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The profile · researched 23 September 2026
Named after mine waste: Chat Pile take a third record from Oklahoma City to Berlin
Chat Pile formed in Oklahoma City in February 2019 and have built three albums out of documented American horrors. Their third, Who Loves the Sun, arrived on 4 September 2026 and has them on the road through to late February 2027.
Named after what the mines left behind
Chat Pile formed in Oklahoma City in February 2019. The four members work under pseudonyms — Raygun Busch on vocals, Luther Manhole on lead guitar, Stin on bass and Cap'n Ron on drums — and came into the city from smaller Oklahoma towns including Ponca City, Moore and Asher. Stin also handles the band's management. The name comes from chat piles, the heaps of crushed rock left as a by-product of lead and zinc mining that sit across the north-east of the state.
Two EPs arrived in 2019, This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please, both made without a label behind them. San Francisco's The Flenser signed the band in September 2020, and every subsequent Chat Pile album has come out through that imprint. The early records established the working method that has not really changed: down-tuned guitars, a bass mixed forward enough to carry the melody, and a vocalist who talks, mutters and screams rather than sings.
The two records that made the argument
God's Country landed on 29 July 2022 and was recorded by the band themselves, an approach Busch has likened to films shot on iPhones — the point being that the gear no longer decides who gets to make something. The songs draw on documented events rather than invention. 'Slaughterhouse' takes a 2014 beheading at a food-processing plant as its subject; 'The Mask' goes back to the 1974 murder of restaurant workers in Oklahoma City; 'Why' is a flat, furious set of questions about homelessness. Metacritic aggregated the reviews at 84. Pitchfork gave it Best New Music and 8.4, then placed it 39th on its albums of the year; Sputnikmusic ranked it 7th, and Touché Amoré's Jeremy Bolm named it his favourite record of 2022.
Cool World followed on 11 October 2024, running 42 minutes and taking its title from the 1992 film. For the first time the band let someone else into the process: Ben Greenberg of Uniform mixed it. Three singles preceded release — 'I Am Dog Now' on 16 July, 'Masc' on 20 August and 'Funny Man' on 24 September. The lyrics widened out from Oklahoma to poverty, war and American power abroad, with 'Shame' addressing Gaza directly. Metacritic again returned 84, this time across 13 reviews, and Exclaim! placed it 7th in its fifty best albums of 2024.
A side door: Hayden Pedigo, a label of their own, a Sub Pop single
The guitarist Hayden Pedigo moved to Oklahoma City in the summer of 2024, made contact with the band through Instagram, and ended up recording with them at Stin's house. In the Earth Again came out on 31 October 2025 through Computer Students and The Flenser, 36 minutes of post-rock, Americana and slowcore that has very little to do with the band's usual weight. 'Radioactive Dreams' appeared in August 2025 and 'Demon Time' in September. Metacritic put it at 82 from six reviews, with Pitchfork at 7.5 and Exclaim! at 8 out of 10.
Around the same stretch the band started building out their own infrastructure. They launched a boutique label, Dungeon Earth, in July 2025, and in February 2026 put out a single, 'Masks', through Sub Pop. Their festival standing had already shifted: they were named headliners for Roadburn in 2025, having played the Dutch festival in 2023 in a set that The Flenser later issued as a live album, and they have appeared at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. The Pedigo collaboration matters to what came next — the quieter dynamics and the vocal interplay on it turn up in the third album's arrangements.
Who Loves the Sun
The third album arrived on 4 September 2026 on The Flenser: ten songs, 43 minutes, with Greenberg brought back on production. Three singles trailed it — 'Deep Blue' on 9 June, 'Pen I S Mall' on 7 July and 'Same Rules' on 11 August. Busch has summarised the subject matter as his grievances with the modern world: AI, genocide, climate change and the people hoarding the money. Stin described 'Deep Blue' as the band doing a Billy Squier song. The title nods to the Velvet Underground, and the sleeve pairs an abandoned building with a corporate tower.
Reviews were strong without being unanimous. Metacritic settled at 81 from twelve reviews, with Clash and Exclaim! both at 9 out of 10. The Guardian was the notable dissent, arguing that the pull towards alternative rock costs the band some of the rawness that made the first two records land. Echoes and Dust heard Killing Joke in 'Intruder', which carries guest vocals from members of Nightosphere, and noted that the album ends quietly with 'October All the Time' rather than at full volume. Commercially it is the band's widest reach so far: number 6 on the UK Rock and Metal Albums chart, 17 on UK Independent Albums, and 15 on Billboard's Top Album Sales.
Where the tour stands
The Who Loves the Sun tour opened on 12 September 2026 at the Tower Theatre in Oklahoma City, the band's home town, with a five-band bill that included portrayal of guilt, Nightosphere, Traindodge and Primal Brain. The American leg runs to 22 November in Lawrence, Kansas, with Soul Glo opening the bulk of the dates and Virga and Shallowater splitting most of the rest. Announced stops include Metro Music Hall in Salt Lake City on 23 September, the Showbox SoDo in Seattle on 25 September, the Belasco in Los Angeles on 4 October and Brooklyn Steel on 10 November.
The run does not stop at the American border. European dates resume in February 2027 — KOKO in London on 8 February, the Élysée Montmartre in Paris on 14 February and Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin on 24 February — taking the touring schedule across seven countries in all. That follows a summer of European festival appearances in 2026, among them ArcTanGent in England on 22 August, where the band drew one of the larger non-headline crowds the festival has seen.
The show, now
A current Chat Pile show runs about fourteen songs with a single-song encore. The tour opener at the Tower Theatre in Oklahoma City on 12 September 2026 went Creature, Why, I Am Dog Now, PEN I S MALL, then the live debut of Intruder, Influence, Rainbow Meat, Crawlspace, Tropical Beaches Inc., Deep Blue, Family Funeral, Funny Man and Dallas Beltway, with Pamela brought back for the encore — roughly half the new album, the rest drawn from God's Country, Cool World and the 2019 EPs. Staging is minimal and the focus is Busch, who at ArcTanGent in August 2026 worked the stage barefoot, topless and in grey shorts, opening with I Am Dog Now and then filling the gaps between songs with deadpan monologues about music documentaries — Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, Wayne's World — held together by the line that somebody should make a film of the festival. Reviewers at that set described the band as caustic and angular, playing at the edge of collapse, and reported one of the biggest non-headline crowds the festival has drawn; the recurring observation is that audiences leave either wanting to hit a politician or holding a list of films to watch. On the autumn 2026 American dates Soul Glo open most nights, with Virga and Shallowater covering the rest; the hometown opener stacked four supports including portrayal of guilt and Nightosphere, whose members guest on the new record.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · consequence.net · setlist.fm · noizze.co.uk
Pictures
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
Hyggefrost · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hyggefrost · CC BY-SA 4.0
