was able to play the tape back into Protools with the stems separated. We would throw this stuff into Logic where I was ableto chop up drums, sync stuff to drum machines/synths, and put effects on things. It was a real fun process.

“It was like working with samples as the tape would make everything sound warm and not so harsh and bright. We did this for tracks like ‘Chip On My Shoulder’, ‘Don’t Hesitate’, ‘Internationally Unknown’. There were a shit load of layers in these tracks. Kevin Bivona killed it on the mixes.”

Meanwhile, Rat Boy will head out on a UK tour next month which culminates with three London shows. You can buy tickets here. 

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