Local Geraldton band Ratsalad. hits the big screen, with song Southerly featuring in Hollywood film Jackass

Homegrown Geraldton band Ratsalad. is continuing to make its mark globally, with one of its popular songs featuring in a Hollywood movie on the back of a European tour.

The new Jackass: Best and Last movie secured the rights to Ratsalad’s Southerly, which plays at the end of the film. But it almost wasn’t to be.

Band member Ken McCartney told the Geraldton Guardian they didn’t believe the original email was real because it landed in their spam inbox. After a few quick Google searches, they were sure it was an AI scam.

It became a delayed process in which the music supervisor reached out and got quite upset that the band believed it was a scam.

It wasn’t until the band finally corresponded with the team via the official Jackass Instagram that they understood the reality of the offer.

“It was just too unbelievable that a band from Geraldton would be asked to be in one of the most iconic comedy franchises in the past 20 years. Once it clicked, we apologised profusely. We so nearly blew the deal,” guitarist Ken McCartney said.

Formed in 2018, Ratsalad. is made up of McCartney, his wife Jaz McCartney on vocals and bass and their friend Erica Trotter on drums.

Their journey has seen them go from a band jamming in their kitchen to playing in front of thousands of people in foreign countries.

The song on Jackass, Southerly, is an ode to Geraldton — for better or worse.

“The lyrics are literally a love letter to Gero, while being hate mail to the wind,” Ken McCartney said.

The lyrics in the song include: “Nobody’s perfect, but you know you come close,

I think you’re awesome, you’re the one I love the most,

But there’s this one thing, and it’s really (f...ing) gross,

That f...ing southerly, it really (f...ing) blows.”

Initially, the band was offered $US10,000 for use of their song, but when they didn’t respond — thinking it was a scam — the Jackass team upped their offer to US$15,000 — for no other reason than the band’s “unfounded scepticism”.

Ratsalad. finished their European tour on June 21, playing 17 dates across Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, the UK, and Belgium, promoting their new album Pest from the West. They are now taking some time off to rest up in Malaysia.

“Our European tour was amazing. It was a culmination of building a fan base in Europe after our first tour a year ago, our new album just being released, which was a huge job,” they said.

The band members are yet to see the new Jackass film in cinemas because it only premiered on July 2, but they have had a few friends and fans sending them videos of their song being played.

Ken McCartney admits that people in the music industry want the band to move to Perth, Melbourne or beyond, but they love Geraldton too much.

“Playing Geraldton is the real deal; it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but the support we get is so amazing,” they said.

“To know everyone in the crowd on a personal level makes it so much more daunting than playing a big festival across the world.”