Music:
Member Since: 12/08/2006
Band Members: ..
Jeremy "Saude" Saude- V-Drums, Drum set, Percussion, Guitar. Jeremy Saude started playing guitar when he was very young.He is a very good guitarist in a blues style... but that is a story for another time, now his drumming is of issue. He has been playing with Matt for years and years, initially as a guitarist, but in 2002 Saude took up playin' the skins.
After selling his soul to music he functions kind of like a drum machine for Matt and the boys to exploit in their pursuance of masterful groove and funk. James Brown quote most influential to his style of playing: "You don't have ta do no soloin' brother, just keep what you got, don't turn it loose, cuz it's a mutha." Saude is trained as a mic tech and a sound engineer, his technical expertise often helps in the set up and mixing of KingRat's live performances and recordings.
Sam Epstein- Piano, Fender Rhodes(Electric Piano),Wurlitzer, Organ, Clavinet, Melodica, Synths,Congas, Percussion. Sam has had a life long interest in music as a listener but recently and very quickly learned to play the keys and melodica. Since then he has developed a fascination with synthesizers, old organs and keyboards and continues to collect keyed instruments. His recently acquired mini Korg and Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer and 73 keyed Nord Electro 2 provide a huge diversity of timbre and tone for Sam to tweak and adjust, not to mention Sam's effect set up which includes a Moog Ring Modulator, Holy Grail Reverb, and various other things too like overdrives. Eventually Sam will be lost to the world, hidden behind his ever mounting stack of keyboards.
Sam is a percussionist and conguero and also a developing set drummer and BREW MASTER. Soon he will be playing drum set on a song or two and Saude will begin to have an opportunity to play some guitar again. Sam is wiley and has a rakish demeanor, his rapid fire burst of nylon string guitar synth will astound you! Besides these skills he never drinks diet coke.
Ryan Rudolph-Tenor Sax, Alto Sax, Clarinet, Melodica, Keyboard, Percussion. Ryan is a man shrouded in mystery, he hails from Gwinnett county as do all the members of the Kingrat and certainly likes to freak out on the tenor sax and occasionally alto, even more occasionally both in tandem.
Recently Ryan has been employing a Boss ME 50B multi effects pedal, allowing him a whole new set of timbres and sounds to play with: octave drops, wah wahs, muff fuzz, not to mention flanger, filters and reverbs...his sax sounds like a f*cking MACK truck comin ta get ya bwoy!!! Look Out!Famous for his blood curdling stare, love of later John Coltrane records and interest in esoteric self organizing principles, like the pocket system, in which the participant places items categorically and consistently in the same pockets of his/her pants in order to overide the tendencies towards losing said items in the confusion and chaos of the physio-spiritual universe, this guy's musical star is on the rise.
Alfredo "Julian-"COLD AS ICE" MorenaGuitar, Percussion, Trumpet. Julian is a gifted song writer and classically trained Pianist. And also he is fairly new to the world of reggae music and dub but quickly became quite adept as a guitarist in the style. CORRECTION within the brief time that Julian has played with KingRat he has become a wicked rhythm guitarist employing a variety of effects-wah wah, reverbs, tremelo and flangers- adding the perfect flavor to his crisp as well cooked bacon guitar tone. He also made a cool KingRat cartoon once. Check out Julian's profile, Invisible Connections , to hear his compositions.
Matt Gregg Mansfield- Bass, Mixing and Programming, Samples, Kaoss Pad II and III, Keys, 12 stringed Guitar, darbuka and Drum Kit. Matt started playing guitar, bass and clarinet when he was age 12. As much as he was interested in other forms of music, including a deep and lasting love for Ska and Punk, Reggae and Dub began to dominate his brain in about 2001. He started studying its rhythms and structure so he could play it, but along with this came an obsession with the people and the history that created the music. Matt has immersed himself in everything he can dig up on the subject, taken its influences and developed his own recipe for dub reggae in creating KingRat. He is currently a student of History, focusing on the music of the North American South and the Carribbean. In addition to his bass playing, Matt also does all the live dubbing (hence his nickname), and is responsible for the recording, mixing, and producing of KingRat's recordings. In the fall of 2006 Matt joined Atlanta's own Dp3 along with Davis Peterson (who he's played with off and on since 2001), Andrew Boring and Paul Mercer .
After Dp3 took a hiatus, Matt joined The Ghosts Project with Davis and Paul,which was a priorly existing duo project of Paul Mercer.
Both bands Dp3 and The Ghosts Project have recorded with Matt as technician and producer which resulted in a remix or reconstruction of the recorded tracks. Dp3 Meet Matty DubTub Inna Piper St is the EP of Dp3 reconstructions and Ghosts Dub EP is the remixes of the Ghosts Project, these albums are available through SnoCap on Matt's myspace profile.
Matt is playing Keys with Roots Reggae act I-tegrity- wicked Roots crew new to the scene. check em out
In March of this year Matt moved his studios, Piper St, to a new location and is in the process of finishing a drum room, a control room-, and a main recording room- the studio is equiped with several mixing boards, a variety of mics and rack gear but the main focus is the tracking of creative, inventive and truly musical music- inspired by home studios like King Tubby's and Lee Perry's Blark Ark-
Matt is proud to be doing the Live Dub Engineering for Athens PROGRESSIVE Reggae Act DubConscious too!
KingRat-- namesake, central deity in band's religon, booking and refreshments. An ancient spiritual presence summoned when the five members mentioned above are present in one central location and play a certain kind of chord extension(which will for public safety remain unnamed) after midnight while chanting "rattus rattus" in tandem.
Now KingRat welcomes the super bad percussionist and conguero Camilo whom has been jamming with KingRat since Sam fortuitously introduced him to the band. He really gets down on some Afro-Cuban and Latin rhythms and adds an arsenal of sounds to the riddim section, propelling the groove to the next level of funky!
Our Friends and Co-Conspirators often appearing with KingRat: Paul Mercer, Andrew Boring and Davis Petterson from Dp3. These fellows are quite adept at improvising and always bring a unique set of sonic ingredients to a mix via their Violin, Trumpet and Drums respectively. KingRat always seeks to have a huge improvised dub jam to top off our sets, with all our available friends participating.
Influences: DUB MASTERS- King Tubby, Erroll Thompson, BILL LASWELL, Lee Perry Scientist
DRUMMERS-Horsemouth Wallace, Sly Dunbar, Carlton Santa Davis, Lloyd Knibbs, Carlton Barrett, Brother Benbow, Lloyd Tin Leg Adams, Idris Mohammed, Bernard Purdie, Clyde Stubblefield, Jabo Starks, Billy Martin, Joseph"Zigaboo" Modeliste,Elvin Jones,Art Blakey, Levon Helm, Tony Allen...ah too many
BASSISTS- Charles Mingus,Lloyd Brevett, Jackie Jackson, Leroy Sibbles, Robbie Shakespear, Aston Barrett, Boris Gardner, Lloyd Parks, Clinton Fearon, Bill Laswell, Ian Lewis, George Fully Fullwood, Bootsy Collins, Paul Chambers, Dave Holland, Michael Henderson, Chachao, Paul Simonon.
PRODUCERS-Vivian Jackson, Niney the Observer, Bunny Lee, Amon Tobin, DJ Spooky,Gussie Clarke, Herman Chin Loy, Leonard Chin, Coxson Dodd, Prince Buster, Augustus Pablo, The Hookim Brothers, The Mighty Two,
MUSICIANS-All of the various incarnations of the Studio One house bands-Skatalites,Sound Dimension, Soul Brothers, etc, Augustus Pablo, The Upsetters, The Aggrovators, The Revolutionaries, Word Sound and Power, Soul Syndicate, The Inner Circle Band, Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, Jackie Mittoo, Ernest Ranglin, Earl Chinna Smith, Booker T and the MGs, The Meters, The JBs, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Parliament/Funkadelic,The Basque Dub Foundation, MMW, Fela Kuti, Culture, The Gladiators, The Abbyssinians, The Mighty Diamonds, The Wailing Souls, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Band
Sounds Like: Bourgeois dissillusionment with living in a society severely lacking in soul , creating funky reggae and attempting to not sound as white and imitative as we are.
Type of Label: Major
