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Brit hard-hitters Ruled By Raptors will release their explosive mini-album, A Shadow That Never Moves, on Friday, 2nd October. Marking a clear evolution in their sound, the record pushes their blend of progressive elements, high-octane riffs, and melodic vocals into heavier, more expansive territory. Get to know the band, below:
What are the origins of the band? How long have you been playing together?
Chris: It’s a very long story! The short version is I was in a band called Digits for 5 years before my eldest daughter was born in 2015, and it basically broke the band up and led to Ruled By Raptors!
Nick: It was a bit of a Ship of Theseus situation.
Chris: Yeah, it was. Just your usual “out of the ashes” bad bio situation that brought the four of us together. After my daughter was born, we took a break, and when we reconvened a few months later, the personal lives of two of the lads had changed, and so they left. Nick and Will joined at the end of 2015, before Matt joined a year later. We’d gone through drummer changes over the years, but the core trio writing together were me, our guitarist Craig, and our bassist Stu. When the four of us started writing together, it was clear that this was a very different band, and so we decided to draw a line and start again at the end of 2018.
What should people expect when they check the band out? How would you describe Ruled By Raptors?
Matt: We’re eclectic, that’s for sure. We play wonky post-hardcore, big choruses, proggy riffs, and emotive lyricism. Shouty-shouty-raa-raa, as we’ve been referred to.
Will: Lots of energy, the boys really move around on stage, heck, if I wasn’t wired into everything, I would probably find a way to run around too!
How did you feel performing your first gig as a band, and how was it?!
Matt: I think our first gig was the 02 Academy 2 in Newcastle. I’m not sure the lads were expecting me to be as lairy as I am… I came away with the feeling we were really gonna work as the 4 of us, we all went hard, and still do to this day.
Nick: Well, reflecting after the fact and seeing how Matt performed, my thought was: ‘Right… I need to up my game and match Matt’s energy’.
Will: Personally, pretty nervous when you have a new band that you believe in you really just want other people to enjoy it and believe in it too. Thankfully, that was the case in the end haha!
Chris: I won’t lie; I don’t remember our first gig as the four of us, which probably means nothing bad happened during it! I do remember our first one as RBR, though; We had about 20 – 25 minutes of material and were then told we had a 45-minute set at the bar I used to promote at, The Blyth & Tyne. They asked us to play a couple Digits tunes, and we did so to pad the set out, but looking back, I regret us doing that. Because the lads had done a year as Digits with me, it confused people that this wasn’t just a rebranding, but a completely new band playing a different style of post-hardcore. I think it was one of the benefits of the pandemic occurring just after we’d recorded ‘Silent Sound’; we had the liberty to just play songs that we had written and recorded together, and people stopped associating us with that band.
What are you working on at the minute that people can check out?
Matt: We just dropped the first single from our new mini-album ‘A Shadow That Never Moves’ called ‘Sleep Dep.’, available on all good streaming platforms now. We’ll be announcing our next single soon for the end of July!
Nick: Stream Sleep Dep. Today!
Regarding a similar audience, which band do you feel that you would be best suited to open for?
Matt: Probably Thrice, Enter Shikari or Biffy Clyro. Dream gig that to be fair.
Will: I think we straddle a few audiences, which is both great and a little difficult at times, but it does mean we can probably get away with opening for lots of different bands, anyone like Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, Enter Shikari, Funeral For A Friend would be a dream.
Nick: I think we’d all love the idea of opening for Jamie Lenman/Reuben.
Chris: I would have always said bands like Reuben, Jamie Lenman, Million Dead, Hundred Reasons, etc, but I think of modern bands, probably Static Dress, Unpeople, Enter Shikari, those sorts of bands. Then again, we played Bloodstock Festival last year, and we had people telling us we were a good fit for the festival, so I guess we tick a lot of boxes.
Excluding yourself, which new band would you like to see break out and become a success?
Chris: This is a loaded question; someone will inevitably be miffed we didn’t mention them haha!
Matt: Our friends in Tired of Fighting put out their debut album a few weeks ago; we’ve loved those lads for years, played many shows with them (I feature playing some guitar on one of the tracks on the record!), and I would love to see them get the flowers they deserve.
Will: There are so many bands who deserve a break in the local and national scene at the moment, so it’s really hard to shout out just one. As Matt says, from a personal level, Tired Of Fighting are our friends, and Nic and the boys have been chipping away at their craft for years.
Chris: What do we class as breaking out and becoming a success? Tired of Fighting are signed to Punkerton Records, I would consider that a success already! Modern Evils down in Swindon spring to mind. We played with them a year or so ago, and they were amazing. I’d love to see them get big. Same goes for our mates in Compounds down Reading way and The Breathing Method up in Ayrshire… Locally, I’d love to see Hivemind & Ten Eighty Trees break through. Both bands work hard and write some incredible, catchy alt-rock.
What frustrates you about the music business?
Matt: Constant payola tactics and the need to be a content creator, a marketer, and the best musician you possibly can be. I signed up to sling riffs, not fluff algorithms.
Will: Pay to win, in all aspects, we should be focusing on playing and writing, but instead, it’s a constant business meeting, discussing where we should be throwing money in terms of adverts and other things. We’d love to reinvest that money into live shows and other things that benefit our show for the fans, but just being seen online costs hundreds, unless you manage to be in the right place at the right time with the right content.
Chris: Metrics. The amount of people in the industry who rely on a specific streaming service or social media site above all others to measure how popular you are is crazy. Like, I get it to a point, but we’ve got something like 5k followers across all of our socials and Spotify, etc. Some of these will be duplicate follows across our socials; however, one promoter queried why we had less than 500 subscribers on YouTube. At the time, I didn’t even have a YouTube account myself! ‘Silent Sound’ has almost 30,000 total streams on Spotify alone, but we got asked why our TikTok posts average 400 views… And everyone values each one differently. I don’t give a shit about Tik Tok, I get it, you have to be on it these days, you can’t pick and choose which ones to focus on, you have to manage them all, but look at it in context of all of our socials, don’t focus on just the one you have arbitrarily decided to value most, look at which ones we’re most active on.
What are your first musical memories? And what lightbulb moment made you say “I want to do that”?
Matt: My dad showed me a DVD of Guns N ‘ Roses on the Use Your Illusion tour on a caravan holiday. Slash was, and is, one of the coolest to ever do it. I wanted to do that.
Will: Sitting in the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena (as it was then) watching Rush with my Dad, nothing has beaten that show for me, and I’ll always remember how many nights I spent learning those songs after that show.
Nick: I’ve told a lot of stories, but what really got me wanting to play bass was watching a video of Metallica’s performance of ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ at ‘Day on the Green’ August 31st 1985. I watched how Cliff Burton played on that recording and instantly said, ‘That… I wanna do that!’
Chris: I used to sing along to songs in the car with my dad, from a young age, I was besotted with Janie’s Got a Gun by Aerosmith and Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. I come from a fairly musical family; my dad played in bands, and my mam’s cousin was in Blitzkrieg. I grew up with my brother playing Speedy on Byker Grove, and I originally started off going “I want to do that!” and so went to college to study acting. At the same time, I was in my first band, and it was my lecturer, Jimmy Swan, who pulled me aside and said he thought I could do either, but he thought my heart was more into my music. He encouraged me to pick one and then pursue it. That really changed the direction my life went. I always enjoyed stage acting more, so it wasn’t a surprise that I felt more at home on a stage than in front of a camera.
What was the last gig that you attended as a fan?
Matt: We all went to Veritas Festival in Newcastle recently to see all our favourite NE bands, Tired of Fighting, Hivemind, Ten Eighty Trees, etc…headlined by the incredible Lastelle. Cracking day out.
Chris: I went to the Metal To The Masses Final at Trillians in Newcastle with my wife. Redscar won, which I have been telling everyone since we met in the final last year, that they would do. I was blown away by them and was surprised when the judges picked us. I’m sure they’ll go on to bigger and better things!
What current social issues are you particularly passionate about?
Matt: A lot of our music is fuelled by social issues. On the new record, we discuss the humanitarian crisis of migrants losing their lives trying to flee war zones, and economic inequality, and we regularly discuss mental health issues, as it’s something very close to home for all of us.
Nick: What can I add, really? Almost every single show, I hold up 2 signs. One says ‘FUCK FASCISTS’ in capital letters. And the other says ‘TRANS RIGHTS’. We stand by those principles.
What album do you have in your album collection/Spotify playlist that would surprise most people?
Matt: I drunkenly bought Skepta’s Konichiwa on vinyl, it’s worth a few bob now. Great record.
Will: probably Ministry of Sound’s Drum & Bass compilations or Lionel Richie’s Dancing on the Ceiling
Nick: Probably Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. I adore the track ‘Hair’. ‘I’ve had enough, this is my prayer; That I’ll die living just as free as my hair’.
Chris: I don’t think anyone is surprised by anything I have in my collection now… I’m very eclectic, listening to anything from Heriot and Deafheaven to Tatu and The Shamen.
Everybody is a fan of something. Who or what are you a fan of?
Matt: Newcastle United Football Club. It’s exhausting.
Chris: We all do.
Will: I’m a big fan of mountain biking, it’s taken a back seat in recent years, but I would go all over when I was younger!
Nick: I’m a geek, so I love me some TTRPG’s (D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and Cyberpunk), and I’m a Magic: The Gathering fan as well.
Chris: I think I’ll get called out if I don’t mention the Transformers collection… My kids saw me looking at some Studio Series figures a couple of years ago and bought me Swoop & Bumblebee for Christmas. I showed them the original G1 cartoon, and it all snowballed from there. It’s something they love, but it’s a bit out of control now. I must have well over a hundred of them by this point! I’m also an avid collector of music & films. I love football, I’m one of those World Cup obsessives, so I’m in my element right now during the group stages watching matches through the night.
What new music have you enjoyed so far this year?
Matt: I’m in love with the new records from Enter Shikari, Boards of Canada, Johnny Blue Skies… There’s a fantastic jazz band from Newcastle called Knats, who I implore everyone to look up to. The album was produced by Black Midi’s Geordie Greep; it’s fantastic!
Will: The new Plini album has been really good, and so has the new Enter Shikari Album
Nick: So far this year, other than Shikari’s new album, I’ve really loved Poppy’s Empty Hands and Guilt Trip’s Armour Of Angels.
Chris: To be honest, I’ve been listening a lot to Tired of Fighting’s debut album. I also discovered Petey USA in the last 6 months or so, and I’ve been listening to him on repeat.
What does the rest of 2026 hold for Ruled By Raptors?
Matt: Our new record ‘A Shadow That Never Moves’ drops on the 2nd of October, and we’re playing shows up and down the country to celebrate.
Nick: Yeah, canny few gigs around the UK and a brand new release… exciting times!
How active are you on social media, and where can people connect with you?
Matt: We’re far too active for our own sanity. You can find us @ruledbyraptors on nigh-on anything.
Nick: Don’t forget the link tree (linktr.ee/ruledbyraptors)
Photo credit: Jamie Bott
