Artist description RNT is a duo - brothers Rick and Tim Parkhouse. Their music is a fusion of many different styles from reggae and punk, to hip hop and drum & bass. Characteristics include: raw, emotive vocals; simple but effective melodies; crisp vocal harmonies; classic songs driven by acoustic guitar; subtle synth pads; catchy melodic hooks; fat, bassy drum loops. The result? Tight, fresh-sounding, well-written songs that are catchy and polished, yet with a raw, underground feel born of the booming surf / skate / snow scene in which RNT are heavily involved.

Music Style Pop

Musical Influences RNT have been enjoying music since day one - dad would play guitar, baby Rick and Tim would kick and bounce! Dad's tastes in music were very influential in the early days. We would listen to the early Police records 'Regatta de Blanc' and 'Outlandos d'Amour' every day, and still hold their work in high regard today. The Steve Miller Band's 'Abracadabra', Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', and Bob Marley's 'Exodus' were also scratched to bits by tiny toddler hands struggling to slap them on the deck! By the mid 80's we were listening to Peter Gabriel's classic 'So', and Sting's early solo stuff. During our early school days, we made some Irish friends who were massive U2 fans, and their influence certainly rubbed off on us. It was about this time that the whole hip hop thing was starting to happen. NWA, Ice T, and Grandmaster Flash provided our first taste of the drum loop, and also taught us to swear. In our early teens we both went through sort of sad, grungy, long haired, distorted guitar phases. Dad's old Jimi Hendrix records were dusted off. Tim got into metal, listening to Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Sepultura etc. Rick did the whole Nirvana, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, I live in Seattle and I'm so depressed thing. Pretty tragic really but we did learn how to play guitars before we managed to grow out of it. Rick was playing for a funk band in his mid-teens, and gave quite a bit of air time to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Spin Doctors, Funkadelic, Jamiroquai, James Brown, Stevie Wonder etc. Dad had won us over to The Who's work, and we also discovered Led Zeppelin through a friend who was into 'classic guitar rock'! We had started surfing, skating and snowboarding in the early 90's, and we were very heavily influenced by the music that was such a huge part of this scene. Tim was playing South Californian hardcore with a punk band, and was listening to Bad Religion, Pennywise, Lagwagon, Blink 182, NoFX, Strung Out, Unwritten Law, and loads more, just the whole punk deal really. Skating opened our ears to the beauty of a really fat hip hop track. Notorious BIG, 2pac, Snoop Dogg, Puff Daddy, KRS-One, Onyx, Dr Dre, and Wyclef Jean re-kindled our love for hip hop. Rick started to get really into the reggae side, through Sublime. Bob was king but it went deeper than that. We started listening to any classic reggae. Peter Tosh, Black Uhuru, Jimmy Cliff, Lee Perry, Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, Ziggy Marley, Alpha Blondy, all found their way into our record collection, along with countless others. We formed RNT hoping to bring our diverse musical tastes together to crank out some original tunes. At about this time we both realised that a career in music was all we wanted, and we started to listen to anything good that we could get our hands on in the search for a sound we both liked. Tim opened our ears to club music, first through drum and bass compilations, and then garage. Artful Dodger produce some cracking backing tracks - shame about the frontmen! Rick got into things like Massive Attack, Moby, and Chicane. Surf trips to Barbados got us interested in ragga, in particular, Beenie Man, Mr Vegas, Sean Paul, and Capleton. We also loved the happy, feel-good calypso we heard over there, bands like Square One and Krosfyah. We buy any record we like the sound of, stigmas cast aside. I think we even bought a Natalie Imbruglia CD at one point!! We just became obsessed by good song-writing, so Tim went on a crusade to buy albums by all the classic song-writers we were too ashamed to admit we liked before. We came out of the closet about liking Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, and Tracy Chapman! We studied Sting's work religiously, dredged out old Beatles lp's, the whole deal. There are heaps of other bands we haven't mentioned who we should thank too, but this list is already too long. But the point is, we have pretty diverse musical influences, and we like to think this has given us an original sound. It's all in there...just listen for yourself!

Similar Artists Sting, The Police, U2, Sublime, Sugar Ray, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel, Dido,

Artist History Rick and Tim have been playing music together since they can remember, and formed RNT in 1998.

Group Members Tim, 21, co-writes, plays keyboards & guitars, live drums, sings backing vocals, and also programs all drum machines. Rick, 23, co-writes, sings, plays bass, guitars, keyboards, and programs MIDI sequencers & samplers.

Press Reviews Chris Power, editor of CARVE, the UK's top-selling surf magazine wrote that RNT's tunes were, "mellow...to listen to. So stick at it and best of luck."

Location Bournemouth, Dorset - United Kingdom

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