Centre County band Chris Rattie and The New Rebels maintain creativity through pandemic

One benefit of living in a society that is sheltered in place? Getting back and hopefully celebrating our roots.

That’s the approach Chris Rattie and The New Rebels seem to have taken, as is evidenced by the band’s newest single “Chaos and Stardust,” released just a few weeks ago, and available on Spotify and other online music platforms.

“It’s a triumphant, simple little song with a dash of psychedelic weirdness in the beginning,” Rattie wrote in an email. “It very much sounds like us, the current version of The New Rebels, and the direction we’re heading in.”

That psychedelic beginning is a bit of a glimmer of Jimi Hendrix’s soupy, feedback driven, guitar-bending lead-ins to his most experimental songs, and then it eases into Rattie’s characteristically high, lonesome voice. The opening line serving as a invitation, “Close your eyes, hold on tight/We’ll be sittin’ through this goddamn storm all night.”

“Storm Song” is the latest single released by the most recent rendition of Rattie and The New Rebels.

“Nate (Cutshall), Jeff (Brown) and I spent a good deal of time in the beginning figuring out how to play my older songs within this new formation,” Rattie said. “‘Storm Song’ and the other three singles we released throughout 2019 are a representation of the sound this particular band creates together from scratch.”

Although Rattie has a fantastic, Spring Mills-based recording studio — The Whiskey Ridge Studio — the trio traveled to Pittsburgh to get the vibe at an old church converted to a recording studio, as sometimes it’s best to get into a fresh environment in which someone else is the engineer. This time, Dave Hidek did the honors while the band did the playing and production. Rattie’s longtime friend Brad Kozlek did the photography.

“We took a weekend off from playing shows and went to The Church Recording Studio in Pittsburgh to crank out as many songs as possible,” Rattie wrote, “as live as possible, with minimal overdubbing.”

The approach is consistent with Rattie’s and The New Rebels’ ethics: authenticity rules the day.

“It was really important to us that we capture our live sound, mostly because we were curious about how we actually sounded ... turns out we’re pretty good,” Rattie wrote.

And that’s the truth. The songwriting, the harmonies, the guitar riffing, the hard work, the hustling, the community-building, the big hearts, the local swerve, and, more plainly, the musicianship is all there. Chris Rattie and the New Rebels are crushing life right now, shelter in place or not.

Rattie said he wrote “Storm Song” a long time ago, but finds it “appropriate for the day.”

“It’s hard out there right now, so I just hope it can make people feel a little better for at least few minutes,” he said.

Hard it is, with upward of 30 million people applying for unemployment in the past few months. Local business owners, musicians, and artists have been hit particularly hard, as money collectively dwindles and performances communities are sheltered in place.

“It’s kind of tough right now for music in general,” Rattie wrote. “We were geared up for a big year, I don’t even know how many shows we’ve canceled at this point. We can’t wait to get back to that as soon as it’s safe for everyone. For now we’re staying creative and making the best of it.”

As time goes on, Rattie is keeping his eye on the prize. The hustle is healthy. His and The New Rebels’ hearts are beaming with musical goodness. The music will continue to flow, and when the shelter in place is lifted, something tells me these Centre County musicians will be ready to roll.

“We’ll be putting all four singles on CD in a few weeks and releasing it as an EP,” Rattie wrote. “We’ve just got to work recording a new album at The Whiskey Ridge Studio. I’ve been writing and recording some basic tracks and The New Rebels will start recording once we can get past this first part of sheltering in place.”