Rat (Ned's Atomic Dustbin)

Rat was the preferred nickname of the musician Gareth Pring (born 8 November 1970, Sedgley, West Midlands)

Rat is most famous for being the guitarist in the early 1990s indie punk band, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, he was a founding member of the band, and stayed in situ from 1987 to 1995. Ned's Atomic Dustbin had a string of hit singles between 1990 and 1995, among them, "Grey Cell Green" and "Kill Your Television" and "Not Sleeping Around". Shortly after the success of Godfodder, Rat said, "people ask me all the time if I consider myself successful now, or need a No. 1 album before I feel I've validated myself. As long as I'm happy, I don't care. As soon as you start worrying too much about the numbers, you're bound to get miserable."

On Neds' sound, Rat elaborates, "We wanted to do a lot of things musically, one of which was to create something that was the antithesis to dance music. I think that by having two basses, our music sounds a lot heavier than other bands that only have one, and we're totally into that. Whether that was our intent when we formed the group, I can't honestly say."

In a 1992 interview, in response to the grebo label, ("In English schoolyard lingo, "grebo" is the equivalent of "dork." In pop jargon, it refers to a long-haired, smelly person.") Rat says, ""I am a dork, but at least I don't smell. Maybe in the beginning, it was meant to be derogatory, but I don't think 'grebo' has bad connotations anymore."" He further states, "We toured Japan before, and it was brilliant because the kids went mad. The only way we could communicate with them was through our music, but they understood everything we were saying, which is how music should be. It should be so powerful that you don't need a translator, you know?"

Although Rat co-wrote and played on Ned's Atomic Dustbin's final album, Brainbloodvolume, he declined to play on their 1995 North American tour.

After the Ned's split, he formed a new band Groundswell with singer Jonn Penney (also formerly of Ned's Atomic Dustbin), and together they wrote a number of songs together. However, he left the band after only a couple of live performances. Groundswell later reunited for a performance in 2000.

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