“In their parents’ arms, the kids were falling apart/broken tiny bodies holding tiny still hearts”
-“Shame”
“Have you ever had ringworm? Scabies? Have you ever had to live outside?”
-“Why”
“There’s more screaming than you’d think/Everyone’s head rings here/You never forget their eyes”
-“Slaughterhouse”
It’s election night. There are a lot fewer people on their phones in between bands. People are talking to each other a little louder than usual around me, about anything other than the election, as if to drown out their own thoughts. I was doing the same. We all wanted the walls of Thalia Hall to put pause to the world outside. After all, there’s no reason the fate of the nation should ruin our good time. We all wanted escapism. Unfortunately, the band we all showed up to see was Chat Pile; a band that resides, exposed and bloody, in the darkest corners of what could be considered “mainstream” alternative rock. A band that dares you to look away, knowing that what’s around you is worse than what’s in front of you. With their serrated blend of noise rock, sludge metal, and post-hardcore, Chat Pile have established a uniquely heavy and venomous sound that reflects their disgust with the pitfalls of the man-made world. Across 2 LPs, 2022’s God’s Country and 2024’s Cool World, Chat Pile have used music that claws at your ears to deliver lyrics that plead you to look down at the bones beneath your feet.
Hailing from Oklahoma City, Chat Pile are named after the massive mountains of industrial waste that live in their home state. These chat piles are active reminders of mankind’s blatant disrespect of the earth itself, of the motherland that was so deeply respected by its native inhabitants. Those same native inhabitants who were almost exterminated by the genocidal greed of the fledgling colonial power America. When oil was discovered on what little land these people had left, they were killed for it. The oil drilling that occurred and caused these piles of industrial trash could only have occurred on this land after its original protectors were wiped out. Every chat pile is a graveyard. The band is stamped with the witness of genocide by their name alone. From the very beginning, the band’s sound and messaging has been a convulsion caused by all the unspoken and stepped-over illness plaguing America.
It’s election night. Neither candidate has made any meaningful opposition to America’s involvement in an ongoing genocide. Both candidates have promised to continue to build upon and maintain “the most lethal military in the world.” The right is blatantly telling people they will take away their rights, while the left is once again promising those same people that THIS will be the time they finally protect those same rights they allowed them to lose. For many in this country, things will get worse no matter what. But there is a lesser evil out of the two, and that lesser evil is a better candidate. No doubt about that. But what a sickening privilege it is to be excited about a lesser evil, to champion someone for having slightly fewer liters of liquid dripping off their blood-soaked hands. It’s election night in the country that manufactured and distributed the weapons used to kill tens of thousands of civilians in the past year. We’re all scared and we’re all angry. Chat Pile’s newest album Cool World serves to remind us why we all should be; with lyrics that lament the subjugation and war crimes inflicted upon others, and the numbness and degradation we inflict upon ourselves. Receiving sweeping critical acclaim and pushing the band into a higher echelon of popularity (including selling out Thalia Hall on a Tuesday), Cool World’s lurching, helpless grind is the music of the moment. And what a revolting moment it is.
As they made their way to the stage, lead singer Raygun Busch (a pseudonym he created to hide the band from his employer) addressed the elephant in the country. “I just want to take a moment to say free Palestine,” Busch declared, “Keep being angry about this shit, cause that’s the only way people will care.” A simple but powerful statement that appropriately prefaced the opening track of the set, Cool World’s “Shame.” There is very little ambiguity about the subject matter of the song, with verses that describe children dying in their parents’ arms after being eviscerated by bombs and shrapnel. “Shame” provides a very specific example of a common theme within Chat Pile’s discography: the ever-presentness, and terrifying lack of uniqueness, of the violence and horror human beings inflict on one another. As Busch states in the lyrics, “There are myriad ways to destroy human skin/Red flesh exposed raw over and over again.” Despite the ugliness of its subject matter, the song features one of Chat Pile’s catchiest (by noise rock standards) hooks, with Busch’s furious vocals turning contemplative and morosely melodic with the chorus “And the world was quaking open with all our fathers smiling/And the statues rose high above us and God became silent.”
It was after this intense opener that Busch took off his shirt (a signature piece of their live show, so much so that it was the subject of an article by satirical music magazine The Hard Times) and truly let his inimitable and uncomfortable stage presence be shown. Busch’s live energy is truly one-of-a-kind, as if he is being attacked by the music itself. Pacing around the stage in a hunched-over squat like he’s being pushed back and forth by forces outside his control, standing perfectly still delivering lyrics before flailing wildly to the beat of the music, Busch’s stage presence is that of someone who believes they are both predator and prey. It is the image of someone fighting for their life trying to escape their own skin and it couldn’t be more perfect for the music.
The first cut from their debut full-length God’s Country to appear in the set is the deafening and heartbreaking “Why.” “Why,” is structurally built upon the repetition of one simple question: “Why do people have to live outside?” With a thumping rhythm section being punctuated by discordant guitar, the song mirrors the lyrics’ anguish, standing as one of the heaviest and most combative iterations of Chat Pile’s sound. The song serves to make the listener uncomfortable almost to the point of panic and fear. As Busch states on the song’s outro, this is a “real American horror story.” It’s the type of track that sticks with you for days after first hearing it, and weeks after seeing it live.
It was after this absolutely punishing track that the band took a moment to add some much-needed levity to the set with some stage banter in the form of Busch describing the plot of the movie Child’s Play 3 (in which we find out that the murderous doll Chucky is originally from Chicago). This was a theme throughout the set, as Busch took time in between songs at various points to mention different movies filmed in Chicago (Candyman, The Dark Knight, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer) as well as the various restaurants in the city he enjoys (an automatic crowd pleaser). This served not only to allow the audience to temporarily think about something other than the incredibly dark subject matter of the songs, but also to remind us that, despite the intensity of their music, Chat Pile is inseparable from their sense of humor. I mean, this is a band that named a song “grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg” and closed their encore (spoiler alert) with a song about being sent to Arby’s as meat for their sandwiches. Sometimes you have to laugh to stop yourself from sobbing, a skill Chat Pile has proved to be very adept at.
The next major highlight of the set came after the band “attempted to take a request” before saying “The song we chose to hear was Slaughterhouse.” Thundering drums introduce the track before the defiant, venomous yell of “Hammers and grease” brings a cacophony of ringing guitar and subterranean bass. The track takes the audience on a tour of a slaughterhouse through the eyes of someone who has been broken by its cruelty. It’s Chat Pile at their most desperate, musically and lyrically losing their minds in the spiraling climax on the back half of the track; “Haunted building, haunted life.”
While much is rightfully made of Chat Pile’s incredible adeptness at spewing bile, their capacity for tenderness is highly underrated, and is a defining feature of God’s Country. This is exemplified on “Masc,” and “I Am Dog Now,” two tracks that highlight Busch’s internal struggles with self-deprecation, and were appropriately slotted quite late in the main set. “Masc” finds Busch navigating what appears to be a doomed relationship, making one last request to keep his masculine front intact: “Don’t tell your friends I trust and bleed.” It stands as one of the most melodic and introspective moments of the bands career, and the live performance was appropriately sincere. This knack for melody is intentionally absent from the tortured cry for help that is “I Am Dog Now,” the Cool World opener that recently introduced thousands of new listeners to Chat Pile’s singular violence. The crowd exploded with the opening bass riff; the multi-generational mosh pit (featuring both people in their 50s old-school slam-dancing and people in their teens new-school hardcore dancing) reached a fever pitch as Busch loudly reminded the crowd that “Everyone bleeds.” The main set concluded with first EP deep-cut “Rainbow Meat,” an explosive conclusion to a live set that was performed by four people who appeared to have everything to say and nothing to lose. The two track encore was incredible icing on the cake (an ironic cliché given the sourness of the music).
As I left the venue (and, unfortunately, checked the election results), I felt deeply grateful for Chat Pile. I’m encouraged that there’s a band that so appropriately addresses how deeply unsettling our world can be, and that said band can sell out a 1,000+ person venue with that brutally honest message. You can easily leave a Chat Pile show unhappy, but I have a hard time believing you could leave one unmoved. In the most disturbing of times, they serve to tell us that we’re not the ones who are crazy, that it really is that bad. However, this is not a statement of acceptance or inaction, quite the opposite. Chat Pile’s music, at its core, is about empathy. They put the suffering front and center, because the first step to solving any problem is acknowledging that there is one. Chat Pile condemns the present world not because they believe it is doomed, but because they believe there is still something left to save.