This series of blogs is called IN PASSING, and in it I'll be interviewing bands/artists I love and trying to shed further light (in the small ways I can) on their music and give anyone who may come across this a reason to listen to them. I want to focus on smaller music that deserves more attention than it gets. All blogs in this series will include an unabridged (yet slightly edited) interview with the artists and a small write-up from me. As always, send music, shows, suggestions for artist interviews, and anything ever that you want to talk about or see covered to [ fosterhildingmusic@gmail.com ] or DM me on Instagram.
In November of 2023, I was honored with the amazing opportunity of interviewing Chat Pile on the last leg of their tour. They're one of my favorite bands of all time and one that is always venturing further into heaviness and absurdity. This interview is going to be a little shorter.
I've made a companion playlist for this post featuring Chat Pile and some bands we discussed below. If you'd like to listen to it as you read you can do so here.
Raygun Busch (Vocals) = R. Captain Ron (Drums) = C. Luther Manhole (Guitar) = L. Stin (Bass) = S.
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| photos stolen from the internet. |
You recorded God's Country on your own. Is that what you did with both of your EPs [This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please] as well?
S: Yes, everything that we've put out to this point has been self-recorded in our practice space with one exception. We went to Denton to record our split with Portrayal of Guilt. Both bands went to the recording studio at the same time and knocked out those songs so the sound kind of matches because we literally recorded it the same day with the same person.
Was that the same with Nerver split [Brothers in Christ]?
S: No, those we did independently.
L: Stin mixes it. He's basically the full engineer. We send it off to be mastered--we have a friend, Jared, in Philly, who is from a band called Orphan Donor. He's really sick. He's done some production for Jesus Piece and bands like that. But yeah, Stin's our engineer.
How did you come up with your drum sound?
L: It was kind of just convenience, right?
R: Godflesh.
L: Yeah, but even that, we were just practicing.
R: The sounds were like Bleach, right?
L: Yeah, kind of like Bleach or In-Utero drums maybe. It's kind of supposed to be Nirvana-ey.
S: But, the way it started is we practiced at my house so we wanted to play without fucking with the neighbors too much.
L: He had an e-kit--that Yamaha.
S: Plus, it's convenient to just take over an e-kit so a little kit. That's just kind of how we started practicing and writing music when we first got together.
L: I remember there was a moment--I don't remember the exact moment, but we had a conversation. We were like, "this could be the sound of the band, right?" It actually may be a style choice rather than a convenience thing.
S: Like Raygun said, Godflesh is a big part of it, this like, "we can kind of play Godflesh riffs and stuff and it works really well with this drum sound." We were like, "yeah, let's just do this." And it makes self-recording way easier.
L: Yeah, just MIDI instead of like...
S: He's still playing, but yeah.
So all of it is on the e-kit then?
L: Yeah, on record. Live we're playing with an acoustic kit just because we've tried a few times and it's...
C: Yeah, e-kit just is crazy on stage.
L: It's not the most consistent and it ends up being a little quiet.
S: Yeah, monitoring is hard. If the e-kit isn't being put through the monitors you literally are just up there playing to nothing.
L: Yeah, I mean maybe one day if we have our own sound engineer or something, but even then...
S: When we get like Nine Inch Nails-level maybe we can do electronic drums a little bit. Until then, the acoustic is just safe.
How did you guys get it started?
S: All of us have played music for decades. Back home, Ron and I have been in bands together.
L: They're brothers.
S: Yes. We've played together forever. But when Chat Pile got together, all of us were kind of in between stuff. In fact, I was kind of ready to just stop playing music.
L: I had quit basically for three years. I hadn't even touched my guitar in the old days.
S: But yeah, Luther convinced me to jam with them. I was dicking around with some stuff that was some kind of demo type idea. We jammed on that stuff. We never set up to be like "we're going to be this type of band." We just jam and have some fun.
L: Smoke some weed. Then we wrote some instrumentals and--they've known Raygun for years and years. It just seemed like they were like a cool person to ask to do vocals over this type of stuff. I guess it's worked out.
What was it like getting signed to The Flenser?
S: It was great. Keep in mind that none of us thought anything would ever happen with this band. We just figured we'd hang out, play some local shows, and write. The fact that people liked it to any capacity and felt we were a legit band that they would be interested in is a real dream come true. It felt great to be wanted there.
L: Yeah, they were very cool and reached out to us initially. They've been very cool about us doing a split outside of the label this year. They're very into letting us do what we want to do.
S: Yeah, and originally we were like, "oh, we're never going to tour, so before you take us on, just know that you may have trouble promoting us." Whatever. But then when went on tour.
What inspires you?
S: As far as other music is, I just love music. I would say specifically for me, Godflesh, Jesus Lizard, Big Black--Korn for me is a big one, but just kind of everything. It's hard to say like "we're inspired by this band or this band" because it's everything. We all have incredibly wide music taste and little bits and pieces coming together. We try to avoid pointing to one thing.
L: I would say a non-musical but obvious answer for me is the game Hotline Miami. It was kind of an influence for me writing some guitar parts on a couple specific songs like Pamela or Tropical Beaches, Inc. a little bit. It just had a vibe of dying on acid on the beach. Both of those were kind of water-ey songs. Even though Tropical Beaches is actually kind of an Arizona song.
R: He's buried here.
L: Yeah, it's about a guy from here [Don Lapre]. But yeah, I liked the vibe of some of the songs on that soundtrack. I also like to be feeling that kind of weird evil psychedelic, you know what I mean? Not like the "we're having a good time psychedelic"--The "we're having a terrible trip psychedelic."
S: I think another non-musical thing too is--Raygun and I definitely bonded around the novels of Jim Thomson especially around the time of us first getting together, just the sort of spooky noir type stuff. I've been obsessed with his works forever.
Have you played in Arizona before?
S: First time.
How do you like it so far?
S: You know, we haven't got to see much to see much. We've seen this parking lot.
L: We've been here for about two hours.
R: I've been in Phoenix before. It's great. It's cool.
L: I wasn't in Phoenix, but I just went to Vegas recently. I just went through Flagstaff. I haven't seen much of Phoenix, but Flagstaff is beautiful andI had a really good meal there. And I saw the Grand Canyon.
S: Geologically, ecologically Arizona rocks. You know, the Grand Canyon, you have the Saguaro National Park, and then the desert here. All of it's beautiful. If I lived here, I think I would just be hiking all the time.
L: Well, when it's humanly hospitable.
Are there any cool/smaller bands you want to highlight?
R: Agriculture. The band we've been on the road with. They're awesome. They're great people, too.
S: Nightosphere has been a big one. They're from Kansas City and put out what a lot of us considered to be the best album this year.
R: Yeah, it's Katabasis.
S: They're fantastic live. Obviously, Nerver are the homies that we did that whole west coast tour with. They're an amazing band. A incredible live band.
R: We played with Bosse-de-Nage and Succumb.
L: The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir. We played some shows with them. They're amazing. More people should know about them.
R: Intercourse.
L: Yeah, they're from Kansas City, right?
R: And hey, I was listening to Rotting Yellow's sound check. It sounded pretty good to me. We haven't played with any bands that we're like, "this sucks."
S: Yeah, really. I can't think of any right now.
R: We'd have to go way back to Baton Rouge.
L: I'm not going to say their name because I'm not going to get killed with a fucking gun, but there was some straight-edge band that was super beat down.
R: Oh, yeah, it sucked.
L: I don't want to say their name, but they did like legit bring a gun to the show or something at a different show. It's like a whole thing. So that sucked. They were bad.
This was legitimately a dream come true. I am so unbelievably thankful for this band, their fantastic and fantastically heavy music, and their time for this interview. It's always reassuring to love a band that cares. Thank you all for reading.
-Foster
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