Photo Credit: Matthew Zargoski
Oklahoma’s rising new ‘extreme rock’ heroes Chat Pile has released their sophomore record Cool World earlier this year. We chatted with the band’s Raygun Busch and Stin on Zoom to talk about cinema, politics, and more.
2024 has been politically sh.tty as always, but from a personal aspect, how was it for you? You released an album, Cool World, that was loved by many. Are you in a good place spiritually?
Stin: I’m feeling pretty good. As you mentioned, people like the album for the most part, and I think that’s the most that we could ask for, especially considering that it’s a follow-up to another album that people really enjoyed. I think we dodged the bullet of the sophomore slump, you know? So in that regard, I’m feeling pretty good. Politically and stuff, maybe not so much, but I’m trying not to think about it as much as I normally do.
Raygun Busch: Yeah, I would agree with Stin for sure. Artistically and personally, my life is going pretty well right now. In terms of what’s happening with the world right now, no, I’m more scared than ever, of course, but I’ll be all right.
Hope you stay at a good place next year. Also for next year, I want to squeeze in a note from a friend quickly: She says she wants to see you perform in Istanbul. That said, I agree with most fans that you did a great job on your sophomore record. If you were to pick two tracks from this collection, one easiest and one hardest to make, which two would they be?
Stin: On my side, I think “Shame” was the hardest one for the instrumentals to make. There’s something there that’s kinda weird. It’s a really simple song, but sometimes simple things can be the hardest to nail. So I think we did the most takes of that than any other song that we did. “Masc” also was kind of challenging in the same way. So those two songs were pretty hard. Even by those standards, though, it wasn’t that difficult.
Raygun: Yeah, and I conversely say that “Shame” was one of the easier songs for me to write. Structure wise, it seemed easy. I know some songs were difficult. I’m trying to recall which ones they were, but I had some issues for sure. Me and Stin would talk about where we envision the vocals coming in. I’d ask stuff like that. Maybe “I Am Dog Now” was the hardest for me… No, you know what? “No Way Out” was the true challenger. Some versions will never see the light of day and they are vastly different. It took me a while to see where things should go. So the hardest for me was “No Way Out”, although the lyrics are very simple on that.
Stin: That was a hard one for the band too. We went through, like Raygun said, a million revisions getting the flow and structure of that song. Even up to the last minute, there were arrangement parts that we were cutting out and renewing and stuff. So that one goes to the top of the list too, I think.
Speaking of other versions of “No Way Out”, when are you dropping the ska version?
Stin: (laughs) 20 years from now, maybe?
Raygun: Some demos could come out. I’m sure that an approved demo version of that song will see the light of the day someday.
Just a few hours earlier, I was at a Free Palestine protest in Berlin, and it just is crazy that we still have to protest the atrocities happening there with such little support, as well as being treated as potential criminals for raising our voices for thousands of dead people and children. One good thing that was on mainstream media about Palestine lately was Fontaines D.C.’s “Free Planestine” speech at the Rolling Stone Awards Ceremony.
Raygun: Yeah. Was a cool move.
Obviously, very little hope is present in the middle of all this atrocity taking place. How hopeful or desperate are you while all these are happening, as well as little but powerful actions against it?
Raygun: I don’t know. I’d love to see lots of people get arrested. America is equally a huge part of this. There’s definitely a lot of people that need to answer for crimes, you know, instead of the masses. If arresting individuals who are in power who have committed war crimes, and crimes against humanity could solve things, yeah, I would love it. But I don’t know. Who knows? I’m not a general. I’m a singer in a band, those stuff is very scary to me. But yeah, I think those people should be arrested and tried for their crimes. I certainly don’t want the genocide to be happening. I’m appalled and my tax dollars are used to fund it, and it’s it’s bad for sure.
Stin: As for the question of whether small actions that we take help and move the needle in that direction or do anything, I don’t know, there’s a pessimism in me that says no. The powers that be that are committing these atrocities are so beyond the world that you and I live in. But maybe the actions we do can raise enough consciousness about these types of horrors in the world. Maybe it’ll motivate or help raise to action more people. I don’t know, I’m not super optimistic about that. But the only thing we can do is try, you know?
Raygun: I agree with that. I’m sorry I missed that element of your question. All we can do is live our lives in the way that we think is correct. And of course we’re going to talk about this whole stuff. I have no illusion in my mind making me think that we’re going to change the world. That’s ridiculous. But it’s good to talk about stuff. Seemingly nobody’s talking about it, so it’s good to talk about it at least, you know?
Maybe bringing up the concept of hope right after your country reelected Donald Trump as president was a mistake. (all laugh) But history has a cyclical way of a far-right party being followed by a left or at least a democratic party.
Stin: Yeah. The story for a while here in the States is that you’re going to see this yo-yoing back and forth of these populist candidates. You’re not going to see a whole lot of positive action happening within that. I’m by no means a political expert or genius when it comes to what we can expect in the future. If I have any optimism or hope, it’s that with how absolutely smashed the Democrats got in this last election, maybe they’ll wisen up to leaning more left, even just cynically as a populist option to get more voters. Maybe that could be on the table. I’m not hopeful for it, but that’s at least maybe the grain of optimism that I’m holding on to.
I wonder if you have seen No Other Land this year, which is an awesome documentary film on the Palestinian resistance.
Raygun: Nope.
Stin: Yeah, me neither.
I recommend you to go see it. What are your favorite films from this year, though?
Stin: Raygun will be the real expert on this, but I just want to say that I rarely watch new movies, although I watched The Substance with my wife recently and I honestly loved it. I thought it was so much fun. It reminded me of good 80’s monster gore movies. It was campy, but not super campy. Sometimes modern horror films are so self aware that it makes me sick. This, I think, walked the balance of that really perfectly. I don’t know, it’s really fun. I’ll put that pretty high on my list. And also, what was the Kristen Stewart movie? Is that this year?
Raygun: Love Lies Bleeding.
Stin: Yeah. I really like that movie a lot too. Those are the only two new movies I saw. (laughs)
What about you, Raygun?
Raygun: This year, I liked the Devil’s Bath a lot. Whenever you watch a movie set in olden times, people look clean and stuff, but that’s not what it would be like back then. It would be misery to live any other time than now, you know, we all enjoy being clean and stuff like that. So The Devil’s Bath is just a horror movie about the misery of living 200 years ago in a forest. (laughs) I can’t remember exactly where they are. They’re in Europe somewhere. I just loved it. It’s definitely a horror movie that seems like supernatural stuff could be going on, but it’s truly the real horrors of life, man. The institutions we’ve built and the madness that ensues because of these things we’ve set up. Anyway, I think The Devil’s Bath is rising high to the top of my list as favorite movie of the year.
Do you think you’ll be watching the Nosferatu remake?
Raygun: I do. I don’t know why (Robert Eggers)’s doing Nosferatu. Why not just do Dracula? They had to do Nosferatu back in the day because the rights to Dracula couldn’t be secured, right? I don’t know. It just seems very pretentious to me that he’s like, “I’m doing Nosferatu.” Yeah, I’m going to definitely see it. It’ll be fine. I mean, that story is ironclad. Who doesn’t love vampires and stuff like that, you know?
I don’t know about you, but I personally love watching music videos of artists I love, and that also includes your videos. You strike me as people who would maybe enjoy that sort of activity. Is that really the case? Do you think it’s important to share a creative vision with the directors and the team of your music videos?
Stin: I love music videos. In fact, I find myself watching music videos more than I watch movies and TV these days. There’s just something about it. There’s some nostalgia involved, but I also think it’s an art form that’s just really cool. As far as making them though, they’re a pain in the ass. I almost wish we just had a whole separate team that could do that for us. (laughs) But yeah, I love music videos and I think they’ve actually, especially this time around, did a lot for us as far as how good they turned out. I think people really latched onto all four of the videos we put out.
Raygun: Yeah, I agree. This time we had a little more input. We spoke to the directors and stuff, but still, they’re all made by people outside. I also love music videos too. I agree with everything Stan just said for sure.
I recently talked to a friend of mine who, like me, really enjoys music videos, and we complained about how noone watches them anymore. Obviously, we are not in the MTV age anymore.
Stin: Yeah, and that’s why you don’t see them the way you used to. You have to find them actively now. It’s not passive the way it used to be in the MTV days, where they would just present videos to you. Now, you have to hunt them down and they’re expensive to make, and sometimes, the return on it isn’t the best. So a lot of bands I think shy away from it, but we’ve been really lucky in that we’ve been able to find people who are willing to work with us on a zero budget essentially. Because they’re artists, they’re able to turn nothing into gold, and it looks great and it has a really cool vision. So yeah, I’m with you. One of my favorite pastimes is when hanging out with friends and just pulling up different videos and be like, “Oh, hey, you got to watch this. Oh, you need to watch this one. It’s cool!” So I’m right there with you as far as really getting a kick out of that kind of thing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but everyone in the band comes from working-class families, right?
Stin: Yes, I would say so.
Musicians who are not born into economically privileged families often are quite passionate at what they’re doing, especially considering that making music is very often not their main income. You are still not a suger huge band, so how do you keep that passion alive in a world that demands too much from you?
Stin: Yeah, I know exactly what you are trying to say. I worked a normal day job for 20 years. The whole time I did music, visual art, writing and all that stuff. I think for some people, and I would include myself, you have no choice but to create things because it’s either the only way to express yourself or you have certain ideas that are stuck in your head and you have no other way to get them out. I think that type of creativity maybe defies whether you’re working class or you’re born in a privilege or whatever. Some people are just that way. Unfortunately, the people that are working-class 99.9% of the time don’t have the luxury of getting paid to work on these creative endeavors. I think what’s important is that whether you’re paid or not, it shouldn’t matter. You should just create. Either people will latch onto it or they won’t. But at least you’ve put stuff into the world. I think that’s important. I think some people just don’t even have a choice. It’s part of who you are, you know?
Raygun: I agree. I don’t know if there’s much else to say. (laughs) All four of us have been doing music despite everything that holds it back. I’ve always said all this Chat Pile stuff would exist anyway, even if we weren’t big enough to be talking to you right now. This stuff would exist on some obscure Bandcamp that nobody’s listening to. Plenty of albums like that we’ve already done.
Stin: Oh yeah. That was the plan going into Chat Pile. We had zero concept that anybody would ever listen to this band or care about it. We just did it because we wanted to make something and we wanted to play some shows locally to our friends. And that’s just what we did. We had no careerist intentions whatsoever with this. It’s just we got lucky that it caught on somehow.
Raygun: So I guess the thesis statement is creating art is important, you know? Do it. Make art for art’s sake.
I had the chance to interview Steve Albini before his death earlier this year-
Raygun: Wow. That’s cool.
Yeah. And what he said to me totally resonates with what you just told me: “I know that the music and the shows and the bands that have meant the most to me were not made by people who were professional musicians. They were made by people who were obsessed with music. They would do it at gunpoint. They would still make music.”
Stin: Yeah, he has a famous quote that I’ve heard him talk about a few times where he’s like, “There’s basically two types of musicians. There’s musicians who work to play music, and then there’s musicians who play music to work.” He always made a big point to differentiate those two. For the longest time in our lives, we were the type of people who worked so that we could play music. So yeah, definitely big shoutout to Steve. I mean, his entire ethos has guided me my entire life. He’s definitely a huge inspiration, you know?
When you think about your teenage years when you first developed that kind of passion, do you have a crazy concert memory that you may have changed you somehow?
Stin: Oh man, there’s almost too many to mention for me. Two really big shows when I was really young happened around the same time, when I was in 10th grade: I saw Mudhoney and Melvins. It was actually during the biggest dip of their popularity, in the late 90’s, because grunge was kind of going out of fashion. I saw both of them play to a pretty small crowd. What struck me was there you had these guys who are a little on the older side playing to small audiences, but they’re just doing it for the love of the game or whatever. They had all this passion. On top of that, I feel like they were both really in hot streaks of their creative output. That always stuck with me and made a really big impression. That was a big deal. I mean, damn.
There are countless concert memories and stuff that have kept me going. I’ve been going to shows consistently since I was like 16 years old, and I’m 41. (laughs) The list is pretty long. To this day, I’m still getting inspired by bands that I see live. It’s a cool feeling when you’re an old man and you’re watching a performance that totally moves you. When you think you’ve seen it all or you’ve been around the block, it’s cool to still feel surprised from time to time, you know?
Raygun: I’ve been racking my brain this- Okay, when I was 16, I saw Stephen Malkmus play solo. It was like right after Pavement broke up, so it was basically Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks playing that first album. Bright Eyes was opening, and nobody had really heard of them at that point. My friend who was a little bit older than me had told me about them and we were really into them and sh.t. So we went and totally fanboyed up on them. He was really nice, and they talked to us. We just had a great time. Me and that girl formed our own band after that. So I guess that was a pivotal moment. That’s not necessarily the show I think of when I consider the greatest show I ever saw in my life, but it was a great moment for sure.
Stin: Another big one for me is when I was in high school, me and a friend, on a whim, although we weren’t familiar with this type of music at all, we went and saw Cannibal Corpse and Nile play. This would be Black Seeds of Vengeance era Nile, and maybe Gallery of Suicide era Cannibal Corpse. It was in that time frame and I was blown away, that completely transformed me. I was like, “Damn, I didn’t know that music could like be like this.” The extremity of it, the craft that went into the technicality, and the performance altered my life. I became an extreme music fan overnight, that was a really big one for me. Especially Nile. They were the standout of that little package. So shout out to that era of Nile.
When you check out your streaming platform’s history, what are the last three things you listened to?
Raygun: Uh oh. (laughs)
Stin: Crazy Rhythms by The Feelies. Between the Times and the Tides by Lee Ronaldo. And sorry, Spotify’s being slow here. It’s not going back that far. Oh, here we go. I’m trying to find actual album. OK. And then Ozma… by the Melvins.
Cool picks.
Raygun: The last three songs I listened to are “Do you wanna” by Astrid Sonne, which is awesome. (checks the history) This is way less embarrassing than it could have been, thank God. Then “Dancing with the Stranger” by Sam Smith featuring Normani, and then “Live Forever” by Oasis.
I love those three picks. This is my final question for you: Let’s imagine we’re at a Musicians Theme Park 100 years from now, where every artist or band featured has their own memorial stone with one of their lyrics written on it. Which lyric would you like to see written on Chat Pile’s stone?
Raygun: It’s hard to say. Maybe it’s not written yet, but let’s suppose it is. I mean, “Send my body to Arby’s” immediately comes to mind, you know? (all laugh)
Stin: I was going to say “Hammers and grease.” I just think that’s the most iconic.
You can check out Chat Pile’s Bandcamp profile here.
