Spectres

Good morning. Exactly two years ago we met at the yet unnamed The Calm Farm in North Yorkshire armed with nothing but sweaty backs the heinously ambitious aim to write and record an album in 10 days after not writing music together for over 5 years. We proceeded to write and record 8 songs thus an album. Joe would then record vocals on sporadic visits back to Bristol until the album was complete and then we all kind of forgot how to release a record...until now.

AM-DRAM is our 4th album and will be released on 4th October. We're looking forward to sharing more about it soon but for now, please feel free to pre-order at your convenience.”

Back in the depths of Lockdown 1, 2020 I had the idea of having the bands heads sewn onto rats. I scoured the internet for a taxidermist to help me realise this dream, but it took a long time. I found most taxidermists to be very stuffy people until I met Becky at Taxtiles. She was intrigued and after a quick phone call of confirming that what I wanted was for her to decapitate dead rats heads and sew model versions of the band Spectres on, she was on board. Part one complete. For the heads it was a no brainer. Musician and, more importantly in this instance, potter extraordinaire Tara Clerkin was the next person I contacted. After a quick facebook message exchange confirming what I wanted was for her to make clay heads based on the painting on the front cover of our latest album and then for her to post them to a taxidermist in Gloucester who was then going to sew these heads on to decapitated dead rats, she was on board. Part two complete. Part three was tense. It took quite a few months for four dead rats to manifest themselves into Becky's freezer, but eventually they did. Tara made and posted the heads to aplomb. A go-pro head cam was delivered to Gloucester. What you see in this video is the process of Becky creating these horrible little things. Dreams can come true. Now I had to get the rats in my mits. In October 2021, on a visit to Bristol from Berlin, Becky and I arranged a pick up somewhere equidistant. We met at night in the car park of Cribbs Causeway. I assumed she was the person holding a cardboard box. She was and the brood were nestled within. Becky even gave me a lift back to Bristol; the rats were too good for the bus. Ryanair were unable to give me a definitive answer about taking taxidermy rats on a plane. I put them in my backpack. My top shelf taxidermy seagull now had friends. We're now in July 2024 and this video was finished two days ago. Between that time many ideas of how they hell to immortalise these Rat Boys were scrapped, which I know is hard to believe after watching the video. In December 2021 I asked my friend Lucas if he was up for helping me film something at night. He almost got frostbite from standing for hours in minus degree temperatures but he was warmed in more ways than one once he witnessed the rats performing An Immolation Of The Self. Late last year I saw the gross Rat Slippers from Imran Potato and new this was the final piece of the putrid puzzle. Many weeks were spent trying to find a pair on Ebay that wouldn't bankrupt me. Good luck with that when ordering rats from Chicago. So here we have it. An idea spawned four years ago resulting in a video that looks like a 12 year old made it in 12 minutes. But the process has filled this little rats heart with joy. It's not about the destination (video), it's about journey (?) you took to get there. Thanks so much to Becky, Tara and also Ray Taylor Hankins (animations) for being part of this piece of rat a tat TAT. Nice Knowing You.