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. Its population was 38,527 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the most-populous village in Wisconsin. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. ...

, Wisconsin. They primarily represent instrumental guitar artists, with a focus on acoustic guitar, but include

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

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) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

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

fingerstyle guitar Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of guitar picking, 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 ...

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, three extended plays, and one live album to date. A number of YouTube videos featuring McKee's highly-technical gui ...

Antoine Dufour Antoine Dufour (born 1979, in L'Épiphanie, Quebec) is a Canadian acoustic guitarist currently signed to CandyRat Records. Dufour started playing guitar at the age of fifteen. He went on to study at the CEGEP in Joliette, where he listened t ...

, 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 The word ''Viral'' means "relating to viruses" (small infectious agents). It may also refer to: Viral behavior, or virality Memetic behavior likened that of a virus, for example: * Viral marketing, the use of existing social networks to spre ...

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 over 50 signed and independent artists as of August 2017.

Current

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

* Ben Flanders *

Brendan Power Brendan Power is a New Zealand harmonica player, composer and inventor, living in Britain. Born in Mombasa, Kenya, Power's family moved to New Zealand in 1965 where he later attended Canterbury University at Christchurch, gaining a Bachelor of A ...

* Brooke Miller * Calum Graham * Chris Mike * Chris Woods Groove *

Craig D'Andrea Craig may refer to: People and fictional characters *Craig (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters * Craig (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Clan Craig, a Scottish clan Places United State ...

* Daniel Voth * Dean Magraw * Derrin Nauendorf * Don Ross * Emma Dean * Erick Turnbull * Erik Mongrain * Eva Atmatzidou * Ewan Dobson * Gareth Pearson * Gregory Hoskins * Guitar Republic * Hunter van Larkins * Ian Ethan Case * Jimmy Wahlsteen * Justin Taylor * Kelly Sciandra * Kelly Valleau * Laszlo * Luca Stricagnoli * Lucas Michailidis * Mark Minelli * Mathieu Fiset *

Matthew Santos Matthew Santos is a two-time Grammy Nominated pop and folk singer-songwriter, musician and composer, also known as MA/SA. ...

* Michael Chapdelaine * 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 Michael Kenneth James Dawes (born 21 July 1989) is an English fingerstyle guitar player known for composing, arranging, and performing multiple parts simultaneously on the guitar. Career Dawes experimented with keyboards before picking up his ...

* 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 on ...

* Ray Montford Group * Richard Barrett * Ryan Ayers * Ryan Spendlove * Sammy Boller * Sebastien Cloutier * Sergio Altamura * Spencer Elliott * Stefano Barone * Steffen Schackinger * Steven Padin *

The Reign of Kindo The Reign of Kindo is an American rock band originating from Buffalo, New York, currently based out of New York City. They produce and release their music independently. They finance the creation of their recordings and videos by writing, produ ...

Thomas Leeb Thomas Leeb (born 14 September 1977 in Klagenfurt, Austria) is an Austrian fingerstyle guitarist. Biography Thomas Leeb grew up in the small Austrian mountain village Turracher Höhe, Carinthia, as the youngest of four children of a hotel-own ...

Tommy Gauthier Tommy may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tommy (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Tommy Atkins, or just Tommy, a slang term for a common soldier in the British Army * Tommy Giacomelli (born 1974), Brazilian fo ...

Trevor Gordon Hall Trevor ( Trefor in the Welsh language) is a common given name or surname of Welsh origin. It is an habitational name, deriving from the Welsh ''tre(f)'', meaning "homestead", or "settlement" and ''fawr'', meaning "large, big". The Cornish langu ...

* Van Larkins

Former

* Maneli Jamal *

* Robert Taylor *

Andy Fox Andrew Junipero Fox (born January 12, 1971) is an American former professional baseball coach (baseball), coach and infielder. Fox played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1996 to 2004 for the New York Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks, Florida M ...

References

External links

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