Chicago indie rockers Ratboys release latest album ‘Singin’ to an Empty Chair’

Ratboys are closing “The Window” and pulling up a “Chair” on their latest album, signaling they have made themselves at home and are going to stay a while.

The Chicago-based indie rock quartet’s sixth record, “Singin’ to an Empty Chair,” (released Feb. 6) comprises 11 tracks drenched in twangy folk, pop-rock and distortion, and all beating with Midwestern heart.

It’s a similar vibe to 2023’s “The Window” that helped put the band on the map and led to their first headlining tour across the country, a Lollapalooza debut a couple years later (not long after singer/guitarist Julia Steiner worked on the festival’s artist transport team) and an appearance on “CBS Saturday Sessions.”

“We’re very domestic,” joked Steiner about the parallels in album names. Joined by bandmates, guitarist Dave Sagan, bassist Sean Neumann and drummer Marcus Nuccio, at Ratboys HQ, a quaint basement on the northwest side of Chicago, she proved that point. In a corner of the room, there’s even a pair of bunk beds for bands to crash with them when needed.

The new album is more than just cozy environments, though, tackling heavier themes from troubled relationships to the current political climate. The title actually refers to an exercise that Steiner started doing as she took up therapy for the first time to process an estranged relationship with a loved one. The method is referred to as The Empty Chair Technique, which provides the space for difficult conversations by allowing patients to vocalize feelings to an empty chair as if the other person were there.

“It gave me more precision and willingness to introspect and kind of understand myself a little bit better,” Steiner admitted of how those sessions translated back into her songwriting. “It added more color and dimension to the experience of writing about what you know, which is the only thing I know how to do.”

Her personal victories are laid bare on songs like “Open Up,” in which Steiner begs to know, “What’s it going to take to open up this time?” Or, the power pop jangler “Anywhere,” which takes the perspective of a dog suffering panic attacks. The muse was the Sagan family dog, a Pomeranian bundle of fur and nerves named Toffik.

“When he was a puppy especially, he would get really nervous if he wasn’t by Dave’s mom’s side. It was honestly so pathetic and sweet watching him internally lose it when she would go to the bathroom,” Steiner said. “But even if you didn’t know that backstory, it could kind of feel like any sort of anxious, codependent relationship.”

On other songs, the band widens the perspective to psychoanalyze the world at large, as heard on the pensive “The World, So Madly” and the subtly apoplectic “Burn It Down,” a high point of the album that teems with Neil Young-esque guitar fury. Neumann duets with Steiner on the latter track as he takes on a more pronounced vocal role.

“Everybody has the urge to scream into the void and express their anger somehow. It was a bit of that,” Sagan said of the impetus behind the song, which ultimately has a positive spin. “Beyond burning it all down and being left with absolutely nothing at the end, I’d rather be left with some sort of hope for something better.”

“Like a future that’s different and more community-minded and humane than the one that we have now,” Steiner interjected. The song has been in the works for a while; it was first written in 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests and the reaction to the murder of George Floyd.

“Maybe it sounds strange to say, but I’m really grateful for the way that the timing has worked out because it feels so relevant to talk about big societal changes right now,” she added. “We have no hesitation to look that in the face, and we will play this song live every night, as many opportunities as we can, to hammer it home.”

While Ratboys is far from a political band, they have entered the ring before. In 2020, 10 years after forming at the University of Notre Dame, the band found their first major boost when they were invited to play at a Bernie Sanders rally in Iowa and the footage went viral.

“The fact that Ratboys was able to somehow connect with him is very meaningful,” said Nuccio.

“Seeing the way his events are run, it’s truly DIY punk,” Steiner added of what she took away from the experience. “It feels really inspiring and pretty empowering thinking about what we might have the potential to do at our shows as far as making them spaces where people feel safe to talk about this stuff and come together and rally.”

You can feel that sense of unity on “Singin’ to an Empty Chair,” some of it indebted to working with an ally and activist like Chris Walla (co-founder of Death Cab For Cutie) as a producer once again. This time around, Ratboys traveled to Wisconsin’s historic Driftless Region to record a handful of songs with Walla, and wrapped up the others at Chicago’s Electrical Audio, the Avondale studio founded by Steve Albini. Along the way, they road-tripped with a soundtrack of Brian Eno, Richard and Linda Thompson and Supertramp with the experimental and pop sounds imbuing themselves into the album.

The journey was something Walla hilariously tagged as the band’s “country mouse to city rat” evolution, which Steiner took as a badge of honor. “In our country mouse era at the cabin, we were scurrying about. It was exciting to be somewhere new. I think the results came through,” she said.

New West Records, with offices in Nashville and Athens, Georgia, certainly thought so. “Singin’ to an Empty Chair” marks Ratboys’ first album with their new label, joining a roster that includes everyone from Alice Cooper to Marc Ribot to Steve Earle. When asked if there may be any labelmate collaborations in the future, Steiner said the band can only hope.

“I don’t know if it’s a misconception or it just hasn’t been our experience, but people assume that bands on the same label hang out or have some line of communication,” she said. “I wish that were the case because it would be such an awesome excuse to get Steve Earle’s number. I would love to pick his brain.”

While the band waits on that call, they do have other trusted allies to turn to for support in the Chicago music community, calling out friends like the indie rock band Friko.

“In Chicago, we all lift each other up. It feels very inclusive … and it’s been that way for a long time,” said Nuccio, who used to play around in punk bands with Brigitte Calls Me Baby’s Dave Rosendahl. “We’ve all been in bands in this city now for 10, 15 years, and it’s been cool to see a lot of the same characters go on to do great things.”

“We’re rooting for any band that comes out of here. It’s exciting to see Chicago excel on a national level,” Steiner added, as Ratboys will continue to fill that chair for the foreseeable future.