Issue 29: Stin of Chat Pile
Issue 29: Stin of Chat Pile
Welcome to The Band Bible! I’m truly glad to have you here. If you’re a new reader, purpose of this newsletter is to address, break down, and shine a light on the business of being in a band. Each issue, we do this by interviewing (and celebrating!) someone who is making waves through their incredible work with or for artists. Sometimes, we interview artists themselves. Learning the business of being in a band is something that is often inaccessible or shrouded in mystery, and it shouldn’t be, so I hope The Band Bible is able to play even a small role in helping to change that.
“From the time you were born, it was over.”
So begins “No Way Out,” which is the closing track of Chat Pile’s hotly anticipated sophomore album, Cool World, which is out today. The beauty of this lyric is that the “it” in question could be anything that makes you feel disconnected, displaced, or disrupted in the world. Whether your “it” be a healthy job market, affordable housing, environmental wellbeing, etcetera, it’s hard to move through the world without a prevailing sense that you were never going to have an honest shot at, well, a hell of a lot. Plus, there are certain things that feel like they never really began in the first place, but that list is too long to get into. Our “its” unite us in the guttural understanding that the world never really feels good to live in. There are moments of goodness and fortune, but a vast majority of people living today were born into a world that was never going to be our oyster. That knowledge, however intrinsic, is still difficult to reckon with and we’re reminded of it on each occasion where we face new challenges. To be alive is to have a front-row seat to horror, whether it be in your own community or somewhere thousands of miles from where you live.
Sometimes, you don’t want your music to come and save you from all this. Rather, you may just need to have something you can commiserate with instead. This is important because the perils of the world we face can sometimes feel uniquely isolating, and we all digest internal and external conflict in different ways. Here, Cool World comes in. The album delivers a comforting yet sobering reminder that this world isn’t easy for any of us, and it’s perfectly okay to need a companion to simply feel like shit with. Cool World is that companion for us all, and in being so, the perils of the world feel a little less isolating.
Yet, that’s of no surprise because Chat Pile has mastered the role of the unflinching observer. A contributing factor to the success of their debut album God’s Country was their ability to acutely dive into society’s darkest ills, and Cool World sees the quartet do so once again. This time, though, the exploration takes place on a greater scale as the relationship between domestic and international catastrophes becomes a specific point of focus. Together, God’s Country and Cool World paint a sharp and blistering portrait of what it looks like to be alive today. This makes Chat Pile one of the most important bands of our time.
The extent to which people have resonated with Chat Pile’s work (a phenomenon that will no doubt increase now that Cool World has arrived) has resulted in a meteoric rise taking place in a mere two years. This means that the band has since surpassed the coveted point of swapping the desk for the stage. So, with Chat Pile now becoming a full-time job, their experience of the business of being in a band has undergone a huge shift accordingly. A rapid ascent may not have been what they expected, but their body of work makes it clear that it’s what they deserve.
To celebrate the release of Cool World, I caught up with bassist and manager Stin about the album, the transition into being a full-time band, the commandment he’s leaving behind in The Band Bible, and more. Enjoy the interview.
Photo by Matthew Zagorski
To begin, let's throw it back: Do you remember the first time you realized that the four of you were onto something special together?
There’s honestly been a couple instances of us having the realization of “Hey, maybe this is actually pretty good?”. I think the first time for me was getting the masters back of our first EP, This Dungeon Earth. I remember listening to it on headphones while walking around my neighborhood and for the first time in my life not feeling trepidation about people hearing one of my bands. I had finally created the type of music I’ve been trying to make since I was a teenager but had never been able to quite pull off. It’s funny listening to it now after some years and hearing how absolutely tinny and raw it sounds!
To be a Chat Pile fan is to know your love of films. If Cool World was the score to a film, what do you think its plot would be?
A prototype robot intended for crime combat escapes from the development lab and goes on a killing rampage. I’m thinking the robot is named something catchy, like Robotic Officer Tactical Operation Research.
You've recently mentioned stepping away from day jobs as the band has grown. Which aspects of transitioning between those two worlds were the most challenging and/or unexpected for you? Do you have any advice for other artists who are about to undergo that transition?
Well the most unexpected part of the transition was the need to transition at all! We’re all older guys from Oklahoma City making extremely alienating music. There was no reality we could conceive of where anyone would ever take us seriously, let alone take us seriously to the point where we could quit our day jobs. But we did and that move has come with a host of challenges like health insurance, accounting, taxes, balancing life on the road and home, operational budgets and a million other things that are absolutely unsexy and very not punk. I manage the band, and as such, I went from a predictable 40 hour a week 9-to-5 job to a 24/7, constantly on-call job where a guitar is rarely in my hand. I’m not sure I have a ton of great advice for bands out there as I’m learning so much of this as I go, but I have discovered that dealing with other bands that use outside management are always such an enormous pain in the ass versus working with bands who just manage themselves. My only other advice is just stay grounded and remember to make every business decision knowing that success in the music industry is fickle and wildly impermanent!
Is there any particular track on Cool World that you connect with most? If so, which one and why?
“Funny Man” is probably the Chat Pile song I’m most proud of so far. I feel like we really nailed writing the type of tidy, anthemic alt-metal songs we grew up listening to in the 90s and it just really gets me amped up whenever we play it live. I feel the same about Camcorder, albeit on the opposite side of the same coin. It’s a somewhat sprawling, meditative song that I think is one of our most well written.
Lastly, which "commandment" would you like to leave behind in The Band Bible?
For the love of god - if you have any business of importance to conduct, do it via email like an adult and not Instagram messenger.
A big thank you to Stin for taking the time to share such thoughtful answers. In addition to Stin, Chat Pile is Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (guitar), and Cap’n Ron (drums). To keep up with the band and learn more, click here for their Linktree. Last but not least, don’t forget to stream Cool World, which is out now via The Flenser.