Featured on the BBC Sound of 2016 longlist, the MTV Brand New for 2016 shortlist and nominated for Best New Artist at the NME Awards,19-year-old Rat Boy is poised to make a major breakthrough this year.
Rat Boy’s fast-growing profile will be further boosted with the release of his brand new single ‘MOVE’ which is available now and impacts on March 4th on Parlophone. Recorded at 13 Studio, ‘MOVE’ finds Rat Boy resurrecting the boisterous bounce of the big beat era for the modern age, with his British Beastie Boy rap declaring “Everything’s free if you want it to be / Take my MP3 illegally and MOVE!”
Rat Boy personally asked Dillon Markey to direct the track’s accompanying stop-motion music video. The Los Angeles-based director, animator and inventor who is best known for his work on Robot Chicken and for ‘Fresh Guacamole’, his Academy Award-nominated collaboration with animation artist PES. Early in 2015, Dillon was featured in a short documentary called ‘Playing With Power’ which demonstrated how he modified a Nintendo Powerglove to use it to animate on Robot Chicken and other stop motion projects. The video went viral and sparked a resurgence of interest in the ill-fated game controller.
‘MOVE’ will be released on digital, vinyl and cassette formats.
In addition, today also brings news of a second major development in the Rat Boy camp with the confirmation of his biggest headline tour to date. Commencing at the end of April, the tour sees Rat Boy upscaling to an even larger London show at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
April – HEADLINE TOUR
29th – Glasgow, Oran Mor
May – HEADLINE TOUR
1st – Newcastle, O2 Academy 2
4th – Norwich, Waterfront
5th – Birmingham, O2 Institute 2
6th – London, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
7th – Brighton, Concorde 2
Tickets go on sale from 9am on Friday January 15th. They’ll be available from Gigsandtours.com, Ticketmaster.co.uk and 0844 811 0051.
The new headline tour adds to what is already a hectic gig schedule. Rat Boy’s first show of 2016 at Heaven on January 26th is also his biggest to date and long sold-out, while he’s also set to hit the NME Awards Tour 2016 on a bill that’s headlined by Bloc Party and also features Drenge and Bugzy Malone.
In addition, Rat Boy was also in the first wave of artists to be announced for this year’s Reading and Leeds Festivals alongside the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, The 1975 and Slaves.
January – NME Awards Tour 2016
26th – London, Heaven (headline show)
29th – Cardiff, Great Hall
30th – Southampton, O2 Guildhall
February – NME Awards Tour 2016
1st – Bristol, O2 Academy
2nd – Nottingham, Rock City
4th – Newcastle, O2 Academy
5th – Glasgow, Barrowland
6th – Manchester, Academy
8th – Leeds, O2 Academy
9th – Cambridge, Corn Exchange
11th – London, O2 Brixton Academy
12th – Birmingham, O2 Academy
August – previously announced
26th – 28th – Reading and Leeds Festivals
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