Chat Pile know they're odd ducks in their hometown of Oklahoma City. "It's either you're hardcore or you're shoegaze," the ascendant sludge-metal or noise-rock or whatever-you-call-it band's bassist, Stin, rues to GRAMMY.com. "Those seem to be kind of the two main options around here."
But it goes several steps beyond that. From singer Raygun Busch's idiosyncratic bark to their themes of mundane horrors to the sheer volume of memes swirling around their 2022 debut, God's Country, there's hardly an analog for this band anywhere.
On the other hand, Nerver are right at home in Kansas City, five hours northeast. The bludgeoning punk band, who released their whiplash second album, CASH, in 2022, are part of a rising tide of dark, heavy weirdos in KC. They're flourishing in many pockets up and down the I-35, which stretches from Duluth, Minnesota to the border between Texas and Mexico.
Birds of a feather: when Nerver played their first-ever Oklahoma City gig, Chat Pile were on the bill, and they became fast friends. Now, this nexus between two potent bands, regions and scenes — in what some dismiss as "flyover country" — is marked with a musical document.
Chat Pile and Nerver are out with a new split EP, Brothers in Christ, out Apr. 14 — a split-label release between Austin label Reptilian Records and Kansas City–based The Ghost is Clear Records. While Chat Pile's two offerings, "King" and "Cut," home in on their odder, mellower side, you'll rarely hear Nerver as heavy as they are on "Kicks in the Sky" and "The Nerve."
Ahead of the EP's release, Stin and Nerver’s bassist/vocalist and drummer — Evan Little and Mathew Shanahan — sat down with GRAMMY.com about how Brothers in Christ came to be, the emerging heavy scene in the central United States and their mutual love of Metallica deconstructions on YouTube.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
How did your two bands arrive in each other's lives?
Stin: It's kind of a funny story. I think the third show that Chat Pile ever played was this warehouse show in Oklahoma City. We were supposed to play; there were a couple of local punk bands. But then Nerver were on the bill, and so was Bummer. But Bummer bailed and Nerver ended up showing up, and we just met at the show and hit it off immediately, and we've been good friends ever since.
Evan Little: I think the I-35, as it usually is, was down to one lane, full of construction. We showed up to Oklahoma City super late and loaded in, and Chat Pile had just started playing. We watched them, and I don't think I had ever played Oklahoma City before. I don't want to speak for everybody, but…
Mathew Shanahan: It had been years for me.
Evan: We watched Chat Pile and were like, "Hey guys, that was a great set. Can we stay at any of your houses?" [Laughs.]
Stin: We've just kind of stayed in touch ever since then. We went on a mini-tour with Chat Pile, Nerver, and a band called Meth from Chicago, and we played five or six dates through the Midwest.
Evan: It was in May of '22, because we had originally planned on doing it in 2020, and then COVID shut everything down. Also, Minneapolis was in an uproar when we were originally supposed to play…
Stin: Oh, that's right.
Evan: George Floyd got killed. It was like COVID shut everything down, George Floyd got killed and my dad died all on the same weekend. So, s— just hit the fan, and everything went away. So we were like, "OK, maybe we'll try again in two years." And then it ended up eventually working out.
Stin: That was a really fun tour, too. That was a good time. And the funny thing, too, is I think from the get-go, we had talked about doing a split together. It just took a really long time for us to get our s— together to make it happen.
Evan: We were eager to do a split, and we met those guys around the same time. We lived close enough to each other to where collaborating would be pretty easy.
Stin: That's a good point, too. The proximity is kind of a big thing, because Chat Pile's based in Oklahoma City and Nerver is based in Kansas City, which is about five hours away. You guys have definitely traveled down a couple of times to come hang out with us.
And music aside, we've come up there and hung out a few times with you guys at different points, too. So, I think that helps. The collaborative part of it has been really cool and fun.
Evan: Even in the middle of the country, five hours is close.
Tell me a little bit about the OKC and Kansas City heavy-music scenes and where your bands fit into those puzzles.
Stin: In Oklahoma City, the heavy scene has changed so much over the years. It used to be relegated to more DIY, Maximum Rocknroll-style hardcore bands.
But after COVID shut everything down, this new hardcore scene has emerged across the globe that has more of what I would call a beatdown quality — that type of hardcore, and it's all people who are extremely young. But it's cool, because the scene is sort of exploding right now with that type of activity. You're seeing an explosion of bands coming around.
As far as more experimental, noisy stuff goes, there's not really a ton of that. I know people will call Chat Pile "noise rock" or whatever, and we're kind of the only band like that in Oklahoma City. It's either you're hardcore or you're shoegaze. Those seem to be kind of the two main options around here.
Kansas City, on the other hand, seems like it's got a lot going on. In fact, I would say it's one of the more exciting music cities in the country right now, at least with the type of stuff that Chat Pile and Nerver are doing.
Evan: There are a lot of really cool bands happening in Kansas City. A lot more noise-rock stuff. Like Austin was saying, we met Chat Pile when we were on tour with Bummer, and there seems to be a scene for loud, sort of darker bands happening right now. So, that's been great for us and allowed us to tour easier and play shows with similar bands easier.
Stin: Matthew, you turned me on to Nightosphere, and they only have a couple of songs out, but man — I can't get enough of those. They just put out a three-way split with Flooding and Abandoncy. One of those bands is from Lawrence [Kansas], right?
Evan: Flooding is from Lawrence.
Stin: Yeah, but still, it's that region. You guys have an embarrassment of riches in terms of all that stuff. Then, I would also say the Denton area of Texas has that kind of stuff going on as well, so it's sort of weird. I guess Kansas City's not really I-35, but…
Evan: Oh, it is.
Stin: OK, it is: cool. So, that switch of I-35 from North Texas to Kansas City: there's a little scene going on of cool, noisy bands right now.
Evan: Yeah, from Austin and Minneapolis. There's a bunch of good bands existing around one interstate. It's good. It's convenient.
*Chat Pile. Photo: Juliette Boulay*
Tell me about the tunes themselves — how they came to be, how you curated them to swim in the same bowl.
Stin: On the Chat Pile side of things, we wrote and recorded these songs after God's Country came out. So, the flavor of it is a little bit different than what is on the album. We're leaning more into the indie-rock side of our taste a little bit. We thought this EP would be a good place to put that type of stuff.
The other thing that was kind of crazy about it: like I was saying, it took us a long time to get our act together to put this out. Instrumentally, our songs were written for months and months.
It took forever to do vocals because our singer's partner has some health issues, so he wasn't even living in the state with us at the time. So, we had to wait a long time for him to contribute his part of the music.
Evan: For at least one of the songs on the split, we tried to include it on our 2022 album. We were completely fried from recording and decided, "Let's not push this; let's save the song for another day." And then, Chat Pile was like, "Go ahead, we're ready. We have songs written; we're good to go."
The other song, we wrote specifically knowing that it would end up on a split with them. I know we usually write as we write, and it's never that we write a song for a specific release that we're going to know all the context of beforehand.
We went and recorded both songs at the bass player of Shiner, Paul Malinowski's studio in the suburbs here. Zack Alvey engineered and mixed it. It was a very easy and pleasant recording experience, and the songs turned out good. I think both sides of the split ended up complementing each other really well. It all flows well together, I think.
Stin: I feel the same way. And what's funny, too, is I feel like it's you guys at your heaviest, and us at our most mellow.
Evan: There's a slow song and a fast song, and then two of you guys' weirdest songs.
Stin: We deliberately wanted to do the record with Reptilian and The Ghost is Clear. Reptilian is based out of Austin, and The Ghost is Clear is based out of Kansas City. We wanted to do the record through them to tie everything back to the locale — the regionality of the whole project.
Stin, how has it felt being memed into oblivion?
Stin: It's really flattering, honestly. Because when we started the band, we never in a million years imagined that people would care about the music we're making. That's been the story of our lives up until this point.
So, my thought is: if anybody's thinking about us, whether they hate our band or think we're funny enough to meme or anything, all that's cool with me, because I would rather have people pay attention to us. They say the opposite of love isn't hate.
It's complimentary, too. Some of the memes are really, really funny. Those are the ones that we tend to share. We've obviously struck a chord in some way with people, and it's resonating, and that feels good.
Jonathan Tuite [The Flenser founder/owner, who released God’s Country] seems to have this weird knack for grabbing people's imaginations.
Stin: His tastes are incredibly eclectic, and he has a way of finding bands that live in this Venn diagram. They all circulate into or converge into this depressive, sad sort of world.
But it's tongue-in-cheek at the same time.
Stin: Well, I think you can be depressed and sad and angry and still have a sense of humor. Some bands on the label are funnier than others, but I do think that despite the kind of depressive nature of everything, he does have a tendency to pick bands that have some self-awareness and can joke around about that kind of stuff.
As underground musicians, what role do the GRAMMYs play in your lives?
Stin: I would say none at all, other than I am very much aware that people were mad that Metallica lost to Jethro Tull for The Black Album.
I'm a Jethro Tull fanatic.
Stin: OK, this is going to derail the question a little bit. But I absolutely love The Black Album, and sometimes I forget how much that album is imprinted on my psyche.
I've been reminded of it lately, because I've been going down this YouTube rabbit hole. There are people whose entire thing is they cover Metallica songs, but they do it in the style [of another album]. So, they'll take a song from Ride the Lightning and play it as if it were on …And Justice for All. They copy the style, the production elements… all of it.
There's this guy — I can't remember his name — but he's genius-level at doing this. The best ones are all the songs that get transcribed and played as if they're on The Black Album. I'm like, "Damn, maybe The Black Album is actually my favorite Metallica album," weirdly enough.
Evan: I've been in a YouTube rabbit hole of people replacing every snare in every Metallica song with the St. Anger snare. I think that's my favorite one. They should win a GRAMMY for that — the people who put that s— together.
Mathew: It was cool that Body Count won one not that long ago. That seemed cool. It was the same year that Power Trip was up for it right after [vocalist] Riley [Gale] died, and a lot of people were up in arms that Power Trip didn't win, which they should have. But Body Count still f—s.
Evan: I have no idea what's going on at the GRAMMYs — who wins or who's nominated. I can say confidently that I've never thought about it at all.
You're thinking about it now, buddy.
Evan: Exactly. When Stin told us this interview was happening, he said, "Get your tuxedos ready, boys."
Stin: It's funny, too, because whenever any type of awards show happens, my Twitter feed becomes insufferable for a day or two. It's like, look: awards can be fun. I'm sure it's fun to go, also, and put on your outfit. Look, my dad knowing that I'm doing an interview right now with the GRAMMYs — he can die happy now. So, there are many advantages to it.
Evan: I'm glad that Brendan Fraser won something. I don't know if they're all related, or what.
Where are your bands at in your trajectories? What are you primed to do next?
Stin: Chat Pile is working on a second album right now. It's slowly coming together. But in the meantime, we're gearing up to be way more of a road band than we've ever been before.
In fact, a week from today, we leave to go play Roadburn in the Netherlands, then we're going to play Roskilde in Denmark. Then, we have a weeklong tour in the UK. And then, we're going to embark on two coastal tours, which have not been announced whatsoever.
We're basically gearing up to do lots and lots of touring, and then hopefully, we'll have a second record out. We'll say the goal is by next year, but time will tell what happens with that.
Mathew: We're going on tour next month for 25 days.
Evan: If you live on the West Coast, come see Nerver.
Real quick, before we go: is there anyone you're excited about in your scene or an adjacent one that you'd like to shout out?
Stin: Hell and Primitive Man, to me, are making some of the most exciting music out there right now. I love Jesus Piece. I think they're amazing. I could actually see them being GRAMMY winners in a couple of years.
Evan: OK, I've got a really good answer. This band Missouri Executive Order 44 that just started here. Their whole thing is they play the heaviest music you've ever heard while dressed like bicycle missionaries. All the songs are about being Mormon, and it's a lot of fun to watch. Max makes everybody pray. It's a lot of fun. You guys should definitely give that band a GRAMMY.
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