Rat Patrol existed in the same line-up from 1988. Roelsel left for 4 months in 2023, but decided to return (and even did a gig inbetween already). The band is named after a song by Naked Raygun (which, we found out later,was based on the Rat Patrol TV-series). Naked Raygun just happened to play in Simplon when we were looking for a name, that's why... Rat Patrol plays pure hardcore (no metal).
We started in january 1988. After MBP called it quits, Henry looked for friends to nourish his addiction to punk & hardcore. Bassplayer & friend Mario (former Submitz, Zwolle, 1979-1984) knew singer Roelsel who knew this guy a few blocks away who had just bought a guitar, called Pjotr. Rat Patrol was born. After a few months and making a lot of songs, Mario quit and was replaced with Jansel, band-mate of Roelsel in Hoogezand's notorious Deluxe Green. That was to be Rat Patrol's definitive line-up.
We had always admired the Do-It-Yourself attitude of The Ex and decided to do it ourselves, too. We called Dolf at Joke's Koeienverhuurbedrijf (the famous Rent-a-Cow studio in Amsterdam) and made our first LP after just seven shows. We created our own label Highly Obscure Records to release it, and we managed to do so just before the end of the eighties... December 30, 1989!
Early 90s we did a lot of shows, many of them with our friends La Cosa Nostra (ex-Murder Inc), and with Chronicore, Henry's then other band. Early 1992, we recorded Not a Youth Cult, our 2nd album, and it sold quite well and fast, so we could release both records on one CD at the end of 1992.
We continued gigging and recorded Painkiller at Bunt's in Utrecht, which was released in 1997. From 1998, we decided to take it a little bit slower. We continued rehearsing and doing the occasional show: we never stopped, but had to give some priority to other things in life.
In 2007 things started to really itch, and we decided to finally make the fourth album. We recorded Ibiza Kepone exactly the way WE wanted it, with a lot of help from El Gordo (Peter Haaima). We could use the rehearsal place of the Gate Crashers, a barn in Ommelanderwijk, and mixed the whole thing at Casa El Gordo. With a final mastering touch by Hans Pieters at Excess Rotterdam, we released it in 2008. Straw Dogs designed the booklet.
Musically, we are influenced by really all sort of things, from 77 punk to the loudest hatecore. Lyrics are important to us, but more to give rise to discussion or thinking, than to show a pointed finger. Currently, we also love to piss ourselves off in our lyrics…. It’s what getting older does to us I guess…
In december 2018, we released our fifth album "Doing Just Fine", on LP/CD. We recorded it at Soundlodge, Germany - this was what got us the great sound ;-) Lyrically, half of the songs are more personal than before. We went to the same studio in 2022, to record our 6th (mini) album, "Nothing Comes From Nothing". It only has 8 songs, because Roelsel had the intention to leave the band and we wanted to record the last materials with him.
Rat Patrol is the first band for Pjotr (guitar). The other Rat's played in a number of bands before. Jansel (bass & voice) and Roelsel (voice) played with Deluxe Green (punkrock 1978 - 1989); Henry (drums & voice) played drums with De Verkouden Olifant (1982, punk), M.B.P. (hardcore, 1985 - 1988) and Kotton Krown (guitarpop, 1989 - 1992), and was singer for Chronicore (punk, 1991-1993) and Larry Speaks (hardcore, 1994-95). He also played drums for Over The Moon (guitarpop), from 1996 thru 1998. From 2017 to 2024 Henry also joined Two Two 79 as drummer.