Peruvian all-female punk quartet, calling themselves LAS RATAPUNKS. Based in Cajamarca, the band has been making noise since 2014 and currently they are Yk (vocals), Kiara (guitars), Wen (bass) and Irma (drums). We are here interviewing this band not because they are all pretty young girls, but the music of Las Ratapunks that really caught our recognition. It’s fukkin’ rawk, tightly catchy, energetic and straight-in-your-face! Las Ratapunks has come up with several breathtaking releases, including “Fracaso, año de la rata 2020” and the most recent album, “Ishguin”. Can you just brush them off? “We all answered the interview, that’s why we took a while, because we wanted everyone’s ideas to form a single voice.” the band started answering our questions.
- Conversation by Atandistorted [October 1, 2022]
1: Hello. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed by Viva La Punk zine from Malaysia. Do you recognize and know anything about my country, Malaysia? Any words from you as an opening?
We don’t know much about Malaysia, but a while ago we made friends with a label from there, who did a release of our first album, Positive Youth Records, there seems to be an interesting punk music scene. Cheers to Positive Youth Records! Thank you for betting on us, and also hello to everyone who listened to us on our album: “Fracaso, año de la rata 2020”.
2: Please introduce the band. When and how was Las Ratapunks first established? Was it difficult to gather the members when forming this band? Who is in the present line-up?
Las Ratapunks were formed in 2014 in Cajamarca, a city in the north of Peru, first by Yk, Irma and Kiara, who had known each other since they were teenagers from the city’s hardcore punk concerts. Once the band started we were looking for a guitarist, Kiara had played bass before, so she wanted to stay on, but Wendi came in with bass, so Kiara stayed on as guitarist and Wen came on as bass. Currently we are Yk on vocals, Irma on drums, Kiara on guitar and Wen on bass.
3: What does the name “Las Ratapunks” stand for, I mean about the concept of the idea to the entire image and identity of the band? What does it feel like to move as an all-female punk band?
These are complicated questions, we haven’t thought about it that much, we don’t know if we have exactly an image or identity of the band, we assume that it was made on the fly and continues like that, however, somehow we feel identified with the name, especially because we considered the sound to be dirty, rat. Regarding the second, we believe that it would be like any other band with mixed members or only men, although there are certain things that we are seeing and comparing, especially in response to certain things, mainly on the network.
4: What made you all punkers? Is it due to being interested in the music itself or as a result of the environmental situation such as social effects, economical burden, life problems, dissatisfaction, anger and so on? Why is punk rock your choice as a way of expression?
From what you mention, we observe that the situations that we experience daily on this side of the world such as environmental crimes, femicides, corruption, inequality, etc; it is what makes us empathize with humanity and the planet, we find in punk an accessible medium for us to be able to talk mainly about the things with which we are not satisfied, to be able to express anger and question those things.
5: Congratulations on your new release, “Ishguin”. What inspired you when writing the songs and while recording this album? Briefly share the production process of “Ishguin”?
Most of the lyrics on this album are composed in a pandemic, so they are a mixture of feelings that were intense during the lockdown. The pandemic has slapped us all. The “Ishguin” tells everything we experience during the pandemic and confinement. Many things happened during the period of social immobilization, the saturation of news made many of us reach the point of collapse due to so much uncertainty, one of our exits was to compose (basically lyrics), as an alarming fact: during the first 29 days of confinement 4 women were victims of femicide, 36 women need to be taken to temporary shelters and 87 women victims of rape were treated, more than 50% of them were girls (and we are only talking about the beginning of the pandemic).
On the other hand, it was impossible for us to make music virtually, we are a rehearsal room band, when we got back together, the songs were quickly taking shape. The production process of “Ishguin” was fast, we may have recorded in two months, that’s too fast for us, that’s why this album has that spirit of being a fast and fierce scream.
6: How do you see Las Ratapunks growing and improving on this new album compared to previous albums? On the other side, do you still feel that there is still something lacking and something that has not been achieved through “Ishguin”?
Las Ratapunks are like wine, the older we sound, the more beautiful we are. Normally we make the songs and then we put together the album, the expectations of our albums is based only on whether we like it; but we know that we are missing several things, Kiara the guitarist says that she is happy to have been able to do a kind of plucking, she always plays fifths, because I don’t know how to do anything else hahaha! In general we are very happy with our new album, we like how it turned out, but we were not very clear about what the final result would be in the recording and after the mastering and mixing.
7: How does the sale and distribution of “Ishguin” cassette-tape look like? Besides good responses and reviews, do you also get any bad & negative comments? Is “Ishguin” available in CD and vinyl format?
We imagine that it has several bad comments, the truth is that we never expect positive comments from anything, that’s why when they arrive they surprise us much more, possibly the main negative comments we make ourselves XD. For now we only have the cassette edition for sale, we will record two more songs and we will see the possibility of releasing a vinyl edition. We believe that it is impossible not to receive negative comments, we do not expect everyone to like us.
8: What about gigs & tours? What fun do you get every time you do live shows?
Touring as a band is quite a fun experience, and sometimes tiring, depending on the season, now we are older and we have to combine our adult lives with the band, but the fun is worth it. Since the concerts were reactivated we have been able to travel to Arequipa and Juliaca, to the south of Peru and to Chile; playing live is very rewarding after so much time in lockdown and being able to travel and discover great bands playing live is too satisfying. If you have an invitation to play in your country, let us know at lasratapunks@gmail.com or lasratapunksband@gmail.com xD Most of the time we do it for the love of art so we go where the wind and love take us.
9: What do you plan to record and release next and how do you expect the future of Las Ratapunks?
Actually, we owe 2 songs to this album, which we haven’t been able to record until now, we hope to do it before the end of the year. We were convening an international compilation with female members and dissidents, throughout the month of September, it will soon be available in cassette format and on the bandcamp. In the future we Las Ratapunks will continue doing what we like, even old women, because punk is not dead, now it’s a lady hahahahaha!
10: Thanks again for your time and the answers given. Any last words?
Thank you very much for the space, the endurance and the diffusion, keep doing the little punk, we hope that we can see each other at a concert of Las Ratapunks in Malaysia soon!