Rattleshack
You start with the gradual or sometimes explosive birth of a genre and that genre mutates and sub genres grow from it. A scene and possibly a fashion result and you have a place to be, a culture to follow, a nurtured identity, a family of like-minded peers who gain a mutual understanding and maybe even a language. Venues, record labels, promoters and the media adapt and learn the language and feed commercially off of it, presenting you with an outlet for your music. As an artist you and your scene are accepted and understood
But what happens when you are unique to your environment and there is no scene? The genre you identify with only exists 3000 miles away, and even then it’s underground and outcast to a certain degree, even in its homeland. How will you be understood and accepted, who will identify with you and give you the breaks you need to gig and record?
Rattleshack stand alone in their environment, they are unique in their territory, individual among the plethora of UK artists they find themselves performing with and can only be at the forefront of bringing something new to these shores. It’s new despite their music’s origins being as old as musket smoke. It’s Country for sure, but a long way from the shiny cowboy boot commercialised Nashville image that that title invokes. This is Hellbilly Punk.
We met the band in their own backyard the Fens, and began to get a handle on what it was that gave rise to the project. Andy Stanhope, guitar lead vocals, mandolin and dan moi, explains it thus:
Essentially we’re country people, I’m a country boy and I write and sing country songs about living a country life. I drive a semi, use a CB and haul stuff in my Ford Ranger truck. The music I was listening to was country, but the real stuff not the glitz and gloss, the earthy music of the American deep south and Hillbilly traditions. Coupled with that I liked the edge that punk music had and became influenced by what’s now termed Hellbilly Punk. The quirkiness and lyrical content of C W McCall played its part too
For Andy, finding like-minded people to form a Hellbilly band with was never going to be easy, but a chance meeting with Gène Pellier got the ball rolling, despite an initial misunderstanding. Gène says:
I was promoting at The Voodoo Lounge in Stamford and was a big fan of American Hellbilly artist Bob Wayne. I’d managed to book him to play a gig while he was touring Europe and Andy came along to that gig. It was there that we met. In our eventual drunken state, I kind of told Andy I played bass, but in reality I meant I had simply bought an upright (doghouse) double bass and I could tinker, but was no real player
Undeterred by Gène’s lack of bass playing ability, Andy and Gène set to rehearsing Andy’s songs and recorded some basic demos using a drum machine instead of a drummer, later being able to secure the services of another country boy, Joe Mason, on drums.
The final and permanent line up saw fiddle player and vocalist Georgia Shackleton join the three guys. A country girl herself, Georgia’s background and playing were more in tune with traditional folk music than with US country music, but her fiddle and vocals now take a lead part in the band’s sound and performances.
Occasional member and washboard virtuoso Pat Voodoo performs with the band at various times also. Affectionately known as the Ghost Member, he may be seen, he may be not.
Rattleshack first appeared under the moniker of Southern Discomfort and their opening gig was well received at The Scotgate in Stamford, in fact they went down a storm, but the band were never really happy with the name, Andy explains the reason
We felt Southern Discomfort was over used, we couldn’t get the online .coms for it etc and we were stumped for a better suggestion. However, when we started picking up good support slots with touring American Country bands and artists such as The Dirt Daubers and Miss Izzy Cox, a solution was found. One of these bands was The Legendary Shack Shakers, fronted by writer, filmmaker and artist JD Wilkes. While talking to JD about the name problem, he suggested Rattleshack, and we adopted it
Although we’ve been describing the band’s genre as Hellbilly, which can also incorporate Metal and Grunge and has links with horror films and related cults, a more descriptive and accurate label, if labels we must have, may well be something like Hellbilly Grunge Country with a Punk attitude, but it’s possible that even this doesn’t go far enough to explain where the band are coming from, so we put it to them to define themselves.
Andy says “are you ready?”shifts his cap back on his head and begins. “The US Country scene has over the years produced songs based on lists and we may even write one ourselves in the future.” At this point he produces a scrap of paper describing in list format the lifestyle Rattleshack represent. He reads: “A rusty old truck on a muddy back road, burlap bags, b-movies, scruffy old jeans, folk law stories, spaghetti westerns, agriculture and rusted out farm machinery, big dirty dogs, scrap yards, 18 wheelers, a lost 5/8 spanner when you need it, barbed wire fences, oily old engines, a flat tyre
in the rain, canoeing down the river catching crawfish, gaffer tape, bailing twine, harvesting in July, battered cowboy boots and worn out caps, Union suits, taking stuff to bits to see how it works, throwing stuff when you can’t put it back together, callused hands and diesel.”
So with the above in mind, do the band see similarities between living and working in the Fens and the Southmen doing similar in areas such as the swamps of Louisiana? Without hesitation Andy replies: “Sure, the Fens are similar in many ways. Large flat expanses surrounded by rivers, dykes and washes. Just the other day I was canoeing in Welney Wash where the water had receded and left vegetation debris hanging on the branches of trees and bushes. It looked a lot like a Louisiana bayou to me,” he laughs.
Asked whether the band would like to tour the States and perform their Fen’s influenced Hellbilly to US audiences, Gène says,
We’ve thought about it and we were apprehensive about the idea. Aside from the obvious costs, we were worried at just how we might be perceived. Having spoken to the American artists we’ve been working with in the UK though, it seems we may well be fine there and we’ve even been offered support to tour by Bob Wayne and others. Unfortunately no financial support yet, but it seems they see us as the real deal and because we live the life and are sincere in what we do, our US buddies feel that’s good enough for us to gain acceptance in the US
Needless to say Gène also drives a ‘67 Chevy C10 Fleetside truck and looks like a Maine 
mountainman. Progressing as a bassist Gène now also writes and co-writes songs for the band. His big influence has been Bob Wayne and neither Gène nor the band were disappointed when they first met Bob. In fact Bob has now recorded with Rattleshack and they hope to do more with him in the future.
Despite a lack of funding for a tour of the US at present, Rattleshack have not been idle in the touring department. Teaming up with Belgian promoter Barney Blomme, the band set off on a nine date schedule that saw them perform at the infamous De Ruine brown bar near Lembeke in Belgium. If you’ve not come across the term brown bar before, then it’s worth looking up. It may as well mean freedom, and probably represents an ethos that’s been lost in the UK to the Nanny State….but that’s a rant for another day.
De Ruine has to be experienced and it’s safe to say it’s unlikely there is another venue like it in the world today, but because of it, Rattleshack now say brown bars are among their favourite venues to play. Most of what’s mentioned in the list Rattleshack read out above can be found inside De Ruine as furniture or as a structural feature.
The venue is as unique as Rattleshack themselves. Also unique is the 12 Bar Club, Demark St in the West End of London where Rattleshack supported Rock N Roll Voodoo artist Vince Ray
in 2012. Andy recalls
We had a great gig there, the atmosphere was fantastic and the venue has
such a rich history of artists who have played it. You walk inside and it’s like putting on a glove, we just fit in at that place. It would be good to gig there again at somepoint in time, it was definitely one of favourite venues
Probably the bands biggest gig to date has been The Willow Festival where Rattleshack performed to several thousand people. Fiddle player and vocalist Georgia takes up the story:
One of the best weekends as far as the weather went for sure was at The Willow Festival in Peterborough. We were booked to play on the Sunday and it turned out to be pretty magical. On stage we looked over and played to a good few thousand festival goers while behind us the sun went down on one of the hottest days of the year
Georgia also writes for the band and adds breadth and an alternative slant to the material. Musically adept and vocally astute, Georgia’s playing has given the band a Country fiddle led presence rather than the guitar fronted sound initially worked by Andy and Gène. Andy wanted it this way too and felt he could move away from playing electric guitar to play acoustic and allow Georgia to take up the twiddly bits. Andy says:
The sound is more authentic this way, it feels natural and has empathy with Country music’s roots. Empathy or sympathy with the sound and its ancestry is essential for me. All of the band understand this. Joe is on the money with his drumming, or probably a better description would be percussion, and when we’re all working our parts for new songs, it’s clear we’re all following the same ideal
Looking to the future we asked Rattleshack how they see themselves developing and what they feel 2013 may hold for them. Andy gives an insight
Well we would like to see the Outlaw Country scene develop in the UK and would like to be the catalyst for that. We are influenced by bands and artists such as Hank III, Steve Earle, David Allan Coe and Bob Wayne and we hope to generate further interest in these artists in the UK. We may be able to do this via our own performances and recordings and hopefully inspire the formation of more Hellbilly and Outlaw Country bands
Not a small ambition by any means, but Rattleshack are enthusiastically received wherever they appear and are generating a great deal of interest, so why not?
During 2012 Rattleshack attracted the attention of Oilbug Records and shortly after agreed favourable terms with regard to pressing their inaugural official album release. Although a self-financed demo album titled “Lies and Thieves” had been recorded sometime previously, this would be the first time the band would be able to work together in a quality studio with experienced engineers and production support. Recording at the opulent Grange Farm Studios in the heart of the Fens with its panoramic views of the Fen landscape, certainly set the tone. The result was a thirteen track self- titled album that will released on the 1st April 2013. Produced by Andy himself and assisted
by resident Grange Farm Studio engineer Isi Clarke, Rattleshack will be available to buy direct from Oilbug Records or via iTunes among other download sites.
If you wish to experience what all the fuss is about and join in some foot-stomping Hellbilly mayhem, you can catch Rattleshack performing in Peterborough at The Green Room on 29th March and later in the year at The Willow Festival in July.
As the band like to say…. Keep Rattlin’
