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Dec 03, 2025 By Mark Redfern Photography by Miles Kalchik

Chicago indie rockers Ratboys are releasing a new album, Singin’ to an Empty Chair, on February 6, 2026 via New West, their first for the label. Now they have shared its third single, “What’s Right,” via a lyric video. Watch it below.

The band features vocalist/guitarist Julia Steiner, guitarist Dave Sagan, drummer Marcus Nuccio, and bassist Sean Neumann.

“We approached this song like an experiment in the studio, stitching together three different drum performances, in three different-sounding environments, to guide us through some dramatic scene changes within the song,” says Steiner in a press release. “We referenced the tight, yet expansive sonics of The War On Drugs and the desert landscapes of Thelma and Louise. The back half of the song came to me in a dream and remains one of the few times that I’ve had the presence of mind to record an idea immediately upon waking. Most of the lyrics and melody came out in that moment, and for that I’m still mystified and extremely grateful.”

The album includes “Light Night Mountains All That,” a new song the band shared in September that was #1 on our Songs of the Week. When the album was announced they shared its second single, “Anywhere,” via a music video. “Anywhere” was also #1 on our Songs of the Week.

Ratboys’ last album, The Window, was #1 on our Top 100 Albums of 2023 list.

The band wrote and demoed new songs at a cabin on a 75-acre plot of land in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. Then several months later they returned there to work for one week with co-producer Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie, Tegan and Sara). Then with Walla they moved to Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio in Chicago and finally to Rosebud Studio in Evanston, Illinois.

“We wanted to approach this record like it was a quilt,” Neumann says in a press release. “We recorded the songs in all these different places, so we approached it in a way where different songs had different scenes. Certain parts of songs were recorded in different spaces, and we switch back and forth between them throughout the record to help tell the story of each song.”

Steiner began therapy for the first time before they started work on Singin’ to an Empty Chair, which impacted the lyrics on the album, its title referencing “The Empty Chair” technique, a therapy exercise in which someone practices having a difficult conversation with someone who’s not there, speaking to an empty chair.

“A big, overarching theme of this record is my attempt to document my experience being estranged from a close loved one,” she says. “The goal is to update this person on what’s been going on in my life and to try to bridge that impasse and reach out a hand into the void.”

Summing up the making of Singin’ to an Empty Chair, Steiner says: “The experience of making this record definitely gives me hope for whatever happens next. There are plenty of good days, days filled with friendship and love, and then there are days when I dwell on things and desperately want to bridge the gap. It’s my whole life, you know? So, for me, this record is a document of all of those days stitched together, like a quilt in a time capsule, just waiting to get dug up when the time is right.”

Read our interview with Ratboys on The Window here and read our rave review of the album here.

Also read our 2021 interview with Ratboys.

Ratboys Tour Dates:

Wed. Feb. 25 - Detroit, MI @ El Club ~
Thu. Feb. 26 - Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace ~
Fri. Feb. 27 - Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB ~
Sat. Feb. 28 - Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair ~
Tue. March 3 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church ~
Thu. March 5 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw ~
Fri. March 6 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club ~
Sat. March 7 - Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry ~
Sun. March 8 - Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall ~
Tue. March 10 - Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle ~
Wed. March 11 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West ~
Thu. March 12 - Nashville, TN @ The Basement East ~
Fri. March 13 - Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar ~
Sat. March 14 - Milwaukee, WI @ Vivarium ~
Tue. March 24 - St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway •
Wed. March 25 - Kansas City, MO @ recordBar •
Thu. March 26 - Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic Lounge •
Fri. March 27 - Dallas, TX @ Club Dada •
Sat. March 28 - Austin, TX @ Mohawk •
Mon. March 30 - Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad •
Tue. March 31 - Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar •
Wed. April 1 - San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar •
Fri. April 3 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom •
Sat. April 4 - San Francisco, CA @ August Hall •
Mon. April 6 - Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret •
Tue. April 7 - Seattle, WA @ Neumos •
Wed. April 8 - Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater •
Fri. April 10 - Boise, ID @ Shrine Social Club •
Sat. April 11 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Urban Lounge •
Mon. April 13 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater •
Wed. April 15 - Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room •
Thu. April 16 - Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line •
Fri. April 17 - Madison, WI @ Atwood Music Hall •
Sat. April 18 - Chicago, IL @ The Vic Theatre +

~ w/ Florry • w/ villagerrr + w/ Free Range

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