Castle Rat at Welcome to Rockville 2026 - PipemanRadio Interview

0:04 Hi, you love them too? You censure. For se Wow for you young. Across the sun as relling to me the Dougas see dangers Calling. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with the Rat Queen of Castle Rats. And the Count of Castle Rat Nice here at Welcome to Rockville.

0:45 Welcome, welcome, greetings. Do you love this festival so far or what's fantastic? Is this your first time doing a Danny Wimmer festival? Yeah, it's our first time playing in Florida. Actually, really, where are you guys from? We're from New York City. Yeah, I'm originally born in New York, grew up in Jersey, and now I live in South Florida, like three hours south of here. Yes, the Jersey to Florida pipeline is real. It is, it is, but it's it's it's almost like one of those rubber bands because you always end up back in Jersey. So what was it? What was that moment that started this all for you guys?

1:25 Well, we're supposed to be a regular doom band with no makeup, no costumes, and I'm three shows in. We got booked on a Halloween show and I love Halloween, so I last minute made some costumes, made a rat skull mask, made a sight out of a hockey stick. Nice. We'm a hockey player, so I like that amazing. That's yes, the origin of Castle Rat is a hockey stick. But yeah, we had so much fun. I was like, why not do this every time? I have Halloween every day? And so we stuck with it and started retrofitting the lore and and here we are in Daytona.

2:08 I love it. I love it. And you're on tour now too. Yes, tell me how that happened, because that's a badass tour you're on. It's pretty incredible. It's a mount of Marth and death clock. As someone who's seen every episode of Metal ocalipts ever, I'm a huge fan and a mont of Marth Viking metal. How can you beat it? Right? It's a it's a great You know, these three bands together, there's a lot of crowd participation and interaction and storylines, and so I feel like we fit together really well. Yeah, and so it's it's like an easy crossover and the crowds have been amazing. You never know when you're opening, and you know we're a baby band, but we've played to like packed out rooms every night at seven pm sharts.

2:58 That's amazing. Well, I do love it, like it's like what a matchup. It's like somebody just design this tour specifically for. You three bands. It just it does make sense. Yeah, match made in Valhalla. There it is. I love it. I love it. And first of all, the first time I saw Death Clock was at Hellfest. Yes, and I mean I love them, and I you know, I love the anime and Geene Hoagland, I mean I love him also from Dark Angel way. Back, and he's so nice. They're all so nice. He is the. Coolest dude and what a drummer, you know. But it amazes me, Like he told me about in an interview where we don't make it about us, so there's no lights, you know, it's about the anime.

3:49 And I saw it. I was like I told my son, I'm like, you guys see this set at Welcome to Rockville, because it was one of the most badass sets I ever saw. Yeah, and I bet you match right up to it. Like I don't think you'd go on with death Clocke and mon or More unless you had a good show. We do what we can. We're our own cartoon characters in the flesh. I love it. So if you were to, if you were to name your own headlining tour, what would you name it? Name it? Or what would the lineup be? Both putting me on the spot. You got any ideas you're better than I'm doing so good, I'm petering out now. Please.

4:46 You would really depend on who what the lineup is, because. Who would you want the line up to be? Dream tour? Who would you want dream? Well, the thing is the thing you dream dream like, made up like sure dead sure. If it was a dream tour, we would probably be opening. That's the thing. You wouldn't be our tour, you know, because I wanted to want to we kiss Iron Maiden. There to negative nice. Yeah, so we probably wouldn't be headlining that those tours. You know, maybe you could tour with the new Kiss avatars. Did you see that when they ended the tour? Yeah? I was at the I was at the last show.

5:27 I was at December second MSG, so I saw the I was actually on my way back home on the train, lugging in to see what was going on with or like we're going down down something in a half hour or something like that. I was on the train on my way back home, lugging in. Yeah, we'll see, we'll see what that's about. You know, my first album I ever had in my life I won at Seaside Heights on the boardwalk played this game I won. I looked up and I saw this album, like, that's the one I want. And I was like in first grade and it was the original Kiss album. When I first came out. I was saying that to somebody else and they're like, you know, a lot of people that's how they got their first Kiss album was at the boardwalk at Seaside.

6:15 Right, that's one of the best ones too, I know. Right, So you guys need to get your music at Seaside down at the boardwalk. We had a day off in Myrtle Beach yesterday. Oh that's fun. We were walking around kind of boardwalk territory. I saw some pretty crazy T shirts. I'm sure you did. There's one I think I can't say on the radio. You can say whatever the fuck you want. It was a pink shirt and it said come slut Princess. Nice And so how many did you buy. One for each of the boys and the bands. See that's the way that I love that. That is the way to do it right. Just kidding.

6:56 What's uh, what's your favorite place to play in all the places you've ever played. I I'm kind of partial to Detroit's that's Detroit Rock story and that. Yeah, I had formative years in metro Detroit area. We just did a headlining show in Grand Rapids on a day off from the Ammon Clock tour and nice. It was awesome. It was sold out, people singing along with songs and it's such a good feeling, you know. I'm like, I don't know, it's like my home state and people really like us there. Well, there you go. That's what counts, right, Yeah. Yeah, And we're playing the Fox Theater in Detroit on this tour. And this is a silly fun fact. When they remodeled the Fox Theater or like refurbished, restored, I don't know. In the eighties, they had like a grand opening party and they had a bunch of pretty ladies walk down the staircase and my mom was the head model wow and descended the grand staircase at the Fox Theater in the eighties. There's a photo of her and her outfit is very similar to what I wear on stage.

8:12 Wow, And did you know that though when you created your outfit. Not at all? See, that's cool. And so she recently she made like a side by side photo of me on stage, and because her photos in black and white, and it's so cool, my mom's so stoked and she'll be there and it's just like a fun, little family, full circle moment with the Fox Theater. See. And I love that too, because like when I was going the shows as a teenager, there's no way my parents, my father would have ever gone to a show with me. And that's why I love about metal today and punk today. It's like I go out there, well even me, I bring my son and I bring my grandson, Like that would have never happened in the eighties when I was going to shows. You know, I was like, you wouldn't even want I was talking about that earlier. You wouldn't even want the older people there back then. But now you know, you see bands like Metallica that d'ur in their late sixties and people love them like I would have never gone to see a band in their late sixties when I was a teenager.

9:18 I mean the beautiful thing about metal in particular is it's such a like a It's got a strong legacy, and the fans are so loyal and dedicated, and I don't know if there's a following quite like it in any other genre of music. It's true. It's a loyalty for sure. Yeah, and so you know, I feel like fans are extra loyal to bands that keep on pushing, you know, into the later years. Yeah, and you know when maybe pop stars are tapping out exactly. And there exactly Like when people say to me that I've met, oh I used to like metal, I'm then you never liked metal. Every metal head I've ever known true metal head. Once you like it, that's it. You're part of family.

10:07 Yeah, it's it's a really beautiful thing. And it's funny because people who maybe aren't familiar with metal, you know, is he spiked leather jackets and it's scary aesthetic. But like it's such a warm, welcoming community. I mean, there's gatekeepers in any genre. There's going to be, but we are a big family. But like some artists have said to me when we've talked about that off the air, or like let's keep them scared because then we'll keep the idiots out. Yeah, they keep it a great fan Yeah. Well, I'm so glad you guys are here at Welcome to Rockville. That is badass. And is there any final things you want to promote that's coming up and your socials?

10:48 Uh, we are at Castle dot Rat on Instagram. What have we got? We've got we We have a headlining show at House of Blues, Anaheim on May twenty fourth. May twenty fourth, I'm pretty sure. And then we go over to Europe for some festivals. We're playing Walkin, We're playing Bloodstock. I'll see you there. We'll have to talk there. Excellent. I maybe at the German I don't well Bloodstock, you don't need it, but. Do funny accents that funny normal. But Wakin is like one of the god of ours. I normally every year do hell Fest. This year I'm taking off because I'm doing like a Father's Day thing, but you gotta play hell Fest.

11:35 We did. We did already see that. It's the most amazing thing, incredible. We played a like it felt so early in the morning and we're like, no one's going to be here, and then we played like four thousand people at like eleven am. It was incredible. Have you been to Bloodstock? No, Oh, You're gonna love Bloodstock. I'm excited. It's one of my favorite festivals to do, so I'll look forward to seeing you there. And we just released a music video for a song Siren, so that's out on YouTube and I directed it and wrote it and helped with editing and visual effects. So it's fun. It's like a throwback green screen. I love it theatrical vibe.

12:16 See, I love your like old school doing all the creative stuff. Instead of trying to minimize music to computers, you're being creative. It's got a I'm very hands on every all of you know, the giant rat and those masks are they're handmade. I make them amazing. And yeah, I'm just trying to keep the spirit alive. I love it well. I love that you were here. And thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Thanks so much for having us. It's my pleasure. Thank you, Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pipe Man. I'm w for CUI Radio.