“It seems like the metal purists are a little… shy about claiming us,” Chat Pile guitarist Luther Manhole admits.
He’s not wrong. Despite having a sound that crosses over into a variety of scenes – from hardcore to noise rock, alt metal and beyond – and releasing critically acclaimed albums in 2022’s God’s Country and 2024’s Cool World, the Oklahoma City quartet seem to do a pretty good job of pissing people off. Not least because they’re using the iconography of extreme metal.
“Spiritually, our music is as dark as any black metal music or whatever,” snorts bassist Stin. “Maybe the actual delivery system is a little different, but the message and the emotional qualities we’re trying to portray are there. But the elitists don’t like that we have a scratchy twig-looking metal logo. I don’t think it’s stolen valour to have a metal logo, but it pisses off these purists, who think that we’re just hipsters appropriating metal culture or whatever. Get bent – I don’t care!”
In their own words, Chat Pile are just “trying to capture the anxiety and fear of seeing the world fall apart”. But they also have a laissez-faire attitude to sticking to conventions, preferring to have fun. When asked about the future of the band, Stin tells us they intend to get more and more experimental, before sarcastically adding, “If it keeps working for us, great! If not, we’ll be on the [funk-rock also-rans] 311 cruise doing God’s Country in full in 15 years!”
The band’s ability to laugh at themselves and the scene around them was brilliantly evident last year, in the aftermath of Deicide frontman Glen Benton’s infamous tirade against modern metal bands being a “bunch of wannabe Weezer-looking dudes”. It hilariously prompted Chat Pile to post a picture of themselves all over social media, mocked up as the front cover of Weezer’s classic Blue Album.
“I really do get a kick out of pissing off the real purists,” grins Stin, before cackling. “Glen Benton’s such a Facebook grandpa!”
“It’s such high school lunchroom table bullshit to me,” adds Luther. “All these people who think that there should be these ‘rules’ when it comes to the type of music you make, what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. It’s an ancient, outdated mode of thought.”
Chat Pile’s live shows continue the theme; a mix of utterly crushing, corrosive noise and between-song banter from frontman Raygun Busch about lost 80s movies, such as Michael Keaton’s 1989 comedy The Dream Team. Spouted while wearing nothing but a pair of Y-fronts. You don’t get that at a Cult Of Luna show.
“There’s so many people confused or even let down because we weren’t these ‘dark sex poet leather guys’ or whatever,” Stin says. “We were just ourselves. But it was shocking to people that we didn’t have this stupid macabre persona. To me, it makes what we’re doing all the more real, because we’re not presenting to anybody this sort of imagined, idealised version of our message.”
They may enjoy stirring the pot online and onstage, but Chat Pile are no comedy band, creating a brilliantly harsh and scabrous amalgam of noise rock and groove metal riffs. Their style is inspired by the myriad genres and artists they enjoy, whether from the metal sphere or not. They’re also uninterested in scoring cool points by only name-checking underground artists.
“I listened to Children Of God by Swans yesterday,” Stin tells us. “I was like, ‘You know, there’s riffs you’d hear later in Korn in this shit!’ Even emotionally, they share the similar territory. The difference is that you can be all high and mighty and pretentious about liking Swans, but people treat it like you’d have to be a moron to like Korn. I just don’t agree with that type of thinking.”
The result of this attitude and particular set of influences is Chat Pile’s latest album, Cool World. Compared to God’s Country, it’s more succinct, catchier and immediate without ever sacrificing the manic intensity of their previous work. Songs such as the pummelling Funny Man, the stalking Masc or the brooding, grinding weight of Camcorder feel like a version of Around The Fur-era Deftones fronted by Henry Rollins and produced by Steve Albini. Chat Pile have found a way to have their noise rock cake and still eat big, punk-metal bangers.
“We wanted every song to have some memorable… something, you know?” Luther says. “Otherwise, why is it on there?”
“Nirvana are a big reference point in all this too,” adds Stin. “Because that’s how I got into music, so it’s in my DNA. I can’t really escape it even if I wanted to.”
It’s interesting to hear him mention Nirvana, a noisy underground punk band that became the biggest thing in music. Because, although you can tell that it is absolutely not by design, Chat Pile are starting to cross over. Mainstream outlets such as Pitchfork, The Needle Drop and The Guardian certainly think so, calling them one of the most exciting bands in current heavy music.
“We’re surprised that anybody knows who we are,” laughs Stin. “We started this band to play local shows to our friends. We never thought it would break past the small Oklahoma City scene. So now, to get reviews in Pitchfork or end up on these ‘best albums of the year’ lists, it’s beyond the scope of anything that would have been conceivable to us five years ago. I never saw it coming!"
Cool World is out now via The Flenser. Chat Pile tour the UK from April 20. For the full list of tour dates, visit their official website.
