INTERVIEW: The Ratskin Family Band Celebrate Drag Everywhere You Look
The Ratskin Family Band are the world's first all-drag country band -- but they're just doing what every mainstream country singer has always done, they explain in our interview.
Toronto's the Ratskin Family Band is the world's first and only all drag country band. Formed in April 2024, the DIY "y'allternative" group blends high-energy live drag performance with classic country standards, reimagined pop hits, and original queer protest and roots music like their debut single “All You Fascists (Bound to Lose)”. At most drag shows, performers are lip syncing for their lives. But the Ratskin Family Band does not put on your typical drag show. When the self-proclaimed "first and only drag country band in the world" hit the stage, everything is performed live. This inspired them to record their debut EP Back to the Cuntry (out today) all live off the floor in studio, some songs in just 1 complete take. In their own words “As a live act who cut our teeth in bars, it only felt right to have our record be as lively and un-sterile as possible, we sound best when we know we only have one shot.”
In our interview, we discuss what it's like for a band who's just starting out – and the drag inherent in all country music.
Who are some of your musical influences?
As much as we love to really hit people over the head with the whole “world's first drag country band” thing, I think everything we do kind of orbits the very camp, over-the-top gender performance of 1970’s country music. Dolly Parton is for sure our biggest inspiration, in the grand scheme of things we’re sort of just picking up her wig in the relay race of it all. She was 100% a drag queen, and the greatest to ever do it in country music. So much of that era was so flashy, we’re drawn to the big hair, the nudie suits, these exaggerated gender roles in songs like Loretta Lynn’s “One’s on the Way.” To us, country music has always been drag. Even now, there's a lot of drag kings on top 40 country radio really playing up these hypermasculine personas. It’s all drag if you know what to look for.
Name a perfect song and tell us why you feel that way.
I mean, every song is perfect in its own unique way, in the sense of like, this kind of time capsule snapshot of a moment of a song as it continues to evolve on stage. I think for us when we’re driving on tour there’s certain songs that we can never get sick of no matter how many times we hear them, they come on and we all just go quiet and listen, or start singing as loud as we can on our self imposed vocal rests. I think of songs like “Fancy” by Reba, she packs so much emotion into every syllable, and the musicians really knew how to back that on the record. “Any Man of Mine” by Shania will get our attention immediately. Actually, I think the perfect song ever made might be “Sin Wagon” by The Chicks – it’s just impeccable musically. You can tell they adore bluegrass music, and they are such incredible musicians themselves. Holy grail song, that one needs to play like 3 times in the car and then another 3 times as we’re putting our makeup on.
Does your album have an overarching theme?
Back to the Cuntry is our debut EP! We recorded this bad boy back in March & November of 2025, we had songs written that we were really excited about, but we had no idea how to transition from being a bar act to a recording act. I think there was a lot of insecurity on our part, things like “do people just come to our shows just to drink?” “does anyone actually like our music or are we just a novelty” and those questions still exist and I actually think they might be true, but I no longer think that’s necessarily negative.
Being a safe space for people, especially queer and marginalized people to come gather with their friends whether they're drinking or not, is actually a beautiful thing and it’s a very special privilege to be able to facilitate that for people. It’s like, not about us haha, and that's such a relief.
When we were in production for the EP, we weren’t sure how to translate that energy from our three-hour long live shows into a digestible recorded studio project. That kind of became the concept: the EP is a pocket Ratskin show. It starts with the song we start every show with, it ends with the song we end every show with, and in between are stories reflecting the lived experiences of queer people both rural and urban. We recorded the EP live off the floor. We tried a few demos where we’d all play our parts one by one over a click, but it was so awkward. That’s not how we sound, that’s not what we do. So we all got in the studio in a big circle and set up the mics so we were all facing each other, and hit record.
“Will the Circle be Unbroken” was the last song we recorded that day, we had to do it in one take because we snuck onto our friends' university campus to use their studio for free, and we were gonna get kicked out in 5 minutes. That’s the final version you hear on the EP. I think the project sounds so lively because of how we recorded it.
How do you kill the long hours in the van?
Oh we are so chatty haha! And we don’t always get to see everybody if it’s not at a show or rehearsal, so we’ll catch up on everyone's lives, discuss the state of the world, what music we’re listening to, we can take a molehill and make the only mountain out of it because we’re just so excited to be in each other’s company. We’re all pretty on the same page about eating and when to pull over for a bite, it’s so important when you’re on the road. We edit our set lists in the car, practice our harmonies, do vocal warmups, go over our arrangements, and sing Shania and Slayyyter at the top of our lungs. We popped a lot of Halls on tour! We tried our best to rest our voices, I swear! It’s tough because we have so much fun together.
Do you try to make the most of being in a city, or do you prefer to just rest up?
That’s one thing we really wish we could do on tour – both sightsee and rest! The nature of what we do is so labour-intensive, that what may look like an hour set is actually a full day's work. I remember our summer tour was a lot of waking up, getting in the car and driving five hours to the next venue, setting up a table to start getting in drag for the next three hours, then soundchecking and getting on stage. We’d watch the rest of the show and then pack up, sleep and repeat.
One day when we can afford to, I’d love to have a day off between every 3 shows or something just to do human things like read and walk around a tourist trap. The only way we can pull it off now though is to pack every single day with a show so that we made enough money that day to get some food and fill the car for the next drive, with enough left over to justify all of us taking time off work, but even that feels luxurious.
