A small town boy with the face of Adonis, David Rat came to New York City in the late 1970s to be an artist. With big city rock n’ roll dreams he became the drummer for the seminal art noise band Rat At Rat R. David worked the door at the infamous downtown Pyramid Club, juggled clingy girlfriends and looked forward to finally garnering his father’s approval as a mainstream success in the music industry.
The story-telling quality of David’s poetry calls to mind the lyrical elegies of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and Iggy Pop’s “Look Away.” Tragic luminaries of the period such as Greer Lankton and Ethyl Eichelberger provided the inspiration for some of David’s best work. But immersed within the world of the New York City underground David became addicted to heroin, and the 'names' and wide-eyed descriptions of the era dropped away, with testimonies to painful longing and the ritual redundancies of addiction taking their place. Only with the birth of his first son did David finally find the motivation and the strength to kick his habit and banish the needle from his life.
Today, David Rat lives in Chapeco, Brazil with his fiancee and works as a Professor de Inglês. He remains dedicated to his music, to writing and to his son James.
David Rat
Every Happy Ending implies a not-so-happy beginning, and David Rat's story—from a groundbreaking career as the drummer of the 'Noise-Rock' cult band Rat At Rat R to a devastating addiction to heroin—follows a path from soaring heights (and highs) to the hellish basement of desperate addiction (the lowest of all possible lows).
Books by David Rat
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