God’s Country

Product Information

LM: I don’t write any of the lyrics, but groups like Crass and Discharge and Rudimentary Peni - they’re a big one for me - have really influenced me. I like a lot of political- and anarcho-punk, and I think there’s definitely some of that flavour in ‘God’s Country’, at least a little bit. It’s hard to not be political about stuff. It’s not like we were aiming to write a political record, it’s more like - everything is political. If you’re saying stuff, if you’re writing a song about something you care about, it’s easy for that stuff to come out. 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. Now, moving forward, are there any literary or cinematic influences you pulled from in particular for God’s Country? Are there any real-life stories you pulled from? Raygun Busch: It was borne from necessity but it’s really the only way to do things, right? We’ve each been recording our own music since at least our teen years. There’s really no reason for anyone to ever pay someone to do shit that a computer has made pig simple for the masses. The internet and computer programs have completely equalized the medium–You can make a record or a movie or whatever you want (easy as writing that book always has been lol) if you really want to. Tangerine was shot on iPhones and Tangerine is one of the best movies of the century so far. Deathconsciousness by Have a Nice Life was recorded using Garageband for chrissakes!

NR: Given that you chose to frame the record by calling it ‘God’s Country’, what do you think it does to the psyche of people or a community to be invoking God on their existence like that? 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: 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]. 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.

Releases

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? 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.

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. LM: Yeah, absolutely MDC. That stuff is very appealing to me, and so it makes sense for that kind of vibe to be in our music too. I think all of us listen to a little bit of stuff like that. Even Nirvana, they’re like that too. There’s so much of that kind of shit going on in Kurt Cobain’s lyrics, and they’re one of the biggest bands ever. That was definitely big early for me, hearing music that was in some way sarcastic, you know?

On The Go

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.

LM: It was just fitting when we were whittling down titles. Ray has this big list of stuff that we’ve pulled mostly all of our titles from. ‘God’s Country’ was on there. 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. 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? 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?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. 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: This is another influence question - and this might just have come from my continuing obsession with Death Grips…

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. 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.” 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? 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? RB: I certainly like it when people compare us to those bands [laughs]. I’m not gonna shoo away anyone that wants to put us up next to some of the best political punk bands of all time!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. RB: I didn’t know John Darnielle was religious, that’s interesting. You know who I like a lot who is religious? Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian. He’s a real Christian, but he writes very interesting lyrics, sometimes about the church and stuff.