Exploring The Lyrical World of Chat Pile with Raygun Busch, Part 1

Today, Dan is joined by Raygun Bush from Chat Pile. We'll explore how Reagan turns everyday fears into compelling lyrics and discover the artistic influences behind their mesmerizing new album, "Cool World."

From childhood film obsessions to the band's creative process, this episode offers a rare peek into the mind of a standout lyricist in the heavy music scene.

For a unique perspective on art and personal fulfillment, listen now!

Show Highlights:

Striking the Apollonian and Dynasian balance [02:10]
Where does the writing process happen? [08:15]
Learn about the steps of an artist’s creative process [10:48]
Is keeping a backlog of ideas necessary? [10:25]
Do you know what is a movie song? [14:11]
How can movies be called the greatest art form? [15:17]
Differences in exposure and reactions to movie content [21:41]
Does music feel different internally vs externally perceived? [27:27]

For more updates and my weekly newsletter, hop over to https://betterquestions.co/.

To learn more about Tim Box and his work, check out the below websites:

https://www.thecontrolsystem.co.uk/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxxnncYTUHBOA5qTJDHoSIg

Transcript:

0:00 Dan. All right, what's up? This is Dan Barrett, and this is the Dan Barrett podcast, where we talk about building awesome businesses and living awesome lives, basically just all the stuff that I'm interested in that I think makes you a more effective and happier person. And this week, we are talking to Reagan Bush from the band chat pile. Now, if you are already a chat pile fan, you know why this person is on this podcast. If you are unfamiliar with this band. Let me take a moment to talk about why I wanted to have Reagan on this podcast. First of all, he is, I think, one of the most interesting lyricists and vocal performers in the heavy music scene today. I think he is one of the few people who you could sit down if you published a book with just his lyrics, you could pass it off as a truly excellent and harrowing book of poetry. No problem, he is a entirely unique creative force. And I love his work. I love his band. It just so happens that he is like one of the nicest people, and I've gotten to sort of hang out with them in the past, so I wanted to have him on purely from that perspective. However, this gives me a moment to just talk about one of the overriding sort of philosophies of this show, which is important in the sense of how I'm deciding who to bring on in my head, you can divide, if you decide to a sort of well lived life into the two general camps of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, right? This is Friedrich Nietzsche's famous division of Greek tragedy.

And in his essay The Birth of Tragedy, I think that's what it's called. You can tell me if I'm wrong, but Nietzsche's sort of insight is that what make Greek culture, at its height so powerful, was that it combined these two competing tendencies in all of us, this tendency towards the highly rational and structured, which is the Apollonian right from Apollo, and this kind of darker, more wild, unpredictable, emotional tendency that we have, which Nietzsche called the Dionysian from Dionysus. And Nietzsche argued that Greek culture and Greek society more broadly, combine these two tendencies in a way that has never really been reproduced. And what I've noticed in my own life is that the more I dive into the sort of logical, rational, ordered part of me, the more I deal with business, or the more I deal with, you know, putting things in spreadsheets and understanding my expenses and all these things. But by the way, modern life requires this of us. There is so much distraction and so much going on. We need to organize it, and we are becoming more Apollonian over time. But I found that the more that I do that the less able I am to tap into that darker, more mysterious part of us that Nietzsche called the Dionysian right, the dying Dionysus and so for me, a powerful life in The sense of being able to affect the world around you and to create things that matter and to influence people, all of that requires a merging of these parts of ourselves, right? You can be spreadsheet guy. You can be spreadsheet girl, but if that's all you are, you will feel increasingly dissociated from some kind of underlying texture to life, and you're gonna feel it.

And I would argue that many of us who are feeling what we call anxiety are actually feeling a disconnection to that Dionysian element of life, this sort of passionate, emotional element of life, and that's why on this podcast I'm I'm bringing on people, for example, we talked to Cedric chin, and we talked about statistical process control. We talked about W Edwards Deming, in so many ways, the sort of pinnacle of Apollonian reasoning, and it's beautiful, beautiful in its perfection. But that isn't everything, and we can't just be that. We also need that darker, almost undulating aspect of humanity that cannot be reduced to a cell in a spreadsheet. And for me, when I listen to chat pile, and chat pile is heavy music, if you're not into heavy music, maybe you won't like it. But when I listen to chat pile, what I hear is the Dionysian right, like what I hear is a connection to something that is primal and passionate in a way that I know I desperately need, and I think that we need to make sure that we stay connected to the people who can tap into that that's just as important to me as Hey, how did my business do this week? If not more? So I was so excited to have Reagan on the show, because he is a fascinating character if you've never seen his live performances, I highly recommend that you do. You can go on YouTube and look up chat pile. Chat pile. As we're recording this right now, have just released a new record that is called Cool World. It is an absolute banger. You can find it on anything that you stream your music on. I highly recommend that you go listen to it. But without any further ado, let's get into this conversation with Reagan Bush from chat pile. All

6:53 right, what's everybody I am here with Reagan Bush from the band chat pile. Thank you for being here. Man, I cannot tell you how much I had been looking forward to doing this. So thank you for being here. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, man, so All right, when I first started thinking about doing this podcast, that the whole point of it was I was going to have all sorts of different people on and you're like, literally the first person I've thought about because we've hung out a couple different times. I know you a little bit, right, but I don't know a ton about you personally or particularly about how you work, and I am, like so deeply fascinated by your creative output, very specifically. So I'm literally going to pepper you with selfish questions for this entire time, and I apologize in advance, so first things first, and I assume that people have familiarity with chat pile. I'll do an introduction for this podcast, and I'll kind of tee you up and everything. But I am so curious about specifically how writing happens for you. Your lyrical style is so interesting to me. It is so unique. And I have trouble picturing where you are when you write, or how it happens, or like, if you're in the room with the band and you're writing in the moment, if you're like, in the shower and things are like coming to you, so like for you, where does the writing process happen? Does that make sense? Yeah,

8:20 absolutely. For this most recent album that we just completed that's coming out, I did it all like right here, where I'm sitting, like the if you could see the computer that I'm talking into, that's the computer I wrote the words into the pages or not, that the Notes app shares between the phone. So I type it on the computer, and there would be on my phone when I'd go to the studio and do it with Stan and stuff. But I pretty much, I mean, I am an extreme procrastinator. I was through all through school with everything, like, literally everything. It's not the best way to be. I don't endorse it, but I work best when there's pressure on. So some of the songs on the new album, a lot of the songs in the new album, I got up the day, I had to go do the demo or whatever, and I, like, worked for four hours, really hard, you know. And that's it, you know. And then there's not a whole lot of rewrite. There's like, maybe a line or two that got rewrote from the demo. We made, like a demo version of the album to the to the actual album, yeah. But I've also, you know, I mean, I think just the more you do it, it comes easier, yeah, to do stuff, you know. I mean, on this record in particular, I kind of tried to to change it up a little bit and have my style and stuff like that. You know, like, I have, there's more hooks and things like that in this new album than there were in the previous records and stuff. It's like, I hope it's, it's not too hinged, the opposite of unhinged, which is maybe our bread and butter. But like, I don't know. But like so for this album, yeah, I just sat here and wrote, wrote it on my computer to the music that they would give me,

10:05 all right. So you knew, you knew the songs, the shape of the songs, before you came up with lyrics or vocal parts to it. Is that the case? Um, yeah, they would give me complete demos. Okay, yeah. So when you, when you Okay? So then do you have like, a backlog, like, in your notes app? Are you like, walking around and you're like, here's a line, here's a scrap, like, put it down, and then you're extrapolating from that in the moment, or are you just, like, literally doing the most terrifying thing imaginable, just sitting down at the open blank page, and being like, Let's go whole thing from scratch. Like, do you know, I mean, are there like, bits and pieces floating around, or you just kind of, no. I mean, I start at the beginning, pretty much, you just kind of figure out where the vocal melody will be, like, how the chorus, where the chorus is, sometimes, because I'm confused, like, sometimes when you're listening to the demo, I'm listening to it. I'm like, where do they think I should start singing, you know? And I literally have to ask Stan. I'll be like, where do you envision my vocals coming in on this song? He'll tell me, it's like, some that's really helpful to me sometimes, yeah, to etch out where, like, in my opinion, this is where the chorus will go, and this is how the chorus will be. And then the words, uh, like, I usually start with, like, an idea or something, but I don't know, I just have a bunch of ideas floating around. I don't typically save stuff, though, or, I mean, it's not often lately, at least, that stuff's hitting me while I'm walking around or whatever. Are

11:37 you remembering the ideas that you've had up till that moment? Like you're like, Oh, that was a cool idea. Let me pull on that. Or is it literally just you sit down and you're like, what is, you know, like you said, you're sort of sketching out the emotional energy of a song. Sounds like having an idea, like, where you want it to go, maybe where you want to peak, and then it just coming out in that moment. Yeah, I guess, I mean, I just figure out, I think, once you figure out the cadence of how the words are supposed to be, and then you write the words, and then you sing the words in that cadence, yeah, you have that moment where it's like, Yes, this is how the song would be. Now, this would fit, because I worked out the syllables, or I'll stretch this part out a little bit to meet it at the end, you know, etc. So, yeah, I find that so incredibly fascinating, mostly because your stuff feels to me extremely I was thinking about this beforehand, like how I wanted to describe it, and I go back and forth between saying it's either literary or cinematic, and there's probably some like, mix of the two, right? Like you, more than anybody, it feels like there's a story happening in a lot of your work. There's themes that emerge it you're like one of the few lyricists I ever feel like sitting down and reading with no music, like most people like, most people like, yeah, that's beautiful. It's a beautiful line that can it's a beautiful lyric. But your stuff, I feel like you could just put on the page as much as it is in the music. So I find that, like, super fascinating. Because to me, that feels like the kind of thing you would have to sit down and structure ahead of time. But it sounds like you kind of, don't. I know you are a super deep fan of cinema, films and movies, and whatever you want to call is that partially because that's where you pull from. Do you think, like, is that structure, like, do you have, like, McKee story, like, just bull burned into your brain, like, for the rest of your life, and you that comes out in your work? Or is that not something you think about? Think about it all, and it's just like, if it happens,

13:45 it happens. I mean, yes and no, I guess, like, I mean, I think about everything all the time. I feel, yeah, at the same time that kind of stuff. I just like, it's so ingrained into who I am, you know, that, like, I really tried not to do movie stuff on this new album, and there's still a song that's straight up just a movie song, kind of, so when you say a movie song, what do you mean by that? Like, it's sort of fan fiction, almost, for the movie, like Pamela was for Friday 13. Okay, all right, so you mean, literally, directly inspired by LA, but, yeah, it is. But I also I'm including it because it thematically fit with the rest of the stuff. So this sort of, like, I just want to, like, be telling, sort of painting a larger picture, you know. And if I include these characters from this movie in the middle of the thing, they're just part of a larger vibe, yeah, is it written in such a way that someone who's familiar with the work would be like, That's what that's about. Or is it written, you know that, but no one else is going to pick up on that? Yeah. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. So, okay, so when did you first get into movies? And was that before or after you got into music?

15:11 Movies first? For sure, although movies incorporate music, movies incorporate, like all art forms, and they are for everyone, you know, I don't know that's I feel like movies are the greatest art form, personally, but movies for sure. I mean, my mom says, I don't even remember this. When I was like two, I would watch Annie and Wizard of Oz just over and over and over again. And so I've always really, really been into in the movies and stuff. So is, I just watched Wizard of Oz with my kids. My kids have never seen it, so we watched, oh yeah, and it wasn't a movie, like, I necessarily grew up with my wife, like, grew up with it much more, I was blown away at how into it. My kids were, like, my kids are, like, the Minecraft generation. You know what I mean? Like, they're six and eight, like, and or, no, sorry, eight and 10. Jesus Christ. All right, so they're eight and 10. Anyway, time is flying by. But I was kind of like, let's watch. I was like, you know, it's a classic. That's kind of how I teed it up to them. You know what I mean? Yeah, I thought I was gonna have to do more like, yeah, he's going for something here with, like, the physical comedy. Like, I thought I was gonna have to talk about that. And they were just, like, engrossed in that, right, which was really fascinating to me. So, you, you're, you're a kid, you're like, too, you're like, binge watching these movies over and over again, yeah, I guess, I guess, like, over and over and over again. Just like, let's know when it was done. Let's like, watch it again, you know, yeah.

16:44 So then when? So at what point did you start to Okay, so here's a weird question, but like, at what point did you start to consciously watch movies? You know? I mean, like, there's one thing to be like, I'm watching a movie. It's a thing I do. There's another part of you where it's like, you watch a movie and you are also, like, observing it as a movie as you watch it. Right? When did that turn out for you? Because I will say, like you, you will, you know, post online and stuff like your thoughts about movies, and you watch a lot more movies than I do, and I'm always really fascinated by your take on stuff I haven't seen it's almost like at that point, like it's just another way for me to, like, engage with your thought process the same way I kind of do with the stuff that you write. So I'm curious, like, when did you start to like, watch, watch movies? If that makes any sense, yeah, that's a good question. Probably. I mean, I'm thinking of like moments and stuff that led up to, yeah, but probably when I'm about like 11, 1011, or so, when did, when did Fargo come out? Like, I think I'm like 96 I think maybe so. I'm like 11, maybe or 12. Watching that with my dad, and we, we talked about it for like, a long time, typically, kind of, and it was, like, the first time I've, like, I've thought about a movie, like, in a deeper way, maybe that I can really remember, yeah, so I mean, and yeah, I remember, like, watching dramas and stuff. And being like, this is an adult movie, and I'm mature because I understand this movie. You like, yeah, I don't even know what Dances with Wolves comes to mind, or something like that, you know. Or

18:32 like, you're clearly engaged with it on a level that's not just like, fun stuff is happening on the screen. Yeah, lost it, yeah. I mean, then movie movies also, like Patriot Games and stuff just felt so like, adult, you know, like it's like, yeah, I'm an adult watching, or I'm I'm sophisticated, I'm getting this movie, yeah? Like, the lead up to that, I guess, was your dad, like, your movie going, partner, yeah, somewhat, my mom too. I mean, my parents were just very would allow me. They I was very interested in movies, and so they would just let me watch movies like a lot and stuff, and they would take me to movies and stuff like both my parents would. So, yeah, that's cool. The and they doesn't I mean, you're seeing Fargo when you're 12, so were they not they were not like, or you were not squeamish about stuff that's happening on screen. Were you ever squeamish about stuff happening on screen?

19:34 I mean, when you're, like, a really little kid, I remember being really afraid of the Crypt Keeper from deals, from the Crip, like, just the intro where they go down to the house and he pops up and he laughs. That was really scary to me when I was a kid. Carrie was extremely scary to me. And I think I just saw the image of Carrie on the box where she's covered in blood. And I was like, Oh no. And then I like, saw the movie, and it was like, Oh my god. This is really. Scary Candy Man, Pet Cemetery. Those movies were scary, but I also now I watched those movies with delight when I was, like, young, like eight, because some of these movies would be on TV edited. That's like, that was how you got to watch. Like, the hard stuff early is, like, if it was on USA in the daytime, yeah, edit it for TV. Like, what do you want? You know, my parents, you know, because it was kind of just like, watch the TV, you know, yeah,

20:26 USA, it's so funny. They mentioned that, yeah, USA, specifically, daytime programming was all over the place, and they showed, yeah, that's right. I haven't, I haven't thought about that in like, forever, because I'm very curious, because I still am, like, uneasy watching movies where there's, like, a lot of gore, a lot of violence, or whatever. Like, I get very affected by it. And it's, it's interesting, because I, you know, my two sons, my older, older ones the same, like, he can't handle, like, interpersonal conflict on screen, even if it's like, particularly as, like, a kid getting in trouble, he will, like, have to leave the room. Like, it just, he's, like, it just totally overwhelms him. Whilst my younger son, I feel like you could show him like someone being beheaded, and he'd be like, cool, you know what I mean? Like, it just would not. He does not care about that at all, right? He clearly just isn't, he isn't internalizing it in that way. So I'm curious if you just think that's kind of an inborn thing, like it, or if you think that you kind of like you had this graduated sort of desensitization, like you said, starting with, you know, Wizard of Oz, and then go through USA daytime, and then you're up to wherever you're at now, yeah.

21:41 I mean, I I've always been interested in, like, horror and stuff like that. I don't know. I think people, some people were just really gravitate towards that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking when you're talking about your son not being able to watch, like a kid get in trouble sometimes, like, really earnest romance. I just, like, can't watch. I have to, like, hide my head in the cushions. You know, there are things that are when people are, like, lying, you know, like that. Like, can really, I'm just like, No. Like, I can't handle it, you know. But like, I don't like, I like gore and violence in movies a lot, but, I mean, I don't like the hard, the extreme, hard stuff. I mean, when I was a younger man, I was more receptive to watching everything and stuff, but like, I don't, I don't need to see the craziest horror movie that's out, like, unless, unless it's like, like, when evil works is very extreme, but it's like, artistic and beautiful. It's like, an excellent movie. So it's gonna

22:50 have a level above it. I was gonna ask you, actually, and I don't really have a great angle for this question, so the my original angle that for this question was pitch me on horror movies, which isn't really fair. But then the reason that I ask is, like, I absolutely feel like I am missing out, because I feel like, particularly lately, it's become a thing to have, like, sort of elevated horror movies, right? And like my favorite, like, I'm not, I haven't seen a ton of movies like I would. I would classify my movie knowledge as weak, right? But my favorite movie is Jacob's Ladder. About as scary as I can get in a movie, right? I love that movie. Yeah. I mean, I, I was really into like, the Silent Hill video games and like, all the, like, Nine Inch Nails and all the stuff that was, like, in my head, like, associated with that, yes. And it's like, I feel like today we're in this, this period of, like, people serious, doing serious horror movies, or doing it in a way where they're trying to say something other than this, a movie that's meant to be scary. And so I'm curious, like, why the horror genre? Because my attachment here to chat pile is, like, I view a lot of your lyrical content is, like, essentially horror content, right? Like, not over the top, sort of evil, dead, whatever, but like, the horror of the banal, like everyday life. There is something terrifying happening here, right? So I'm curious, like, whether you see a connection there between the horror genre more generally, but also, like, what you get out of the horror genre and why you, why you take to

24:31 it so much? Um, well, what I get out of it is enjoyment, for sure, first and foremost, I think. But it also is sort of somehow, like soothing to me, maybe, you know, like, especially like if I go through like a breakup, or if somebody in my life dies or something, and I'm watching comfort movies and stuff, that'll be Tommy Boy, that kind of stuff. But also, like you. Henry, portrait of a serial killer, candy man like that, Hellraiser, like and like, you know, sometimes you I need to watch something. Sometimes watching something really abrasive, or reading something Abra. I like horror fiction too. Can like, kind of like, you know, just like, wipe your mind, clean, reset you a little bit, and helps me do that. I guess there are a couple movies I do like that are extreme that every now and every, like five years, like, Man, I need to watch this movie again. But like, I'm I'm glad that we can do I'm glad that I can talk about real things in chat pile. But also still have it be horror, like, have it be, you think of it as or, I hope other people did too, because, like, I am very it is my favorite genre for sure. Although I like all genres, you know, when it comes to any all media and stuff, you know, yeah, and I'm honestly not as hard and diver as I was before, but I am kind of at the point where it's like, I feel like I've seen like everything, you know, it's like, no, I literally haven't seen like, literally everything. But I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm getting in the weeds for sure. Yeah, what's available.

26:25 So I'm curious what you I'm curious how you think about your esthetic. I was trying to explain your band, so chat pile to someone who hadn't heard you, and I was like, you know those classic black flag concert flyers that were, like, illustrated by Greg, Greg Jen's brother, right? Like all the sort of Raymond, Teddy bone, yeah. I was like, chat pile. Sounds like that looks to me like I was like, those two things are like, massive, high honor, high praise. I appreciate that. Yeah, there's like a there's like a layer of the sinister to it that is sometimes explicit, but a lot of times much harder to put your finger on. But is really there, right? But I'm curious, like, how you think about it, because a lot of times the music as you make it feels very different, like inside of it, than it does like to an outside observer, kind of coming to it, you know, from with my own sort of association. So I'm curious, like, what what you think of either your esthetic or the band's esthetic more generally, like how you describe it or even think about it?

27:42 Yeah, I mean, Black Flag is an original seed of this band, Austin or Stan. Had this other band with Captain Ron. He's the drummer. Our drummer called found footage, and I had this band called Little Bear, and we wanted to do a tribute to the family man album by Black Flag, yeah, which we all we really love, I really love family man. It's like a crazy I'm so glad that they did. I think that puts black flag up there, like it puts them up on a higher level that they did something like crazy, like the family man album, which to your listeners, you don't know half of its spoken word and half of its instrumental, right? So we did like fancy man. It's stupid. Don't seek it out, actually. But yeah, I do think about Black Flag a lot. I think about that artwork in particular, obviously, big black is, like, a huge influence on us too, you know, like, so that kind of, I mean, we're, we're trying to kind of go for musically. We wanted to sound like, like Beavis and Butthead like, kind of like when they go to the commercials that music, like, do you like? We're trying to go for that vibe. I mean, we're, I mean, at least some of us in the band are White Zombie fans. I know that that's kind of something that we kind of are going in on. But also, yeah, I mean, we're huge fans of the movie Gummo. I don't know if you've seen that movie, but I have

29:19 seen GoMo, but I, I think I was in high school, so it was quite a while ago. Yeah, yeah. We, we, I mean, that's, that was a big movie for me growing up. But when we went to England, it was showing in London on 35 millimeter, like the night we got there. So we, we all, like, jet lagged as hell, went to Gummo in London and saw it on 35 millimeter, like, just a month ago. It was awesome. It was so awesome. And Luther Mann was literally wearing a Gummo hat. Was there, I mean, was there, like, a bit? Is there a big following for gum like, in the UK particularly, or, like, I view that still as like, so that, for me, that movie was. My movie nerd friend was like, you have to watch this movie, yes. And me feeling vaguely disturbed by it. And then, you know, I mean, like, just kind of coming from being like, oh. And I've had a couple of those experiences, like Tim, from having nice lives, very much that guy in my life now, where he's always like, you have to watch Hell yeah, or whatever it is, right? He's always got this movie that he's making us watch. Everybody needs this person in your life, right? So it's like, was there were, like, a bunch of people that's showing, like, I'm not aware of like

30:33 it was, it was about a third full, but it is coming out on criterion this fall. So oh, well, I didn't know that. That's neat. Yeah. And the criterion is also putting out the Doom generation, which is another classic of my youth, yeah, which is crazy. So it's like they're both coming at the same time pretty much. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed part one of this episode. It's just too good to limit to one show. Join us next week to hear the rest you.