Each time we find ourselves with Electric Callboy frontmen Kevin Ratajczak and Nico Sallach, there is always something major about to happen.
When we spoke with them in 2023, the German band were about to play to 5,000 people in Melbourne; at that point, one of their biggest shows in the country.
Our interview with the duo in 2024 took place mere hours before they played their first show with Sum 41 drummer Frank Zummo at the Melbourne leg of Good Things Festival, a tour that saw Electric Callboy move into the Canadian band’s headline spot, following their last-minute withdrawal.
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Fast forward almost a full year later and we find Ratajczak and Sallach, once again, at a unique tour crossroad.
The singers tap in from a dressing room in Berlin, where the band are about to play the penultimate date of the ‘TANZNEID Tour’ in Europe.
The tour has seen Electric Callboy manifest their most expansive live show to date, specifically engineered for the arena-capacity crowds the band now comfortably commands.
“The mood is still good, but the body is giving up,” Ratajczak laughs. “When we started this tour, we had changed some things — we’ve got new costumes, we’ve got a whole new stage show. The pace is much different now. We have to run more. When we played the first test shows before the tour, we didn’t know how we would be able to do this!”
Sallach adds, “We have 100 minutes every night. Usually we’d have 90 minutes, but we’d play 83 of those. Right now, every night is 100 minutes straight. There’s no time to breathe. Every break that the crowd has, we’re jumping from outfit to outfit…we barely have time to drink. It’s crazy, but it’s so much fun.”
This surge forward for the group already feels like Electric Callboy are becoming more and more at home in their skin, as they work towards the release of a new album – a successor to the acclaimed Tekkno project that dropped in 2022.
From it, fans have heard two singles – “Elevator Operator” and “TANZNEID” – both indicating that whatever is coming next from Electric Callboy is swinging big; fusing their signature party energy with ideas and sonic influences that have had time to mature and grow.
The album will be the first without longtime drummer David Friedrich, who departed the band at the beginning of 2025; though not officially announced as their permanent drummer, Zummo has remained on deck with Electric Callboy. Since those emergency fill-in shows in Australia, the beast percussionist has become a seamless part of the family, injecting new fervour into the band’s live show as their touring percussionist throughout this year.
The way Electric Callboy have changed even in the last year alone is testament to the way in which the band has redefined their own belief in their standing within the broader heavy music community.
While songs like “Hypa Hypa” and “Pump It” brought them viral success online during COVID, as well as an impression that they were just a good party band, the release of Tekkno and subsequent tracks like the BABYMETAL collaboration “RATATATA” has proven that Electric Callboy are more than the fluo-tinged track suits and wigs.
“When you find your DNA in music, when you know what you’re about, you can follow that path much more easily,” Ratajczak muses. “We’re so happy with what’s going on and with what we’re doing as artists, we’re loving taking this path. There are so many great artists out there who have cool shows, we want to be part of this!”
In developing a brand new show for the ‘TANZNEID Tour’, Electric Callboy brought in creative directors to help articulate different ideas that have ultimately grown the show into the pyro-charged, slick arena spectacular it now is.
The band have historically been very involved in all aspects of their art: from the music, to their online content and music videos, developed by production company Schillobros (which features guitarist Pascal Schillo). To open the inner circle to outside input this time around marked a change in their process, but as Sallach says, the end result has been worth it.
“They had another perspective on the show. They watched it and told us what they would do,” he explains. “Put more structure here; group these songs together here; make it more like a theatre show. They sent us the contact for the costume maker. We had calls every week where we were figuring out what we wanted and didn’t want.
“At some point, people start comparing you to other bands and other shows,” he adds. “For us, it’s like building a house. The whole pre-production process, everything we did was so rewarding in the end. We deleted everything to start over again. The live show now, when you see the pictures and the videos… it all started in our heads, with a great team behind us. It’s such a good feeling to see that everything has worked out, it’s so cool.”
Having spent the better part of the last four years on the road, three of those touring one album, it’s an ambitious move to kick into a band’s biggest cycle to date with no announced album date, or even new hints about the music to come.
But for Electric Callboy, the community that has formed around them since their formation 15 years ago has meant that regardless of where the new music is in the pipeline, this is a band that are very much supported by a fiercely loyal fanbase in many different pockets of the world.
The stakes and production have certainly gone up with this tour, but Ratajczak and Sallach are quick to reassure that even though the venues and the scope of the Electric Callboy shows have grown, the chaos people first fell in love with remains.
“In the end, it was all about creating something cool, that we can be proud of and that people will like,” Ratajczak explains. “What we learned was that if you get stuck, if you do something for several years, sometimes making something new feels uncomfortable at first.
“For example, with the costumes, we didn’t know if they were cool or not. We had to fill them with personality. When we played the first shows on this tour, we didn’t know what to say and it felt weird, it wasn’t us. But after more shows, we’ve filled them with personality and it’s 100% Electric Callboy again. Just with a tiny different taste.”
“It feels like everything has grown up. Before, it was like the teenage Electric Callboy. Right now, we’re the adult version,” Sallach adds. “Everything feels so much more structured. We still have our kind of chaos on stage, it’s still there, it’s just much more structured. It makes more sense for us. It feels comfortable; we’re not thinking about it anymore.”
This level of comfort has led to a changed set, which now features playful takes on crowd favourites, callbacks to the earlier chapters of their catalogue that have rarely been touched, as well as the introduction of their rave-DJ side quest project, Electric Bassboy.
Australian fans will see the re-energised Electric Callboy shows in 2026, when the band hit venues like RAC, Rod Laver and Qudos Bank Arena, Brisbane’s Riverstage and the Adelaide Entertainment Centre for the first time.
For newcomers, it stands to be a blistering first impression; for those who were at the band’s first headline shows in small rooms in 2022, it will feel like a graduation.
“We’ve found our way in the way we make music. It shows with this set. When we perform these songs, they are totally different now,” Ratajczak explains. “The old songs were just shout after shout, after shout. You couldn’t rest. The old songs take a lot from us, it’s a lot of work. The new songs though, they’re a little easier to perform. You have more time to interact with people, you have more time to move around. I like that.”
“When the production gets bigger, it’s much more fun to have highs and lows,” he adds. “With a song like ‘Neon’, we played that on the first ‘Hypa Hypa’ tour. We played it once, on the first show; we came offstage and were like, “We’re never playing that song again, it didn’t feel right.””
“It just didn’t feel natural, but that was another time,” Sallach adds. “Now we have some people who, when we’re singing it in the funniest outfits, are in the first rows with tears in their eyes. That song means a lot to a lot of people. It was a very good decision to put it into the set but I can tell you, that song is hard for me, every night. It’s the hardest song for me to sing; it’s one of those songs that you want to kill up there. I’m not afraid of it, but I have a lot of respect for it.
“It’s the same for Kevin with ‘Revery’ though, that sharp part at the end. After performing for 70 minutes, standing there and doing those machine-gun shouts, it’s not easy. We love what we do though, and we have enough energy to kick some ass. We know what we are capable of.”
Find ticket information for Electric Callboy’s 2026 Australian tour here.
