The Rat Bastards started off as a recording project in Joe's basement in 1996. Originally assembled to record a Christmas album centered around a stable of offbeat characters they had developed through a series of prank phone calls in the preceding months, they quickly realized that they were capable of so much more. Over the next few years the band wrote and recorded literally hundreds of songs inspired by schoolmates, band members' mothers, pimps, cookies, alligators, and many other random subjects. After releasing two albums and playing a handful of live shows, internal friction became too much to handle and the boys went their separate ways.
Joe and Robby revived the band in 2006 with the intention of writing and recording a new album. In 2011 they began playing live shows again, and in the years since have released tracks on several compilations. That elusive third album is still in the works and scheduled to be completed and released in late 2018 or early 2019.
Joe Powers is a founding member of the Rat Bastards. In addition to writing a bunch of the songs and singing, he also plays guitar and sometimes bass or drums. He is the only member of the band that doesn't currently live in or near Louisville, and thus it is his fault that there are so few shows each year.
Robby King is also a founding member of the band. He writes some of the songs and plays drums, though he originally played bass (but only sometimes). Despite doing most things right-handed, he drums left-handed, making it much more difficult for his bandmates to play his drum kit when he steps away.
J. Alister Webb plays bass and sings backup, though he occasionally steps up to sing lead. He's written a few of the songs too. Truth be told, he might as well be the front man. J. Alister also plays with Plague IX. Go give them a listen too.
Ryan Murphy was a founding member and wrote a lot of the band's most memorable tunes. He played bass and sang co-lead alongside Joe. Ryan was generally pretty awesome, and we're all sad that he quit the band to go on a spirit quest in the Australian Outback back in the late 90s. Hopefully he'll resurface someday...
David Buschermohle was the band's original drummer, but his days were numbered once the rest of the band realized he could only play one beat. Despite being ousted from the band after a tense lunchtime meeting at Mr. Gatti's, David has remained an invaluable member of the Rat Bastards family, offering all types of support and just generally being awesome.
Ben Fields played guitar when the band began playing live shows again in 2011. Truth be told, he was much too talented to play in our band. He was once offered a spot in Cage the Elephant but turned it down, and ended up playing with the Rat Bastards instead. Whoops.
Nathan Christ briefly played guitar following Ben's departure. Despite being crazy and awesome and crazy awesome, he was only with the band for a brief stint. He went on to play drums alongside J. Alister in Plague IX before finally discovering women and getting a girlfriend.
Matt Murphy is Ryan's younger brother. He occasionally got in on the action during the band's salad days, singing lead vocals on a few early demos and generally making David's life miserable. He ghosted out of the band early on, probably finding better things to do than making music with a bunch of pasty white nerds.
Matt Bott was recruited in the summer of 1998 to play the band's first set of live shows. He was an absolute beast behind the kit but wasn't a very good fit for the band socially, so we went our separate ways once the summer was over.
