God’s Country

Product Information

RB: I didn’t know John Darnielle was religious, that’s interesting. You know who I like a lot who is religious? Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian. He’s a real Christian, but he writes very interesting lyrics, sometimes about the church and stuff. 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.” 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?

Credits

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. RB: Remember when they’re all at the arcade in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’? They’re hanging out and skating around, but then it’s like, “now you’ve gotta be a footsoldier for Shredder”. It’s like that, but with God instead of Shredder [all laugh]. Do you see those qualities in your music, and are you really working to try to get that starkness of presentation in there? LM: Yeah, I love stuff like that. That’s something that’s appealing to all of us, and I feel like it works. When we started writing instrumentals and got Ray in on vocals, it worked together. Having the theatrical angle with it - or maybe even literary, because there are a lot of characters and stuff in the songs - works, it’s cool. You said that “lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of THC” were used for this album. Approximately how much THC would you say? Are you more of a sativa or indica band?

How do you see yourself in relation to those kinds of bands, those acts who quote-unquote “make a point” in their music? S: We’ve only played like five shows since we recorded the album. Already it’s like, “oh, well all of those are old songs. People want to hear new stuff.”LM: We will grind a song down a ton, so there’s a lot of repetition and stuff. It’s the only way I really know how to write music - I’m not good at writing a full song and presenting it. I don’t really want to write like that anyways, I like to do it with people. My ideas are not always right, so I like to have people with good ideas to input as well.

Cap’n Ron: Yeah, it feels like its own entity now, or something like that. Like I’m now completely disassociated from it. S: There’s definitely an over-the-top quality to the music too - on purpose, at times, trying to take things to certain extremes. I don’t know if there’s a blatant logical end to that other than it’s just kind of like what we would want to hear [laughs]. LM: I also don’t pitch in on the lyrical side, but in general we try to have a pretty cohesive aesthetic. It’s meant to all feel coherent, so if there are lots of observational qualities and characters in the lyrical content then I think that works together with the music. 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.Artificial Brain put out a new record. I love them and I’m trying to throw some of the more spacey, death metal shit into Chat Pile. We’re working on a new song right now that is very much lots of blasts with weird, spacey death metal riffs. Gospel put out a record this year which I really loved, but they’re, like, super prog - I don’t ever see us doing that [laughs].

LM: I’ve always dug music which is like that lyrically, like The Mountain Goats and Daniel Johnston. I enjoy lyrics which are more like people talking rather than insane, dense prose. The more naturalistic-type stuff in general has always been very appealing to me. So I like when we get some of that in the lyrics, because that’s the type of stuff that I listen to. That’s ideal for me.You do not shy away from graphic nature in your lyrics in any way, shape, or form; it’s actually one of the most impactful elements of your music. What do you think the benefits are of using those harder-to-stomach images and expressions? 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. S: Yeah, in my opinion it’s the greatest version of whatever it is - I guess you’d call it metallic hardcore - that’s ever been made.