Interview with Denver pop punk band Bury Mia

Interview with Denver’s Bury Mia

I have seen Bury Mia play a few times and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to get online to meet with three of the four band members last week. Bury Mia is bassist/vocalist Devin Martinez, guitarist/vocalist Justin O’Neal, drummer Marcus Allen-Hille and guitarist Stevan Alt (who couldn’t make the call). Devin and Justin especially have been playing together for over a decade and this iteration of Bury Mia has a long history too. We were able to dig deep into that, as well as their future plans. The new single “We’ve Been Trying to Reach You About Your Car’s Extended Warranty” will drop on January 27th, but until then, check out the band’s other music – which is pop punk heaven mixed with their clear sense of humor.


Aimee:
Thank you guys for taking the time to chat with me. Why don’t you just tell me basically how you guys got started?

Devin:
So, Bury Mia started in… I want to say what, 2015, 2016, over a running joke that me and Justin had about wanting to start a band with a funny name. We were with a previous band and we were like, “We want to keep this going. We want to do something with music, whether the longevity of this band keeps going or if it stops.” And we came up with the name Bury Mia as actually a dad joke. If you were to see us live, you would say, “I saw Bury Mia live.” So, that’s literally why we picked the name.

Marcus:
We all get a strange kick out of seeing on a marquee, seeing the name “Bury Mia Live” and that’s just… I mean, it never gets old.

Justin:
Well, and about us getting started and everything… Back in 2015, I don’t think pop punk emo stuff was really particularly hot at that exact moment. A lot of the shows that we were playing in the scene, we were playing with metal bands, rock bands, street punk bands, and obviously a lot of fun. But it’s been really interesting since then to see some of the…

Aimee:
The resurgence of it.

Justin:
Exactly. I think maybe some of it may be the Emo Nights. That brought people to be like, “Yeah, I still like this.” And we’ve been able to play with bands like Van Full of Nuns and they just run those covers and do a great job at it. So it’s been interesting.

Aimee:
I also think it’s… I’m old enough to see the waves and I feel like there’s a 20-year resurgence for every type of music. So, I mean, it’s clearly prime time for pop punk to have its comeback.

Justin:
Absolutely. And we have to make our stamp now, because 20 years takes a long time to come back around.

Aimee:
Right. I mean, I love it. You were talking about the formation, how did that gel?

Justin:
Yeah, so I’d say it started with Devin and I. We’ve gone through so many members and that’s probably why it took us a little bit of time to get started. I think we were on guitarist number seven, drummer number six. Devin and I, for the most part have been the most stable members of the band and then added Marcus via Craigslist right around, what was it? 2019 or so. And we really felt like that was kind of a rebirth for the band. Before then, it was all really divey bars and very DIY style music. We were recording everything in my basement, really didn’t have the money or the ability to do much more than that at the time. I think at that point we just got really serious and really wanted to turn it up a notch. Any other thoughts guys?

Devin:
Mind you, this whole band was basically formed via Craigslist. In the previous band, we met Justin at a Barnes and Noble via Craigslist. We met Marcus via Craigslist and Steve actually through one of our friend bands years down, but I believe they met him through Craigslist.

Aimee:
You’d be surprised how much I hear that these days though. I mean, to be honest, it seems smart because you’re basically putting out exactly what you want and somebody’s replying to it if interested. You know what I mean?

Devin:
Exactly. We tried the Facebook and Instagram route and it just did not hit as hard as the replies from Craigslist for musicians going through and finding it. So, shout out to Craigslist.

Aimee:
Ha. So it sounds like just when you guys started to get serious – then boom, COVID. That’s obviously also a common theme for people trying to make it through right now. How did you handle it, or what did you guys do during COVID?

Devin:
Yeah, COVID was definitely a weird time. Marcus was still in his first year of the band when we went into lockdown. We actually played a show right before lockdown, and when we got off stage, we saw that California and all this other stuff was shutting down. And so it was tough in the beginning because we really didn’t know what to do. We weren’t playing shows. Trying to figure out when we practiced, writing new music and figuring out where we go from there.

Marcus:
But yeah, it was also, I think despite the challenges of actually meeting for practice, which we couldn’t, and rehearsing, we stayed very close. We worked on a music video. We talked all the time. And I think it was actually good for us in a lot of ways because it really helped us foster a cohesiveness that was of great benefit once we could start being active again. We got ourselves in order to go record at the Blasting Room once we could do that. And we use the time to organize and to get our goals in line. That really helped us on the other side of lockdown.

Interview with Denver pop punk band Bury Mia

Aimee:
How was it at the Blasting Room?

Marcus:
A blast. (laughs) No, it’s life changing. I think for me to be in that recording studio playing drums in the same studio and on some of the same kits and with the same engineer that Rise Against and other bands have gone through was really, really, really amazing. And it helped us, I think, each connect with our best selves as musicians.

Aimee:
That’s awesome. I’ve actually never been up there, which is weird, but yeah.

Devin:
It is amazing. I know for me and Justin, we’ve talked about it and it’s like being a kid at a candy store, basically you’re like, “My God.” They have all their records that they’ve done on the wall, signatures from artists that have been there. It’s just so cool to see all the people that influenced our style of music and where they recorded. So, it really-

Aimee:
Yeah, I don’t think there could be a more perfect place for you guys to record than there.

Marcus:
Well, and the other thing is I feel like, I know Devin and I were really big fans of local Denver bands when we were younger. And we’re very used to the Hometown for the Holidays, Big Gig and KTCL’s involvement in the local band community and everything like that. You’d always hear X band won some time at the Blasting Room. And so I don’t know, I’ve always had this very deep connection to wanting that experience and wanting to be there. So we were lucky enough to do it.

Aimee:
And you guys played Big Gig last year, right? On the local stage?

Marcus:
Yeah, the last two years.

Aimee:
Nice. Congrats! Always a fun time. I also want to talk about the new music. There’s a song coming out on January 27th, right? So can you tell me a little bit about that?

Devin:
It is just one single. But it will set the release course that we have going for this year. I say on stage that I like to cover my trauma up with jokes and humor. So we named the song, “We’ve Been Trying to Reach You About Your Car’s Extended Warranty.”

Aimee:
Love it. I’ve listened to the song. I like it a lot, so…

Devin:
Thank you. Yeah, so it’s a song that we experimented a lot with. We kind of took a sound that we heard growing up, but we could never really replicate and ran with it and saw what became of it.

Aimee:
Nice. And I don’t want to pry, but when you’re saying you’re covering after trauma, I mean, is it where people could read the lyrics and understand or is it hard to detect?

Devin:
I think they could really read the lyrics and understand. I had to get in a certain head space when I was writing the lyrics to it. And I mean the ending line to the song and also the opening line is “Open up, my senses fail me. I got a blue sky kind of envy.” And it’s something that hits home with me because when you’re in a dark place, always know that there’s kind of a silver lining and be envious of the good times and look forward to them.

Aimee:
That’s lovely. Well, and I just always feel like it’s so helpful when people have songs that they identify for good times and bad times, so that’s great.

Marcus:
Yeah, and I think there’s some honesty in some of the lyrics that Devin brings in that has been really interesting to see explored over these songs. This is going to end up being one of three singles released at the beginning of this year. So we’re kind of ramping up and trying to get some new music out there.

Aimee:
That’s awesome. You mentioned that you love some Denver bands. Who are your favorite local bands?

Marcus:
Man, I Hate Kate before they were made to change their name. Single File, Epilogues. It’s a long list. I remember we were at… I think I was at People’s Fair. I might have been 17 or 18 years old. And we caught the Flobots playing a cover of… I think it was “Happy Together” or something like that.

Aimee:
Yeah, they play that song often.

Marcus:
And we were like, “Okay, let’s check this out.” And then they said, “This is the first time we’re ever playing this song.” It was “Handlebars” and… amazing, just caught my attention immediately. So that one kind of stays in my memory for sure.

Aimee:
Isn’t that crazy sometimes when you’re like, “I remember listening to that song before it hit.” And it’s wild. I mean, I love how there are people breaking out of the Denver scene finally, finally getting some due for the great music that we have here. And speaking of, so do you have any shows coming up or any touring? I saw that you toured the West Coast a bunch.

Devin:
I know future-wise, either this year or next year, we’re planning to go East and kind of Midwest. Nothing set in stone yet, but we’re definitely looking to go that way and meet all our friends out there.

Marcus:
We’ve toured the West Coast twice. We finished this year really strong with some shows at Globe Hall, then the Ogden Theater and the Gothic Theater. We’re hoping to carry that momentum into this year. We have a fun show opening up for Record Thieves at the Marquis Theater on February 11th next.

Photo by Sal DeVincenzo

Aimee:
Awesome. Okay. Well my last question… I like to also ask, is there anything outside of music that you guys love, either to do together or separately that’s a fun hobby or something that your fans can connect to?

Marcus:
One of my favorite things about this band is that we’re all connected with the same dream and our same love for music and playing together. But we’re all very different people and we all have different lives outside of our relationship as a band. I live in Boulder and Devin gives me a lot of crap about some of what Boulder can be perceived as. So, I do hope to bring the entire band to a hot yoga class sometime. That’s my dream.

Aimee:
I love it. Actually, make sure you record that. It could be a video or something.

Justin:
That would be a great music video. I would do that in a second. I would look horrible, but yeah.

Aimee:
That would be humorous. Is there anything that I didn’t touch on that you want to make sure I mention?

Justin:
Just kind of going back to your last question, Aimee. Something I think about with our last album, is that a lot of the songs kind of stretched a pretty long timeline, just the nature of how long we’ve been writing songs together. The earliest were probably written about 10 years ago with some right up to recording. But what you kind of get is that flavor of single men all the way through… Especially for Devin and I being married now with kids, I think our thoughts and the way that we treat this is a little bit more serious and we certainly expect a lot more out of ourselves. And anytime that we’re taking away from our families, we feel like it has to be really worthwhile. It can’t just be for…

Aimee:
Goofing around.

Justin:
Right. Goofing around. Now, given, we love to goof around. But at least it’s goofing around with the right people. So, we really enjoy these individuals and spending time together I’m excited for what these guys and Bury Mia can do. I think it’s going to be exciting for the next couple years.

Interview with Denver pop punk band Bury Mia


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