God’s Country

Product Information

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? 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.” One of the highlights of God’s Country is the massive “Grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg” which was released as a six-minute flexi demo not too long ago but ended up being a nine-minute monster transformation. Did you set out to make a song that long initially with it? And what inspired you to have Grimace as the monster of choice?

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]. 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].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? Everything about you has been consistent through your existence as a band. Your recording, production, and artwork all go hand in hand with one another because you do everything yourselves, right? What is the importance of having everything being self-contained like that to you?

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. S: And it’s hard not to be furious about it sometimes, in my opinion. Especially the way local politics work around here, and just culturally in Oklahoma in particular. I’m about to be forty years old and there are still moments when I have teenage, Satanist, ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ rage in me about certain religious elements. Raygun Busch: Goddamn, this question is too hard. I guess I’ll try to do an easy answer though there’s not way to not be reductive here: tax or jail for the rich; homes, medical care, clothing, food and education for everyone no exceptions; and of course, upturn law enforcement and completely reshape the criminal justice system in America (ie term limits, no death penalty, releasing those from jail for non-violent drug charges etc). 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].LM: Yeah, I love stuff like that. That’s something that’s appealing to all of us, and I feel like it works. When we started writing instrumentals and got Ray in on vocals, it worked together. Having the theatrical angle with it - or maybe even literary, because there are a lot of characters and stuff in the songs - works, it’s cool. NR: There are a lot of bands, artists, fan communities etc. in Northern England who would overlap with Chat Pile.

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. LM: I think ‘God’s Country’ fits though. Especially with the image and all that, I think it all makes sense together. It’s evocative - you see those words, and the picture of the substation and the jail, and you get what we’re saying. LM: I also don’t pitch in on the lyrical side, but in general we try to have a pretty cohesive aesthetic. It’s meant to all feel coherent, so if there are lots of observational qualities and characters in the lyrical content then I think that works together with the music. NR: It’s interesting that you mention ‘God’s Country’ taking a while to record and release, because it does feel like an album that’s been incubated. That’s a strength for me - it’s like the structure of the writing, and the interplay between the vocals and the instruments, wasn’t just thrown together. It feels well thought out.

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. S: I think that type of music just attracts a specific type of nerd [all laugh]. Angry nerds who have no choice but to laugh about certain things. 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? 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. S: And for us, you know, there’s a lot of comedy to be mined from extremely dark content. If anything, we have something of a skill of being able to ride that line, so that’s maybe where some of the camp comes in. I mean, ‘grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg’ is a funny title for a song, but the song covers incredibly dark subject matter. So if there is a camp element, that’s where it lives with us.

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. LM: We will grind a song down a ton, so there’s a lot of repetition and stuff. It’s the only way I really know how to write music - I’m not good at writing a full song and presenting it. I don’t really want to write like that anyways, I like to do it with people. My ideas are not always right, so I like to have people with good ideas to input as well. RB: I didn’t know that, but that’s cool. That’s what I want to get my fingers into - Doja Cat featuring Raygun Bush.

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: 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. 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.