Cover Feature Nobody can stop Rat Boy in his tracks

The momentum behind Rat Boy is unstoppable. This self-professed piece of “scum” is on the edge of everyone’s lips. Stage invasions are his forte, and he’ll convert a hundred new fans in the space of one frenzied show. His tweets get more obscene, his songs more obnoxious. Nobody can shut him up, and he’s the poster-boy for frenzied gigs.

From a distance, it’s bizarre that this has happened so quickly. It was only this time last year that he released his debut mixtape, a melting pot of voice memos and razor-sharp garage punk threatening to boil over. There’s a debut album on the way, and he’s playing to thousands on the regular. Few sprints to the top come quicker.

But a few hours spent with Jordan Cardy reveal him to be one of a kind. He’s the very definition of restless. There’s always a new idea propping up in his head. Midway through a photoshoot he’ll ask if he can draw something on a wall, just for the hell of it. He’s a mind-boggling machine, and actually a lot more polite than his middle finger social media game might suggest.

It’s always been like this. Before Rat Boy took over, Jordan relentlessly messaged music to complete strangers, until he won over a new fan or - and this was the more regular consequence - got blocked. “Whoever liked a Mac DeMarco track on Soundcloud - I’d DM them all,” he remembers. He’d do the same on Twitter, and the powers that be would crack down on his “too many messages” tactic. “I was just guessing what to do, sending it to loads of blogs, people my age who could write about it.”