Chat Pile

Formed in Oklahoma City in 2019, Chat Pile brings together four musicians who perform under the pseudonyms Raygun Busch, Luther Manhole, Stin and Cap’n Ron. The band’s name refers to the mounds of mining waste visible in northeastern Oklahoma — a local anchor that also informs their imagery. Musically, Chat Pile sits between noise rock and sludge metal, with a tense, abrasive and often heavy approach: dissonant riffs, massive rhythms and vocals that alternate between spoken-word and screaming create music marked by discomfort, saturation and a kind of social realism. After the EPs This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please in 2019, Chat Pile released a 2020 compilation collecting those early tracks, then signed to the label The Flenser. Their first full-length, God’s Country, arrived in 2022 and established the band more widely on the American and European independent scenes. In 2023 they toured increasingly outside the United States and played Roadburn; that performance was later issued as Live at Roadburn 2023 in 2025. Cool World, released in 2024, continues this trajectory with the same rough-edged approach, balancing noise tension, metal weight and post-punk touches. The band has also put out several shorter releases, including a split with Nerver and, in 2025, a collaborative album with Hayden Pedigo titled In the Earth Again.