Exploring The Lyrical World of Chat Pile with Raygun Busch, Part 2

Continuing the conversation from the last episode with Reagan Bush from the band Chat Pile, you will get to know what it feels like to play your first live show opening for a big name. 

Dan and Reagan will share stories from Reagan’s journey in music, the magic behind their live performances, and the creative pressures of writing new hits.

Tune in for an episode filled with stories, inspiration, and behind-the-scenes insights.

Show Highlights:

• Finding the right combination of people for a band [01:46]
• Just doing vocals versus playing guitar and singing [02:28]
• The secret behind a great stage presence [04:00]
• How band popularity influences your writing process [07:20]
• Not letting doubt rule your life [07:53]
• Can you write screenplays if you are a singer? [14:00]
• Explore the world of horror fiction [17:20]
• Discover this movie about disappearing into ourselves [23:40]

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:

0:09  Hey guys, welcome back. You're listening to the second part of last week's episode. Let's jump back in so chat pile kind of forms around this idea of, you know, all these different kind of pieces coming together. I'm very curious. Like, how long before you formed, until you started playing live? Did you start playing live almost immediately? Like, were you guys a live band, pretty much from the beginning? Yeah, we started to just kind of play live around town and to record. I mean, it's fun to record. We all like to record music and stuff and admin before long before chat ball. But yeah, that was the idea was to just play live record. So I think, yeah, we played, we played a show after the first EP was done, or maybe even before. I think it was. It must have been after, though we actually ended up opening for street sex. Oh, really, just on her first show. Yeah, that's cool as the local opener, yeah, which is crazy, yeah, did you when you started playing together? Because it sounds like you're like, two different bands basically, kind of came together. Were you like? Were you like, this is the one like, did you have that feeling, or was it just like, here's another band that I'm in, and it's cool. You know what I mean was it was there, like, a sense of you guys really doing something unique, and that it was going to be a big deal? Well,

1:36  another yes or no type, type situation, because, like, I do think it is looking back, I can definitively say we finally found the right combination of people and what we're doing in the band. I had always wanted to just sing in a band, but I had largely been like the guitar player and the singer, and like all the bands I had done beforehand, you know, I do have to play guitar, but, uh, so when they asked me to do this, I was just like, this is going to be fun to do. I'm doing something different than I've ever done before, basically with this band. And so, yeah, I feel like I've got enough track from your question. No, it's okay. That's I'm so I am taking this to a place, but I'm, why did you want to just sing? I know why I would want to just sing. I'm curious what drew you to the idea of just doing vocals versus playing guitar and sing. It's, I mean, just going back to black flag and stuff, just seeing Henry sing and stuff, I was just like, Man, I want, I want this for me, you know. And I would see, like, I'd see bands come through all the time that would have just a singer and they're doing stuff. It's like, Man, I want to do this, you know? So I don't know. It's just you get to do. You can focus more on the vocal if you're not playing guitar. I mean, you know that. So it's just like, and you can walk around. I can do. I'm free to do whatever I want, although I do love again. I do love playing guitar, but it just kind of frees you up to do something different. You know, I think it's more fun because you just have more fun. I think it's extremely it's way more fun, for sure. So

3:17  okay, I have wanted to ask you this since the very first time I saw you live, and which is about your stage presence, which is, by the way, if anybody hasn't seen chat pie live, one of my favorite bands to watch live. Bar none, I love your guys's performance super tight. I mean, I mean it's like I was, I was cringe a little bit when I say other bands play tight, because I feel like, when you're in a band, you never you're I was like, Oh, we suck that night. You're an idiot for saying that. But anyway, I think you sound amazing. One of the things and I love about your stage presence, particularly, is you do a lot of pacing, like the times that I've seen you live, you're kind of back and forth across the stage. You're using space a lot. It has this really unnerving I mean that in that high compliment, like this unnerving quality that goes along with the music. So in your earlier projects, were you, what was your stage presence like, and how much of that is just an outgrowth of, like, what you're doing in chat pile, particularly,

4:24  um, I've always loved to do, I mean, it's like a daydream to be a stand up comedian, you know. So I've always, I've always loved to, kind of just banter it up hard between the songs and stuff in my band before, urban ponytail, I think is its final iteration. It had, it went through many names. I was doing a character like I had sunglasses on. I was jazz Nicholson, and it was a whole deal. So this, in a way, there's more talking, but I'm telling. Down a little bit. I mean, I'm just like, I guess I'm in character as Reagan bush. You know, when I'm up, when I'm on stage, is I don't know. But, yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I realize too late that I've been looking at the ground walking around, instead of looking right at the audience and stuff like that. But sometimes I don't want to look out at the audience and make eye contact with a bunch of people, yeah? Like, I'm just like, Nah, I'm just gonna, like, I can do whatever I want. You know, I've got the mic so, but

5:31  that is, like, the so I'm so glad that you mentioned that, because obviously you do both, right? You can make eye contact, not make eye contact. But like, the thing that really struck me. I think the I'm trying to remember what the first time I saw you, I have a terrible memory for this kind of thing, but I do, I don't remember where the show was, but I do remember the first time watching you play, really, like, you know, being into it, but also like, watching the performance, right? And like and watching kind of how you use the stage, how you interact with the audience, and the looking down, pacing around parts, gave me a distinct impression of, I'm almost, like, I'm almost, it's like I'm a voyeur into like, a private moment. You know what I mean? Like, it's easy in that moment to imagine you walking around with, like, no bands and just talking to yourself, and like, feeling weirdly intimate. And then when you turn and make eye contact, or, you know, it transitions, or the volume changes, or whatever, and you're sort of right up against the audience. It's very striking. So it's a really cool balance. Like, I wasn't clear on, like, how much of that was a deliberate choice versus just being in the moment. That's what I do in the moment, but it really comes across on stage as a very powerful performance. And I don't have a question, that's just a statement, but I like,

7:02  I'm glad to hear it. I mean, hey, I love to hear it. So, all right, when you were writing your new stuff, you said that you wanted to change things up a little bit. I'm curious, like, how much, how much the popularity of the band affects how you write, or how you think about how you write. This is another selfish question, because I find it harder to write knowing that actually someone will hear it this time, versus I feel like all my best stuff is like, no one's ever gonna hear this. You know what I mean. So it's like, I'm curious whether that is an issue for you, how you deal with it, if it is, or how you think about it, if at all. Oh,

I definitely think about it. I try not to let it rule my life, you know, because it's not helpful for me to voices in my head, stuff and doubt, like, rule my life, you know. So I do try to, like, I mean, I'm not always successful at that, but I do try my best to to not let that shit totally concern me, though I do think about it a lot. I might the last album I felt, I oddly felt, I think I felt way more pressure on the last album than this one real. I definitely, I definitely felt I wanted this one to be good, but then once we did the first song we did, I was like, Okay, I feel like this will be good. And either way, I'm just kind of thinking, well, people are gonna definitely listen to this. Like, we kind of won already. People will listen to this one anyway, you know. But like, I wanted it to be good, and in my opinion, we did do a better job. I like to sell them the best of anything we've done, you know? So you always want more. Like, I mean, I don't know. I just look at it as, like a fun challenge, I guess, because you just I want the next thing I do to be the best thing I do every single time. Yeah, and typically it almost never isn't. I don't feel that way, you know, so Wow,

9:06  you are awesome. That is, like, so emotionally healthy. I'm shocked, like I struggle with that shit. I and I think what happens is this has happened to me a couple times, and it's happened enough that I had to, like, take a break. It took a break from writing for a while because I was, like, writing stuff and not being super pumped with it, the sort of similar to you, like, I want to get better, and I want to make something as, like, even, even better, even more impactful. Just like, I want the next thing to be the best thing I've ever put out, or at least to feel that way about, right? Yeah. And instead, I was like, Oh, I'm like, I'm like, cosplaying myself. You know what? I mean? Like, I was like, here it is. Like, here's like, a damn Barrett. Thing. And I was like, That fucking sucks. It just sucks. It wasn't even like a good version of that, right? And so I kind of had to, like, wipe it away and start over. Maybe I should try more your, I mean, your style of, like sitting down, almost like putting the pressure on yourself to do it, and then, like, letting it all come out. I wonder if that puts you more in that sort of, not quite improvisational, but like, creative mindset, where it's a little easier to tap into that stuff. I don't know, yeah,

10:28  I mean, I do think about for sure. I think about, like, Am I doing? Is this chat pile enough, you know, is this because I it is hard to say what people I mean, it isn't. It isn't. But I to really know what the true magic of the formula that you have done that people really are responding to to like, keep replicating it. If you overthink it, sometimes I feel like I get I and other members of the band, we can get in the weeds and stuff about like. But then again, I don't know part of me, like our first single, I am dog now I definitely, I was like, I need to write the most chat pile ass song possible, and that's what that song is, and that's what slaughterhouse is too. Yeah, you know, which is also the lead track for both of the records. I don't mind doing that, though, you know, like I had it my way to on the record. So there's just one song when you when you think about yourself, let's say, two years out, three years out, how, how far away do you think you'll be from what you're writing now? Like, do you think there's going to be a lot of change, or are you kind of, like, I can put that in a different project if I really want to go that far out there. I know you said earlier that you'd wanted to do something different with the new record, so I'm kind of curious how you think about that. Or, I mean, maybe you don't plan it out at all, and planning it out, it's part of the poison. I'm not sure.

12:01  No, I mean, I hope that, I hope that I get better and better better, you know? I mean, I feel like, I truly feel like there's like a moment in my 30s where I was like, Man, I'm good at this. Now, you know, where you just kind of realize, like, Damn, I'm like, well, before chat pile, I was like, Man, I I'm good at doing this now and then with chat piles, just an opportunity to be like, Look at I've worked hard at this for 20 years, or whatever. This is my skill. Check this out, you know. And so that's like, what I do. But I hope, I hope I get better. I would love to to do. I mean, I'd love to do more stuff, you know, different kinds of stuff, maybe even just, yeah, poetry and stuff like that. I was gonna, I was gonna ask, actually, if you had, like, written a lot of poetry, or considered writing poetry. Because I do think I mentioned this before, but it's like your stuff. There are many amazing lyricists who just took their lyrics and put them on a page. I don't think they could pass as a poem, right? They're not supposed to their their lyrics, right? I do think your stuff could pass as prose or poetry or whatever. Is that something that you explore a lot or you're curious about exploring? I'm definitely curious about it. I've dabbled in it in my life. I don't do it enough, you know, but I'd like to get more into it. I've long been thinking about this idea to do kind of a riff on narrow road to the deep north by bash show, which is just this great travel log slash haiku poetry book. There's somebody, there's some things I've been wanting to do for a long time. Will I ever get to do them? I don't know. But, like, I don't know. I do love I do. I definitely have ideas and stuff. Yeah, for that, and I appreciate you saying that,

13:54  yeah, man. Well, I mean, the other question I always have is, like, whether you see yourself writing screenplays or, like, I know you've acted, you've acted in some movies and stuff. Do you do you see yourself doing more of that? Or is that, is that kind of, or sometimes I feel like I could go the other way, where you're like, this thing I love should stay over here, and maybe I don't want to get involved in it, but I'm curious about it. Yeah, no, I, I, honestly, I've done some short films in the past, and I love directing. I love directing more than any other process of filmmaking. And I love writing too. Writing sometimes is very difficult. I just finished this 45 page it's supposed to be a short film. Maybe someday I'm gonna make it kind of inspired by, you know, the band war. Yeah, they would do, like, straight to video, like, hour long movies and stuff they have, like, a couple from, like, their heyday and shit. I just kind of wanted to maybe do something like that to sell at shows, you know, just for fun. But be cool. It's like, it's super high. Concept, and it took me, like, way too long to write 45 pages, but then again, so I was like, Ah, maybe I'll not do this. But now I have this other idea that I'm really working I'm truly working on right now. So I'm working on stuff like that. I mean, who knows if I'll get that stuff made, but it's fun to work on. For sure, 45 pages is about the equivalent to, like, how much time on screen.

15:21  I mean, the rule, if you look it up on Google, it would say, like, a minute per page. But, I mean, some of the stuff that I've written is like, like a five minute sequence is, like, action basic, like Silent action stuff that's like, so I I'm confident that it would be an hour plus, you know, at least. Wow, that's sick, dude. That's super cool. So what? Why directing, though? Why? Why directing, rather than, for example, right? Like writing seems like the closest corollary to what you do in the band. So why directing? Well, I just feel like that. Maybe it's not my I don't know if it's my talent necessarily, but I do love, I do have an idea of how things should be, you know. So I like, I like to have control on set. And it's very, it's been very great the few times I've been able to do that kind of thing where I am the boss, like I am in control of, like, how we do this scene, and how we're going to shoot this scene. And I mean, usually, you know, you're your own. DP, it would be terrific to work with somebody, you know, I have, like, very, very rarely had that opportunity to, you know, like, if you have somebody that really can do the camera, you can be standing next to them telling them, like the moves you want and everything. Yeah, that's just so much fun, you know, setting up stuff like that. I'm a huge, like, Brian De Palma fan, you know. So, like, we made this short that has all these, like, long one or takes, you know, we're following different people, and the cameras moving back and forth and stuff. And it's just a lot of fun to do that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, I guess it, the

16:57  more I think about it, the more it does make sense. I think your your lyrical content is visual. You love film, right? Film is visual, as well as having, just like you said, audio and everything else in it. So the connection, I think, is there for me. I want to ask. I think I got, I know we got to wrap this up. I've got time, so I want to make sure I respect your time and everything. I wanted to ask, when you were talking about horror fiction, who you like in horror fiction? The only horror writer that I still I read a ton of Stephen King when I was a kid. My dad, when I was growing up, his book. My mom's bookshelf was like Erica John and like all these, like, very gentle, I don't know, whatever. And then my dad's bookshelf was every Conan the Barbarian book, and like every Stephen King some Clyde Barker. Like, I read all that stuff in high school, and like, was way into it, but as an adult, I only ever read really, the only horror writer I read is, like Thomas lagotti. And like no one else, I haven't really touched horror fiction in a really long time. So like, who's good for horror fiction that I should check out?

18:03  I mean, I don't, unfortunately, have the deepest knowledge, because I love Steve. I'm a Stephen King fanatic, and I've read, like, like, most of his stuff now some of the newer stuff I haven't checked out because, well, I was gonna say you can also, you can also audible this question by telling me basically everything after the stand what is worth reading of Steve McGahn, okay, like, continued to produce so much stuff, and I remember I set myself the goal of, like, finishing all the wasteland books or the Dark Tower books, or whatever. Yeah, I did not do that. But either one, either version of that question, would be great. Okay, well, I can kind of short answer the first one and long answer the second one. I love Jack Ketchum. I love Joe R Lansdale. The bottoms is an excellent like horror thriller novel, okay, and he did cold in July, which is made into a pretty good movie. This book, tell me I'm worthless. By Allison rumfit, okay, our tour manager in the UK gave me this. This is new. It was great. I just read that that's like, a very awesome she's a trans author, and like it just deals with subjects that I have never seen be dealt with in horror and very bluntly, too. So it was, I highly recommend telling me I'm worthless. Okay, cool. By Allison rum fit, but yeah, Stephen King, I think it is his best novel, personally. And then 90s, you get, you're in the weeds. And then, like, after that, it's like, well, I've heard under the dome and 1112, 6463 or whatever, and that's the day Kennedy was shot. I can't remember what the date is, but I think Green Mile is excellent. That's mid 90s King. That's like his last excellent novel, in my opinion. But, uh. I like Gerald's Game. I like the worst Claiborne Yeah, and those are like sister ships. So if you read them, they each have visions of each other in each of the novels. Yeah, the Eclipse like affects both stories. Yeah, cool.

20:14  All right. Well, there's definitely stuff for me to check out. My son recently, they started having nightmares because he went over a friend's house and they watched Simpson's tree house of horror that parodied the newer, I guess it must be the newer it, the version of it that has what's his face, the singer as Yeah, the clown or river and Pennywise. And he's bringing it up, and he's like, what's the plot of it? And I was like, you know? I was like, oh, it's like, this thing that looks like a clown. It's not a clown, I think, trying to remember, I think it's an alien. And, you know, looks like whatever they want or whatever. And then my son's like, does the kid like that? Because he saw the whole scene where, like, Pennywise is in the sewer. Were great, right? Like this. And he was like, does he survive? He was like, Is he okay? And I'm like, yeah, he's totally fine. So it works out. And then I was like, remembering, and I was like, there's this whole, I haven't read this in a long time, but there's like, a an elaborate sex scene between us, isn't it? Yeah, okay, I have, I was like, did I hallucinate that that's a real thing that happened? No,

21:25  that does happen. But it happens, like, at the end, it happens in the book. You're like, 900 pages in, and like, you've traveled through space and shit, and you're like, all right, you've earned this king, if this is how you're gonna do this. You're insane. I can truly, I think those movies are awful, honestly, like that. The book is, is so fun and thrilling and emotional, yeah, like, and it's really funny at times. I mean, I, I think the book is, is incredible, honestly, yeah, all right, and I love the stand too. All right, I'm gonna mention, and that's, that's a really, really amazing recommendation. We're coming up on time. I have to let you go. I have like, a million more questions. I will let you get back to your life for people that want to learn more about what you are doing in chat pile. Of course, it's chat pile band. You find them on Instagram and everywhere else. Anybody, anything else, particularly that you want to do you want to Promo The new record for us. Like, what do you what do you want to send people to and for as far as, uh, chat, yeah.

22:33  Like, Dan, here, my band is on the flinzer, so you can go to the flenser.com and pre order our album. It's called Cool World. It'll be out on october 11. I hope you all enjoy it. Is that it's a reference to the movie Cool World. You know, it isn't it isn't me and Luther Manuel, I, I come up with all the titles, typically. And I wrote like, huge list for us to pick stuff from. And it got to the point where people just weren't happy with like, we couldn't agree on anything. And Luther mantle was trying to submit some names too. And I guess he wrote Cool World and deleted it from his list. But then I put it all I had it on my list, and he was like, Well, I actually thought that name sounded cool too. So this is like, we were just like, well, that's parallel thinking, dude, let's definitely take it as a sign and and use it. It's just a good caption for that picture. The movie is crazy. I mean, it is, in a way, if you take it completely as like, like, if the comic book is like, a metaphor for like, the internet, you know, and just like, just us disappearing into ourselves, into our screens and stuff Cool World is sort of like a prescient film. I guess I don't, yeah, that's

23:48  that was like another one where I was like, this is another movie that I remember being out right. And remember feeling vaguely weird about, by the way, dude, can I just say, God, every time I see anything you guys title, so album, Songs or whatever, I am filled with jealous rage you have the best titles, best titles. It absolutely blows me away every time and every time I'm like, damn it, like, you know, gotta work harder on that stuff. Well, I appreciate you inspire me to work harder, honestly. So Reagan Bush, thank you so much for being here, man, this was such a blast, and I could not appreciate it more. So thanks for being here. Well, thank you for having me appreciate it. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's episode. 

I hope you got a ton out of it. I know that I did. Reagan Bush from the band chat pile, as I mentioned before, their album, Cool World is out right now. I highly recommend that you go check it out. I am like laughing as I'm saying this because it reminds me that my youngest son, Max, who is about eight, as I'm recording this now, I was listening. To cool world the day it came out in the car, and my son was like, Hey, who's this? And I was like, Oh, this is chat pile. And ever since then, he has been calling up chat pile on the Alexa and listening to a lot of chat pile and exposing the neighborhood kids to chat pile. Was like, inviting them over, and then playing chat pile. And it's a little intense for those kids, I gotta be honest. But I'm, I'm proud of him, because, you know, prior to this, it was mostly kids Bop, and I feel like chat pile, who knows, maybe chat pile is like his Nirvana, right? This is the band that, like, sort of gets him into the other side of things. It's really fascinating to watch. So recommended by me, for sure, and recommended by my son. Chat pile, Cool World. Go listen to it now. Look, my blog is over at better questions.co. You can find what I'm writing and reading about every single week there. It's one email a week. Go check it out. Subscribe. I really appreciate it. It helps me and it helps hopefully you. I hope you get into it as always. This is Dan Barrett signing off for this week. Have a good one, and I will see you next time you.