WITH the sun blazing in the sky and the festival season upon us, The Jack Ratts have arrived just in time. Hailing from every corner of Dorset, the six-piece band are exhilarating live performers.

You can almost smell the cider, fields and good times oozing from their raucous feel-good music. Their cover of Movin On Song can be heard below.

The song showcases the bands distinctive brand of folk-punk and reputation for energetic shows.

“It was originally by legendary English folk singer Ewan Maccoll, who also wrote Dirty Old Town. It’s one of those songs that we grew up with as individuals and all knew quite well. Ironically, we don’t actually play it live very often,” admits bandmember Fabian Maddison.

This small group of friends all met locally after dabbling in banjos, mandolins and accordions.

“We’re all local to Dorset and we got together about six years ago. We mainly know each other from the punk scene and being in bands. It can be a squeeze when we’re touring, luckily the bass player has a spacious van so it’s not too bad,” added Fabian.

Calling themselves The Jack Ratts after 19th century smuggler Jack Rattenbury, the boys have become firm festival favourites.

“Cow punk, folk punk, call it what you will. It’s hard to pinpoint our sound, as we dabble in many types of music. The first album was based around seafaring and pirate stuff. It was a good laugh exploring those themes, but now we’re trying to make our music more contemporary and focusing on the current state of affairs in our lives and the world.”

You can expect to see The Jack Ratts doing their thing at numerous summer festivals this year, such as the Purbeck Folk Festival and Great Dorset Steam Fair. There are also exciting plans afoot for a new album and even documentary film in the pipeline.

“We’re doing a documentary at the moment, that’s coming together slowly but surely. We’ve had a professional filmmaker following us around for a year and a half.

The Jack Ratts play the Victoria Cross in Poole on Friday, June 20.