 |     |
|
 |  | |
|
| |
|
| | |
In late 1979, our friend Tom
(AKA
Hodderman) showed us, (Brian and
Dave)
how to build speaker cabinets. Our first PA was two 12" wedges, a BGW 250 amp,
a Tapco EQ, and a cassette deck for a mic preamp/mixer (read "y" cable on the
output). Everything fit in a Toyota Celica and we could earn in excess of $25
a night. We saved, we bought and we built until finally we had to take the first
big step. Bye bye Celica and hello van
.
We decided to quit our real jobs at Hughes Aircraft and worked hard designing,
building and renting our growing systems. We mainly enjoyed doing sound for
punk shows and on Sundays we were doing 60 piece orchestra's and 18
piece big band shows
.
In 1985 Black Flag
asked us to tour with them and we did three tours with them. A typical
tour for them was 16 weeks long and over 100 shows. We built a new PA
for each of three tours. The next 5 years were spent rebuilding everything into
a "real touring system" and doing lots
and lots of local shows. Tommy, our third partner came to join us in 1988
from Tucson Arizona. Sonic Youth and Red
Hot Chili Peppers
tours were the breaks we needed to prove ourselves as a national touring sound
company. By then we had dropped "Reliable Audio Technology" as our "more professional"
name and only used "RAT Sound". We found Karrie
on a Black Flag tour and she has been with us ever since. We hired Smitty
for the Peppers tour and we only tried to sell him once. As bands like Pearl
Jam
,
and Chili Peppers brought us out on larger and larger tours, we were able to
refine and perfect the system designs for arenas
and stadiums. We continue to surround ourselves with the
people and bands that we truly love and work
together on building our dream into reality.
For more a more in depth progression or Rat Sound and our systems, check out the Evolution pages.
         |
