God’s Country

Product Information

LM: When I like metal, it’s stuff like ‘Traveller’ by The Lord Weird Slough Feg. That’s an awesome heavy metal album. But I didn’t really get into metal through older-style thrash, so I’m kind of haterfied when it comes to the Eighties metal vibe. Stin: Our writing process is a little weird (or perhaps not?) in that usually one of us brings a few loose riff ideas to the table, and the three non-vocalists jam on it endlessly until it feels the way we want it to feel. So the length of “Grimace…” wasn’t premeditated; it just kind of ended up being long as we kept feeling it out. We knew Raygun would be able to really take the long, doomy section at the end and make it his own. It’s hard to not have that stuff in your work if you think about it at all. I can see if you don’t think about politics at all, maybe somehow that could not be in your shit. I dunno. But if it’s anything that you’re thinking about, it’s just gonna end up in your art. 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? LM: It’s a case of balancing. I think we’re a pretty earnest band in general, it’s not like we’re doing loads of ironic stuff. But we also all like horror movies, comedy movies, stuff like that. That stuff plays together in pretty much any media. Like Ray said, a lot of people have to be the Mr. Darkness man on stage, or just generally in press and stuff. That’s not really us.

Raygun Busch: Where did that quote come from? I would never say ‘lots’ that many times. When it comes to weed, at least half of us are elite super soldiers, but we all serve dutifully. Much like conversation, laughter, sex, good food, movies—It’s an essential spice of life. Stin: Ya, more than anything, we’re trying to capture the anxiety and fear of seeing the world fall apart. Raygun is especially talented at that, even if the lyrics are fantasy based at times. I think that that specific type of anxiety comes through no matter what. 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: There are a lot of bands, artists, fan communities etc. in Northern England who would overlap with Chat Pile. 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.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.

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.

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? Stin: If messing around in bands for many years has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t rely on anyone else to share your vision or even show up to help when the time comes. I think we have a strong point of view, and the best way to express that is by doing as much of the process as possible yourself. It also doesn’t hurt that we don’t have any money to spend on anything, so this is certainly the cheaper option! I could see us possibly working with a recording engineer who actually knows what they’re doing one day, but it would have to service the broader picture of whatever we’re attempting at the time. 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: 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. 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? Stin: Ya, sorry Raygun, that was me on the “lots.” I was having trouble expressing how hazy the recording was without getting hyper literal on the THC consumption. Mark my words though, it was a nearly worrisome amount.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. 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. How do you see yourself in relation to those kinds of bands, those acts who quote-unquote “make a point” in their music? 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?