The Rats

There are at least 5 bands called The Rats

1) The Rats were an American garage punk band from Portland, Oregon, formed by Fred Cole from the garage rock band The Lollipop Shoppe. Cole played guitar and sang, his wife Toody played bass and sang, and initially Rod Rat played drums. Their sound was a raw mix of punk rock and garage rock with occasional country touches. Their self-titled debut album appeared on Cole's Whizeagle label in 1980. Soon after, Rod Rat left the band, though he guested on the 1981 follow-up Intermittent Signals before his death by suicide. Sam Henry, formerly of the Wipers, played drums on this LP but left to join another Portland band, Napalm Beach. Louis Samora was on the drum throne for the 1983 album In a Desperate Red, still on Whizeagle. Samora left in 1984 to concentrate on his rockabilly band, The Jackals. The band broke up, but Bill Barker of Profile Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia convinced the band to reunite for a single. It appeared under the band name The Desperate Edge later in 1984. Soon after, Cole assembled a country band, Western Front, and he and Toody later reunited in Dead Moon.

2) Glam Rock band led by Mick Ronson, David Bowie's Guitar player in The Spiders from Mars, known for their album The Rise And Fall Of Bernie Gripplestone

3) The Rats were very much a vehicle for cult figure David Kubinec, aka 'Kubie'. Kubinec had been a member of the pop psych band "World of Oz" and wrote their single 'The Muffin Man' - which was a hit in Holland, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in 1969. He’d also been associated with Motown's Rare Earth label, and later had solo albums released on Kuckuck in Germany, and on A&M (produced by John Cale). A talented original writer capable of beautiful tunes, haunting lyrics, though obsessed with despair, drink, drugs.
THE RATS album First Long Player Record was a collection of Kubinec songs recorded by producer Adrian Millar with musicians brought in for the job (aka their own band CWT, also with an album on Kuckuck). Adrian Millar had a history in the studio going back to being an artist for Joe Meek, a partner in World Wide Artists (home to "Black Sabbath"), and by 1972 was partner in several production enterprises with Andrew Loog Oldham...of which THE RATS was one. (Millar's next move after THE RATS was to put together another group of musicians to form "The Babys").
THE RATS existed for a few months in 1974 and had one brilliant single released via the Goodear Record label, the T-Rextatsic 'Turtle Dove', which is a classic Junkshop Glam single, and features as lead off track on the successful comp "Boobs:The Junkshop Glam Discotheque".

4) PUNK ROCK FROM PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
fronted by Donny Rat (now lead singer of THE HOMICIDES (http://www.myspace.com/thehomicides)
more info coming..

5) A current punk band from New York ( http://www.myspace.com/theratsnyc )