In a world filled with endless digital noise, it’s almost impossible to make a statement. Doom lurks over American society, fueled by incompetent world leaders and an uncertain future for humanity. From the ashes of a decaying world, Oklahoma City gave rise to Chat Pile, who are currently on tour with Soul Glo in celebration of their latest record, Who Loves the Sun. This tour brought them to Chicago’s Riot Fest. Just as the festival announced a shortened schedule for the day (Saturday, September 19) and chaos ensued, I got to speak with guitarist Luther Manhole about politics, moshing, and their last show in Chicago, a show that I covered on the same night as Election Day 2024.
Oscar: First off, just being back in Chicago, how are you feeling about playing the festival tonight?
Luther: Feeling good. It’s rainy right now, so I’m hoping it doesn’t get too crazy for the fans out there. I hope they’re not getting poured on. We love Chicago. It’s traditionally been a good city for us to play in. We played the Empty Bottle last night as an after-show thing for the fest. It was really fun, and we just always have a great time here, and it’s cool. I’m hoping Tool doesn’t get called off. I hope that’s still happening because, no shame, I’m a Tool fan, so I want to see that.
I noticed that after this, you’re going to Colorado and the West Coast on your tour. Given Chat Pile is from Oklahoma City, how does touring and exploring that part of the country feel in regards to where you came from, and how you can connect with the fans out there?
We’ve played two [shows] so far with Soul Glo, so this is like our third show of this run. In a couple of weeks, we’ll be deeper in and playing more. It’s been great so far. They’re a good hang, and I love seeing their band play live. As far as going west…I feel really that touring anywhere, you see the similarities to where you live. Even though Oklahoma City is like a very kind of ugly place to me, even in places like LA, which most people would think would be completely different than Oklahoma City, I’m just there and I’m like, “This is kind of just being in like a super Oklahoma City.”
I like just getting to travel around and stuff. I’d been able to see a good amount of the country before the band. Being in a touring band now, I’ve been to pretty much every major city in the country and then a bunch of Europe. It’s one of the best parts of getting to do this is just to travel around and go to places you’d never think you’d get to go to and talk to people that still relate. I feel like our music’s very specific to where we’re from, so it’s cool when you meet someone in, like the Pacific Northwest, or even in Europe, still relates to our weird Oklahoma music.
Chat Pile’s sound captures a nasty weight I think a lot of Americans feel. It feels like a real American sentiment, the kind timeless artists like Bob Dylan captured for their eras. You’ve been touring the country and channeling that same angst. So in the grand scheme of American music, where do you see Chat Pile fitting in?
It’s still strange to me that anyone listens. I’m kind of the least recognizable person in the band. I look more like a Chat Pile fan. I’m wearing mostly black all the time. I get recognized less, but it still feels like we’re part of, like…sometimes it can feel very big. We’ll be somewhere and get recognized somewhere. But then also we’re still in a pretty hyper niche. People online and people into heavy music, they now know about us, but it’s still–thanks for the Bob Dylan comparison. We’re like one-thousandth as popular as Bob Dylan. Our vocalist writes all the lyrics, so when we’re writing the instrumentals and stuff, we just write what we want to hear. You can make stuff that is just about having a good time, but it’s hard for us to not have what we’re seeing in the world be represented in the music.
Where we live especially, is kind of– it’s a weird place, Oklahoma. You know, last in education. We have one of the worst governors in America. Our mayor just voted to renew the Flock contract with the city so they can keep surveilling everyone for the fascist state. I don’t know how you could be making stuff and not thinking of it. Some people, I guess, are very able to compartmentalize. I feel like if you pay attention to things, I just don’t see why you wouldn’t have some anxiety in your life. I mean, climate change is going to happen whether you like it or not. The water shortages are going to happen. It just ends up in the music, and that’s cool if people are able to get something out of that and hopefully we can be culturally relevant in some way.
It’s cool for people to listen to us and I just never thought I would make music that anyone would care about anyways. So it’s all just very strange to me. I hope people think of us fondly when they think about music from the 2020s. Hopefully we’ll still be a band then. Who knows.
Having seen Chat Pile before, your audiences are very rowdy and always super into it. I’m curious if you feel that there’s any sort of disconnect when it comes to trying to connect with the crowd through what is being said and it being met with such a visceral reaction.
I love seeing people have any response. The worst thing to me– it’s hard to complain because I have to think about what I do at a show. When I’m at a show I am in the back with my arms crossed, lightly nodding my head. It’s kind of hypocritical for me to be like, “Man, I hate it when I see a bunch of people out there with their arms crossed.” I want to see people moving. Like I said, I do have to keep it in my mind that I’m not a person that moshes and dances, but I just love to see people into it, whatever they’re getting out of it. I know our music can be, like, depressing and stuff, but I also think–I know this is like a corny answer– it’s cathartic.
You get it out, and I think people like that too. They can come to the show. We can all be angry together, but not at each other and just yell. On stage I don’t have a mic, but I scream along [with] the lyrics and stuff too. It’s good to get stuff like that out. I love audiences participating. You know, if there’s no barrier, doing stage dives or just moshing. As long as they’re being safe. No crowd killing, please. That shit sucks. But, yeah, it’s awesome. I’ve played in bands for no people or for just the other bands in the room and people [have a] very tepid response, so anytime we play a show and people are moving and having a good time, it just feels like we won the lottery.
What’s your favorite Chat Pile song to perform?
“Tropical Beaches” on God’s Country comes to mind. Also “Frownland” on Cool World. And I mean, it’s kind of the. For a while, “Dallas Beltway” was kind of the first song people kind of heard by us. We close with it a lot. It’s fun because it is one where it’s like we see someone in the crowd that hasn’t been moving the whole time, but then finally when we get to “Dallas Beltway” and now they’re moshing and moving. I guess that’ll actually be my answer is “Dallas Beltway,” but one of those three.
For our readers, those who would potentially be jealous for missing out on the Empty Bottle show last night, give me a sentence to make them jealous.
We played “Shrine” for the first time ever. We don’t write a set list, so we always just wing it every single time. We’re just making it up as we go on stage. People have seemingly been liking that song online from the new album. We busted that out for the first time last night. You should be jealous because it was a good show. Soul Glow was amazing also. They were really good.
I wanted to circle back more on the show that you guys last played here in Chicago on Election Day 2024.
That was a crazy night. We were in the back as the show was going on, and the election results are coming in and stuff. You know, the first Trump election I thought Hillary was going to win, and so I was pretty shocked when Trump won. I had no idea what was going to happen in the most recent one. I don’t know how people are thinking. We just didn’t really know what was going to happen. And then as it started being kind of clear that he was going to win again, we were like, “Oh, no. Is this going to be like, bad vibes positive or bad vibes negative out there?”
Like everyone’s pissed off and now it’s like it’s a bummer. But what had happened–I mean, you were there–I felt like it was a really good energy show. People just wanted to kind of get it out. I was happy to be there at a show that night rather than just being at home getting depressed about the state of the world.
Just thinking about that day, the sentiment of the world, maybe how you guys were feeling as a band doing a show that day to now, how much the band has evolved, how much the world has evolved or devolved, and where does Chat Pile go from here?
It was a very memorable night for sure. It definitely feels like the world has, or at least America, has gotten worse even. We’ve always been bad. It’s just the mask is coming off now, like just how anti-intellectual, how racist, how transphobic, how all this stuff has been going on just like from our government. Maybe it’s going to take $10 gas or something for people to like actually start taking to the streets or something. I don’t know. Something has to change. We’ll keep making art that reflects how we feel. If you think about it too much, it’s easy to kind of get into the doom spiral a bit of thinking about how hopeless it feels sometimes, but that’s why you create art. That’s why we create art, just to have some time in which we’re able to kind of escape from ourselves a little bit.
All photos by Oscar De Leon. Please check out more of our Riot Fest 2026 coverage here.