Casey Neill and the Norway Rats

Casey Neill & The Norway Rats combine sweeping acoustic reveries built around narrative songwriting and high energy post-punk rave-ups. The Norway Rats feature a murderer's row of Pacific NW musicians - Jenny Conlee (Decemberists) on keyboards and accordion, Chet Lyster (Eels) on guitars, Jesse Emerson on bass, and Joe Mengis on drums. Since the release of their last record "All You Pretty Vandals", they've performed at NPR's Mountain Stage, Newport Folk Festival 2017, and hundreds of shows across the US, Europe, and Japan. The new Norway Rats record ‘Subterrene’ is out in early 2018 with extensive touring to follow.

“Be it through raucous rockers, fragile acoustic ballads, ragged country, passionate bursts of punk fury or soulful touches of Irish folk, Neill's narrative talent and concern for real people's struggles stand out. (Neill) evokes an epic feel that fits perfectly with the implicit grandiosity of this emotional material, delivered with a raspy, affectionate voice that recalls Life's Rich Pageant-era Michael Stipe. The results are so evocative, you'll be tempted to steep further in these memories, the better to share Casey Neill's particular blend of personal and historical experience.” --- SPLENDID

Casey Neill’s rigorous tour schedule has included appearances at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, and legendary venues such as New York’s Town Hall and San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. He is a frequent side player in power pop band The Minus 5 along with Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck of R.E.M. He added vocals to tracks on ‘Scott the Hoople in the Dungeon of Horror’ - a 5 LP, 57 song collection of new Minus 5 music that also features Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Hardcore bands, bluegrass acts, and other songwriters have performed and recorded Casey’s songs - most notably Irish supergroup Solas’ rendition of "Lowground" on their CD's "Waiting for an Echo" and "Reunion”.

His career launched in 1997, after inking a three record deal with acoustic label Appleseed and contributing tracks to their Pete Seeger Tribute collection along with Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, and Bonnie Raitt. A compilation of his early material entitled 'Memory Against Forgetting' was released by Indigo Girl Amy Ray's Daemon imprint in 2005. Following a few years treading the boards in New York City, Casey moved back to Portland and it's thriving music community. The Norway Rats were soon formed and have become a popular Pacific Northwest touring act. Three long players have followed - "Brooklyn Bridge" (2007), "Goodbye to the Rank and File" (2010) & "All You Pretty Vandals" (2014) - each expanding on the sound and garnering acclaim from press, radio, and fans.

“Casey Neill has been filtering post-hardcore energies through an Americana muse for tales of wry lamentation, and the barroom mythologizing wed to painstaking craft has never sounded so perfectly realized. He brings a certain empathetic grandeur to high-minded tales of resolutely low lives with crack musicianship and casual authenticity”.
- Jay Horton, WILLAMETTE WEEK