I think it’s fair to say Chat Pile swung out of nowhere, colliding with considerable force into 2022. Their debut God’s Country brought a thrilling mix of noise and despair that resonated widely. It topped Echoes and Dust’s album of the year list and made respectable appearances on many others. As the band get ready to head over to Europe this summer, here’s a good old fashioned split release, with their Brothers in Christ, to keep us all from getting too antsy about a new album. NR: It’s a really impressive LP. You’ve made something really unusual, and the staying power of it is borne out by the fact that it’s now showing up in our end-of-year list and those of many other publications. For the writing process for the album, was it a conscious thing that you were all trying to get in a similar zone when making it? Or does it happen more organically than that?

RB: Remember when they’re all at the arcade in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’? They’re hanging out and skating around, but then it’s like, “now you’ve gotta be a footsoldier for Shredder”. It’s like that, but with God instead of Shredder [all laugh]. LM: It all depends on the way you think about it. So many bands - and so many bands I like, too - can just take the hard other way with their imagery, doing lots of Satan shit and devil shit in the music. I like the aesthetic, so it’s appealing to me.

Releases

NR: This is another influence question - and this might just have come from my continuing obsession with Death Grips… Special note, Tenkiller is actually a drama, although we totally understand why people would assume it’s a horror movie. No one’s seen it, and our music seems to naturally lend itself to horror!) NR: It’s kind of just a quirk of calling on behalf of a company based in Leeds, but a lot of people refer to Yorkshire as “God’s Own Country”. There are other places that claim that title too. NR: There are a lot of bands, artists, fan communities etc. in Northern England who would overlap with Chat Pile. S: Really busy. As mentioned, there’s the Lingua Ignota tour, then we make our European debut at Roadburn. We’ve got a split EP coming out with Nerver, a joint thing between Reptilian Records and The Ghost Is Clear. Simultaneously, we’re trying to write material for our next album. It’s very much in the early stages, but we’re trying to get ideas together and make a vision. Honestly, there’s probably more stuff going on that we can even handle, but we’re gonna take it as it comes [laughs].

S: That’s a literal Steve Albini diatribe. He’s a big fan of Danielson and Danielson Famile [a project with a strong Christian element to the music]. People have given him a hard time for working with a religious band, and then he’s replied, “well, if that’s your worldview, why would you not incorporate it into your music? It would be disingenuous not to do so.” In light of this award, we sat down with the band over video call to shoot the shit about the reaction to ‘God’s Country’, Chat Pile’s journey up until this point, and what the future has in store for the group. Stin: Yeah, Ray took the words right out of my mouth with the whole “manifest destiny” thing. It’s obviously a very American thing, but it’s hyperly an Oklahoma thing as well. I feel like we’re the last domino of that type of mindset, and attributing that kind of entitlement to God plays a big part in how bad things are. How do you see yourself in relation to those kinds of bands, those acts who quote-unquote “make a point” in their music?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. LM: I am one-hundred percent there as well. I remember us making it, because it took forever - well, I shouldn’t say forever, but it took a while because we self-recorded. But we sat on it for a long time too, so it’s like a weird cycle. We’d made it, and then it was finished for eleven months, and then we finally put it out. In that interim period, I’d heard it a million times. Now that it’s out, it’s awesome that people are super into it, but it’s kind of old material now, you know? There’s other stuff that we’ve been working on. So yeah, it’s weird - it does feel like it’s own thing. It’s cool though.

Raygun Busch: Absolutely! My brain is only truly working when I’m talking about movies, music, books etc. There is a song on the record I am immensely proud of, that is sort of extremely personal in a lot of ways despite essentially being Friday the 13th fanfiction. The Grimace song alternately draws from the films Mysterious Skin and In a Glass Cage (not to mention real-life experience)—There’s also some songs on the record that draw from real life events from our region of the country, true, but they are merely impressions, not meant to be a history lesson by any means. Sort of the In Cold Blood approach. LM: I’m glad! I’m glad that people all over the world like our stuff, but I do feel like our music is so weirdly, uniquely American that it’s funny people in the UK are digging it, because it feels very Oklahoma to me. 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?RB: My dad was a minister, for instance. Not baptist though - we were DoC [Disciples of Christ], which is way more chill, but still. LM: The Grimace thing is something that Ray thought of. He’d written it down and drawn a little picture of it, and we still have the picture hanging up in Stin’s house. The music is serious - what we’re doing is serious. So you’ve gotta have a little fun somewhere else, you know what I mean? 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.”

NR: That’s the one. ‘No Love Deep Web’ came to me as a comparison for ‘God’s Country’. The albums are both so unrelenting and don’t sugarcoat the way they present things. They’re really forceful. But also, it seems like your music is more observational than theirs - both with the lyrics and also the way it’s all brought together. 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? You do not shy away from graphic nature in your lyrics in any way, shape, or form; it’s actually one of the most impactful elements of your music. What do you think the benefits are of using those harder-to-stomach images and expressions? NR: I was going to bring up Portrayal Of Guilt. You did a split with them in 2021, and you’re going on tour with Lingua Ignota soon right? LM: For something completely different to what we sound like there’s the album ‘Air Guitar’ by Sobs. They’re a power-pop band from Singapore. They’re awesome - everyone should jam that if you like Charly Bliss or any of the other bubbly power-pop stuff that’s been going on. It’s really good.NR: Yeah, as someone for whom those bands were doing things before I was born, I can relate to how the similarities between them and you are changed by the era we’re living through. Like, Crass probably wouldn’t have written a song called ‘grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg’, but that’s what happens when you get internet-brained. 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? 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? LM: But also, religion is so broad. You don’t have to be all in or all out. As long as stuff is honest, that’s what I’m getting at - if religion is part of the person who’s making art, and they’re keeping it out for some reason, then I’d rather they put that in there if that’s earnest to them.