Beach Rats announce their debut album ‘Rat Beat,’ out on July 29th via Epitaph Records. An impressive lineup of punk rock lifers, the band is comprised of vocalist Ari Katz (Lifetime), guitarist Pete Steinkopf (Bouncing Souls) bassist Bryan Keinlen (Bouncing Souls) guitarist Brian Baker (Bad Religion, Minor Threat), and Danny Windas (Let It Burn) on drums. They also share the music video for the album’s title track ‘Rat Beat’ which embodies the nature of punk in its purest form; hard, fast, and loud.
Beach Rats came to be as each member found themselves settled in the beach community of Asbury Park, New Jersey. After releasing an EP in 2018 and performing a slew of high-energy shows, the global pandemic gave the band a reason to get back to recording. The majority of the songs on ‘Rat Beat’ were conceptualized and rehearsed in the basement of Brian Baker‘s home and then tracked by Eric Bennett at Lakehouse Studios in only one day.
Baker recalls, “We’d go down in the basement, put on masks, open the windows and we could play – within CDC guidelines! We couldn’t go to dinner at each other’s houses but we could practice.” The DIY spirit of punk music is very much alive in Beach Rats. With the fervor to create something new, yet nostalgic, the band intentionally wrote the 12 tracks on ‘Rat Beat’ how they used to back when they were teenagers. Or as Baker puts it, “like we did before we knew how to write songs.”
Not wanting to take themselves too seriously, the band formed merely over a love of the genre. These are veterans of punk rock just having fun and trying to replicate that feeling and sound of what it was like to make punk music in the 80s. “You’re gonna get authentic punk and hardcore from Beach Rats because we are all from the ’80s,” Bryan Kienlen comments. “It’s literally taking it back to some of our biggest influences like Negative Approach and Poison Idea. And of course, Minor Threat.”
‘Rat Beat’ tracklist:
01. Bikes Out
02. Dress For Sick Sesh
03. Heavy Conversation
04. Rat Beat
05. Summer’s End
06. Saturday
07. Clorox Boys
08. Words
09. Blown To Bits
10. She Was A Goner
11. Beach Talk
12. FU Dad