God’s Country

Product Information

Now, moving forward, are there any literary or cinematic influences you pulled from in particular for God’s Country? Are there any real-life stories you pulled from? Now that ‘God’s Country’ has been out for a few months and it’s taken on a life of its own, how does the album feel to you? NR: Yeah, as someone for whom those bands were doing things before I was born, I can relate to how the similarities between them and you are changed by the era we’re living through. Like, Crass probably wouldn’t have written a song called ‘grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg’, but that’s what happens when you get internet-brained. Raygun Busch: Absolutely! My brain is only truly working when I’m talking about movies, music, books etc. There is a song on the record I am immensely proud of, that is sort of extremely personal in a lot of ways despite essentially being Friday the 13th fanfiction. The Grimace song alternately draws from the films Mysterious Skin and In a Glass Cage (not to mention real-life experience)—There’s also some songs on the record that draw from real life events from our region of the country, true, but they are merely impressions, not meant to be a history lesson by any means. Sort of the In Cold Blood approach. Do you see those qualities in your music, and are you really working to try to get that starkness of presentation in there?

For the writing process for the album, was it a conscious thing that you were all trying to get in a similar zone when making it? Or does it happen more organically than that? All I really hope is that our songs can recall the movies or books that rightfully won’t leave my brain like L’Humanite or Henry: Portrait of Serial Killer or Continental Drift by Russell Banks or Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, etc. Stin: Ya, more than anything, we’re trying to capture the anxiety and fear of seeing the world fall apart. Raygun is especially talented at that, even if the lyrics are fantasy based at times. I think that that specific type of anxiety comes through no matter what. Stin: Ya, sorry Raygun, that was me on the “lots.” I was having trouble expressing how hazy the recording was without getting hyper literal on the THC consumption. Mark my words though, it was a nearly worrisome amount. Special note, Tenkiller is actually a drama, although we totally understand why people would assume it’s a horror movie. No one’s seen it, and our music seems to naturally lend itself to horror!)

Recommendations

Raygun Busch: It was borne from necessity but it’s really the only way to do things, right? We’ve each been recording our own music since at least our teen years. There’s really no reason for anyone to ever pay someone to do shit that a computer has made pig simple for the masses. The internet and computer programs have completely equalized the medium–You can make a record or a movie or whatever you want (easy as writing that book always has been lol) if you really want to. Tangerine was shot on iPhones and Tangerine is one of the best movies of the century so far. Deathconsciousness by Have a Nice Life was recorded using Garageband for chrissakes!

Raygun Busch: Honestly, if I had been left to my own devices at the beginning, it would have been way sillier, more gorey, way more stupid. I was encouraged to keep everything a bit grounded, because it would seem more disturbing, and dammit, the boys were right. I sincerely hope we are not viewed as edgelords, but I do consume a lot of media with pervasive dark themes because that’s what I like. Cap’n Ron: Yeah, it feels like its own entity now, or something like that. Like I’m now completely disassociated from it. LM: I don’t write any of the lyrics, but groups like Crass and Discharge and Rudimentary Peni - they’re a big one for me - have really influenced me. I like a lot of political- and anarcho-punk, and I think there’s definitely some of that flavour in ‘God’s Country’, at least a little bit. It’s hard to not be political about stuff. It’s not like we were aiming to write a political record, it’s more like - everything is political. If you’re saying stuff, if you’re writing a song about something you care about, it’s easy for that stuff to come out. CR: During Covid, instead of actually trying to help people, our governor was like, “oh, let’s have a day of prayer for people in the state.” LM: I think ‘God’s Country’ fits though. Especially with the image and all that, I think it all makes sense together. It’s evocative - you see those words, and the picture of the substation and the jail, and you get what we’re saying.LM: The Grimace thing is something that Ray thought of. He’d written it down and drawn a little picture of it, and we still have the picture hanging up in Stin’s house. The music is serious - what we’re doing is serious. So you’ve gotta have a little fun somewhere else, you know what I mean? One of the highlights of God’s Country is the massive “Grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg” which was released as a six-minute flexi demo not too long ago but ended up being a nine-minute monster transformation. Did you set out to make a song that long initially with it? And what inspired you to have Grimace as the monster of choice?

Before we talk about the record, let’s talk about Tenkiller. What was it like scoring a horror movie? Would you like to do something like that again? LM: For something completely different to what we sound like there’s the album ‘Air Guitar’ by Sobs. They’re a power-pop band from Singapore. They’re awesome - everyone should jam that if you like Charly Bliss or any of the other bubbly power-pop stuff that’s been going on. It’s really good. NR: Given that you chose to frame the record by calling it ‘God’s Country’, what do you think it does to the psyche of people or a community to be invoking God on their existence like that?

Release

Raygun Busch: Acting is super easy and a lot of fun. Just yesterday, I acted in the same filmmakers’ new movie, and I’ll definitely be accepting any and all acting jobs in the future because, as I said, it’s a super easy and a fun job. NR: As this is the end-of-year roundup for Norman, have there been any records/artists/general musical things which have particularly stood out to you this year? And if so, can you see any of them filtering into future Chat Pile work?