Extracted from the vast US oilfields comes a pungent, heavy and energy-packed sound. Are noisenik outsiders Chat Pile about to become the region’s biggest export?

A few weeks ago, a new billboard appeared in downtown Oklahoma City. Positioned atop a nondescript Mexican restaurant advertising “OKC’s Best White Queso and Margaritas,” the advert featured a fisheye photo of a group of scruffy-looking men standing in front of an enormous cross. White letters spell out a cryptic message about the impending release of Chat Pile’s new album, Cool World. All the other ads nearby are for ambulance chasing lawyers and medical marijuana, emphasising how odd it is to see Chat Pile, a gnarly noise rock band, getting the same sky-high treatment. The billboard marks yet another unexpected landmark in the quartet’s rise from hobbyists to heavy music stars. “I feel like the label did it just because they knew we would think it’s funny,” chuckles guitarist Griffin “Luther Manhole” Sansone as we drive past it. “My parents do think I am fully famous now, though.”

They’re not exactly pop stars yet, but Chat Pile have had an awfully good run given their humble beginnings. Founded in 2019 by bassist Austin “Stin” Tackett, Sansone, drummer Aaron “Cap’n Ron” Tackett, and vocalist Randy “Raygun Busch” Heyer, the band was never meant to be a big deal. “It literally was an activity in the way that a board game night would be, or a bad movie night, which is what we were doing at the time,” says Stin. All four friends had known one another for years (the Tacketts are brothers), and came out of the same Oklahoma City independent music scene. The band’s name is a homage to the toxic byproducts left behind by the area’s heavy metal mines, and the members’ stage names initially served a purely practical purpose: making it tougher for their employers to find out what they were up to on their days off.