Sten

My name is Sten.

I am from Oklahoma City and I play bass in Chatpile.

Yeah, so in the town of Pitcher, Oklahoma, there are these like giant mountains of toxic waste called chat piles.

And I think that's like a local term.

I don't believe this is like a wider thing or like it started locally and then it moved on to, you know, to the greater culture or whatever.

But the story behind it is in World War I, it was a lead mining town and they were mining lead for the ammunition in World War I.

And then the byproduct of this like mining operation is this like toxic waste that I guess is in granular rock form that they can pile up.

And then, you know, they discovered years later that it was poisoning everybody in the town and it sort of became a ghost town over time.

But I think the final straw was a tornado hit it like maybe 10 years ago and just scattered all the chat pile debris everywhere.

Oh, God.

shrapnel flying everywhere.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and just spreading like, you know, what was already like a horrible, you know, contained.

Yeah, but contained.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's really regional because it's like in the far kind of like northeast part of the state.

So if you grew up around there, you know what it is.

In fact, like we call our fans chat rats, but that name is stolen valor because chat rats are the townies that play on the chat piles.

And they do.