CandyRat Records (also stylized as CANdYRAT) is an independent American record label and

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings withou ...

located in

Menomonee Falls Menomonee Falls is a village in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States, and is part of the Greater Milwaukee area. The population was 35,626 at the 2010 census, making it the most populous village in Wisconsin. It is the fourth largest commun ...

, Wisconsin. They primarily represent

instrumental guitar An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instrum ...

artists, with a focus on acoustic guitar, but include

electronic music Electronic music is a Music genre, genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or electronics, circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromech ...

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

, singer-songwriter, and

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

, with musicians coming from many countries. Rob Poland founded the label in 2004, first signing

fingerstyle guitar Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plect ...

talent Don Ross, followed by

Andy McKee Andy McKee (born April 4, 1979, in Topeka, Kansas) is an American fingerstyle guitar player who has released six studio albums, two extended plays, and one live album to date. A number of YouTube videos featuring McKee's highly-technical guitar ...

, Antoine Dufour, and three other artists before officially opening in 2005. CandyRat Records has been called the "biggest acoustical guitar label in the world", and the two-handed tapping technique of playing the guitar to produce bass, rhythm, melody and harmony, which is practised by many of its artists, has become known as the CandyRat style. The label gained fame after videos on its official YouTube page, 'rpoland', gained viral success. Recording sessions are filmed and uploaded, contributing to the success of the albums. As of November 2014, the most popular video on the channel, a live recording of Andy Mckee's "Drifting", garnered over 50 million views. Their YouTube channel has over a half-million subscribers and almost four-hundred million views. CandyRat Guitar Night Tour features CandyRat Records' guitar virtuosos traveling the U.S. and the world. For 2017, Antoine Dufour and Ian Ethan Case toured. CandyRat is also a festival partner for the Wilson Center Guitar Competition & Festival, with Rob Poland and the CandyRat headliners as some of the judges for the fingerstyle competition.

Artists

CandyRat Records had a community of over 50 signed and independent artists as of August 2017.

Current

* Adam Ben Ezra * Alex Anderson * Alex Trugman * Andrew White * Antoine Dufour *

Ben Flanders Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett or Benson, and is also a given name in its own right. Ben (in he, בֶּן, ''son of'') forms part of Hebrew surnames, e.g. Abraham ben Abraham ( he, � ...

* Brendan Power *

Brooke Miller Brooke Miller may refer to: * Brooke Miller (cyclist) (born 1976), American road racing cyclist * Brooke Miller (soccer) (born 1998), Australian soccer player * Brooke Miller (musician) (born 1982), Canadian singer-songwriter * Brooke Miller (born ...

* Calum Graham *

Chris Mike Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, Christine, and Christos. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name *Chris Abani (born 1966), Nige ...

* Chris Woods Groove * Craig D'Andrea *

Daniel Voth Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength"), ...

Dean Magraw Dean Magraw is an American guitarist and composer. Biography Magraw was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in St. Paul. He began playing guitar at the age of 13. Magraw performed in a duo for many years with Peter Ostroushko and has al ...

* Derrin Nauendorf * Don Ross * Emma Dean *

Erick Turnbull The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

* Erik Mongrain *

Eva Atmatzidou Eva or EVA may refer to: * Eva (name), a feminine given name Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Eva (Dynamite Entertainment), a comic book character by Dynamite Entertainment * Eva (''Devil May Cry''), Dante's mother in t ...

* Ewan Dobson * Gareth Pearson *

Gregory Hoskins Gregory Hoskins and the Stickpeople were a Canadian folk rock band active between 1985 and 1996. best known for their 1991 single "Neighbourhood". The band's consistent members throughout its lifetime were singer/songwriter Gregory Hoskins, backin ...

* Guitar Republic * Hunter van Larkins *

Ian Ethan Case Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name ( Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a popular name i ...

* Jimmy Wahlsteen *

Justin Taylor Justin Taylor is a fictional character from the American/Canadian Showtime television series ''Queer as Folk'', a drama about the lives of a group of gay men and women living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The character was created by Ron Cowen ...

* Kelly Sciandra * Kelly Valleau * Laszlo * Luca Stricagnoli * Lucas Michailidis * Mark Minelli * Mathieu Fiset * Matthew Santos *

Michael Chapdelaine Michael Chapdelaine (born September 15, 1956 in San Diego, California) is an American guitarist. Chapedelaine is the only guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guit ...

* Michael Kobrin *

Michael Manring Michael Manring (born June 27, 1960) is an American bass guitarist from the San Francisco Bay Area. Biography Michael Manring was born in Annapolis, Maryland,Tom Mulhern, ''Bass Heroes: Styles, Stories & Secrets of 30 Great Bass Players : from ...

Mike Dawes Mike Dawes is an English fingerstyle guitar player known for composing, arranging and performing multiple parts simultaneously on the guitar. Biography Dawes experimented with keyboards before picking up his first electric guitar at age twelve ...

* Nicholas Barron * Peter Ciluzzi * Pino Forastiere *

Preston Reed Preston Reed (born April 13, 1955) is an American fingerstyle guitarist. He is noted for a two-handed playing style and compositional approach that uses the guitar's body as a percussion instrument. Biography Reed learned guitar as a child o ...

* Ray Montford Group * Richard Barrett * Ryan Ayers *

Ryan Spendlove Ryan Spendlove is an English singer-songwriter, born in Gawthorpe, West Yorkshire, signed to the American-based record label CandyRat Records. He was the former singer and guitarist of The Blueskins who had international success. Since going s ...

* Sammy Boller * Sebastien Cloutier *

Sergio Altamura Sergio may refer to: * Sergio (given name), for people with the given name Sergio * Sergio (carbonado), the largest rough diamond ever found * ''Sergio'' (album), a 1994 album by Sergio Blass * ''Sergio'' (2009 film), a documentary film * ''S ...

* Spencer Elliott * Stefano Barone * Steffen Schackinger * Steven Padin * The Reign of Kindo * Thomas Leeb * Tommy Gauthier * Trevor Gordon Hall * Van Larkins

Former

* Maneli Jamal *

* Robert Taylor

References

External links

Official WebsiteThe Music Life Podcast – Rob made a Candy Rat
{{Authority control American record labels