Chat Pile: Setting Sun
CHAT PILE have returned with a vengeance with their new album, Who Loves The Sun, and it sees the prolific Oklahoma noise rock mavericks on top form throughout. We caught up with bassist Stin to hear all about the new record and the issues that it confronts, as well as hearing how their recent European tour went.
Stin starts by discussing how the album’s creation commenced. “We started with pretty much a completely blank slate, the day after Thanksgiving, and then worked on it pretty much every single day until we turned it in on April 1, and that was a self-imposed deadline that we gave ourselves.” Stin continues by delving further into the CHAT PILE creative process for Who Loves The Sun. “Initially, our guitar player [Luther Manhole] and myself were like, ‘we’re going to make the most evil record we’ve made yet’, and then we started bringing riffs into the studio, and it turned into more of an alt rock direction as things went on. So there’s a little bit of evilness in there, but I think we exercised some melody on this one, maybe more than we intended to.”
Talk then turns to the sonic influences of the new record as Stin reveals a big change went into this records sound. “If you were to hear the rough demos that we brought to the table, some of them are pretty heavy sounding, but a lot of them kind this sort of slacker rock vibe to them. In fact, one of the demos was called slacker rock, which ended up becoming the song Intruder. So I don’t know why that was. I don’t know why we were in that headspace when we started coming up with riffs, but that’s what we leaned into.”
Stin then goes into some of the themes that Who Loves The Sun deals with. “Raygun [Busch, vocals] is the mastermind behind the lyrics, but I can tell you that the overarching theme that comes up again and again is a fear about climate change, a fear about AI, and the way technology is ruining things for humanity. And then, there’s just an entire sense of trying to regain our humanity as a culture.” Stin then tells of the cathartic nature of the new album and how playing live with CHAT PILE lets out that same catharsis. “Yeah, most definitely. I mean, it’s not like we have to put ourselves in a crazy headspace to play the shows. We just go out there and do our thing and have fun. But the creation of the art really does help us work out some demons in that way.”
CHAT PILE have been extremely prolific with their recorded output, with Who Loves The Sun representing the band’s fourth album in four years. Stin reveals that the band might be talking it a bit more easier now the album is out. “I think deliberately after this record, we’re going to take a little bit of a creative break. We might crank out a single here and there just for fun. But I think as far as trying to make an album is concerned, we’re going to take a healthy amount of time off so we can kind of reset creatively.”
Before the release of Who Loves The Sun, CHAT PILE played festivals over the summer, with their appearance at ArcTanGent marking a particular highlight, as Stin enthuses. “That was probably one of the most fun shows that we played on that whole tour. People just really turned out for us and were going nuts, and we were really firing on all cylinders, so that was such a fun show. I loved it. Another worthwhile one mentioning is Palp Festival in Switzerland, where we played in the dirt, on top of a mountain. That was that was a really cool experience!”
CHAT PILE also have a special record release show for Who Loves The Sun with PORTRAYAL OF GUILT, TRAINDODGE, NIGHTOSPHERE and PRIMAL BRAIN that they are really looking forward to. “It’s going to be such a special show for us. We definitely wanted to put something together that showed our love for the community and the city that we live in, and we wanted to do that by first off inviting like some of our really good friends, bands from the region that we love and respect, and kind of do like a mini festival type thing, and then all the money that we make from this show is going to get donated to CSU Youth Services in Oklahoma City, and CSU is a program that helps youth homeless kind of transition back into having homes again, and it’s really great cause.”
Stin then tells how CHAT PILE’s hometown of Oklahoma City shapes their music. “It shapes it in a huge way because Oklahoma City is an extremely conservative part of the United States. In fact, people say it’s the buckle of the Bible Belt, that is like one of the nicknames that we get, and on top of that, you know, it’s just kind of a rundown, shitty place to be. So it does have a tendency to affect the mood of our music quite a bit.”
Stin then reveals who his favourite ever Oklahoma bands are. “Well, the number one of all time is a band called TRAINDODGE, who are going to be playing the show with us. They’ve been around since the mid 90s. Man, they’re just amazing top shelf, hunchy indie rock, noise rock type music, and they’re just the best guys, they’re amazing. And then, it’s kind of cool to hate on them these days. But I do love early FLAMING LIPS, every album up to and including Soft Bulletin is great as well.”
We conclude with Stin looking forward to hitting the road again with SOUL GLO, VIRGA and SHALLOWATER once the album releases, and unleashing the songs from Who Loves The Sun in a live capacity, “We aren’t going to have much of a break between our Europe stint and this US one and it would be nice to have a few more weeks at home with my wife and my dog. But other than that, I am very excited to get on the road and play these new songs and meet new fans and all that stuff. It’s going to be awesome!”
Who Loves The Sun is out now via The Flenser. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS133 here.
Like CHAT PILE on Facebook.