God’s Country

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Something else about your music that is impactful are the bass and drum tones you all have. They are so interesting, heavy, and punishing, but remain crystal clear. What do you use to get them to sound like that? Stin: With all of it, we very consciously try to express and represent the feeling of living in the southern plains. Even the more Beavis and Butthead, ’90’s alt-metal musical leanings are meant to evoke a sense of place. It’s very culturally ingrained here. Stin: If messing around in bands for many years has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t rely on anyone else to share your vision or even show up to help when the time comes. I think we have a strong point of view, and the best way to express that is by doing as much of the process as possible yourself. It also doesn’t hurt that we don’t have any money to spend on anything, so this is certainly the cheaper option! I could see us possibly working with a recording engineer who actually knows what they’re doing one day, but it would have to service the broader picture of whatever we’re attempting at the time. S: We’ve only played like five shows since we recorded the album. Already it’s like, “oh, well all of those are old songs. People want to hear new stuff.” NR: There are a lot of bands, artists, fan communities etc. in Northern England who would overlap with Chat Pile.

Raygun Busch: It’s all mostly real-world based—even “Pamela” is an attempt to ground famous cinematic madness. “Why” is probably the scariest song on the record.

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RB: We’re all here [Oklahoma] because this was the last place in the country to settle. We had forced every indigenous person here and Montana, and then we were like, “actually, we want this No Man’s Land that we’ve put you into.” And that’s where we live. We’re a long time away from that, so it’s not like knowing whose land you're on is at the forefront of everyone’s minds. You remember that mini-movement that happened a few years ago, there was an app and all that shit? That stuff is really important to know, but a lot of people maybe don’t think about it. S: I can’t speak for the lyrics, but musically, where I have a bigger hand in things, I feel like we try to incorporate a lot of disparate elements and different genres of music. We try to incorporate them in a very stark, simple way, and we try to recontextualise things. Artificial Brain put out a new record. I love them and I’m trying to throw some of the more spacey, death metal shit into Chat Pile. We’re working on a new song right now that is very much lots of blasts with weird, spacey death metal riffs. Gospel put out a record this year which I really loved, but they’re, like, super prog - I don’t ever see us doing that [laughs].

Now that ‘God’s Country’ has been out for a few months and it’s taken on a life of its own, how does the album feel to you? CR: During Covid, instead of actually trying to help people, our governor was like, “oh, let’s have a day of prayer for people in the state.” S: There’s definitely an over-the-top quality to the music too - on purpose, at times, trying to take things to certain extremes. I don’t know if there’s a blatant logical end to that other than it’s just kind of like what we would want to hear [laughs]. Holding up the other end here are Nerver. Who are pretty much what you’d expect a band on a split like this to sound like. By which I mean they bring a complementary serving of prowling ugly sludge punk noise to the table to show they are indeed Chat Pile’s Brothers in Christ. They’re from Kansas city which allows us European types to briefly marvel at US geography on a couple of counts. Being a mere five hour(!) drive away up tornado alley they’re relatively close neighbours to Chat Pile. Yet despite the states having all that room, Kansas city is somehow in two, both Kansas and Missouri. Why wouldn’t it be? Raygun Busch: Acting is super easy and a lot of fun. Just yesterday, I acted in the same filmmakers’ new movie, and I’ll definitely be accepting any and all acting jobs in the future because, as I said, it’s a super easy and a fun job.

On The Go

All I really hope is that our songs can recall the movies or books that rightfully won’t leave my brain like L’Humanite or Henry: Portrait of Serial Killer or Continental Drift by Russell Banks or Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, etc. Before we talk about the record, let’s talk about Tenkiller. What was it like scoring a horror movie? Would you like to do something like that again? You said that “lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of THC” were used for this album. Approximately how much THC would you say? Are you more of a sativa or indica band? Stin: Ya, sorry Raygun, that was me on the “lots.” I was having trouble expressing how hazy the recording was without getting hyper literal on the THC consumption. Mark my words though, it was a nearly worrisome amount.