A little punk for your weekend. Bad Mary have a dash of Blondie running through them and they bring some cool guitar riffs to the party as well. I’m sure you will find yourself moving to these tunes, danceable and full of high energy and like I said before, some stellar Blondie like vocals….
Hi our name is….Bad Mary
People say we sound like…..No Doubt, Blondie, Paramore, Green Day (If they had a female singer)
We are…..Amanda Mac (Vocals), David Henderson (Guitar), Bill Mac (Drums), Mike Staub (Bass/Vocals
We are from…….New York
Who are some that have an influence on you….Blondie, Ramones, Green Day, Queen, Rancid, Misfits David grew up in England in the late 70s/early80s and he’s alway been into old-school metal and punk. Mike’s major influences are a unique brand of NYC Punk from the 1970s and 1980s and the 1990s West Coast revival of punk rock. Amanda’s a bit of rock and roll, a bit of pop, a bit of the theatrical. Bill loves himself some classic rock and roll, funk, everything from The Beatles to Vanilla Fudge.
How old were all of you when you started to play and who plays what in the band..Bill’s been playing drums since he was four. Amanda’s been singing since she was little and was a theater kid. David started learning guitar at 16 when he got kicked out of school for 6 weeks and had nothing better to do, and Mike started playing music when he was seven, originally a trumpet player, Mike started playing bass in middle school.
Can you tell us about the process you use, from writing the songs all the way through getting the sons out: It all starts with ideas. Well, we seem to have two ways to write, “David’s songs” and “Mike and Amanda” songs. We bring a song in, nearly complete, lyrics, riffs etc. Then we work it and might add a bridge or change some things up and Amanda will tweak the lyrics. We then give the song to Bill and give him free reign to completely write the best drum stuff imaginable. David and Mike aren’t the best at coming up with drum stuff, so we just give it to Bill, and he works his magic. From there we live in them for a while, play them live, and begin recording rough tracks at rehearsal. Eventually we get in the studio, record the tracks live, keep the bass and drums, and overlay guitars and vocals later. Then we work on releasing the songs on all of our Internet outlets: Amazon, Spotify, iTunes, and SoundCloud. We still sell some physical CDs at shows too! Our live show is our best product and we strive to capture that essence on our recordings.
what are some of the challenges you face as musicians and how have you overcome those challenges: There are always new challenges when you’re in a band. When we started it was all about getting shows. We would just contact as many people as possible, work with booking agents, and show up at clubs with our demos. Then we started to get good shows. Our next challenge was getting people to attend those shows! That was a big challenge for us for quite some time, but eventually it started to click. We overcame the show attendance by just playing more and more, and getting very good at our live show. We realized that if we were “something to talk about” or “something to see” more people would be interested in coming. It’s true, and it’s worked. Now it’s all about getting the name out there and getting our music to be heard. This has been a constant struggle. We’re using The Internet to our best advantage and working with some great people to get the music out there. It’s just difficult as there’s such a big sea of great music. We’re trying our hardest to be more than just a drop in the ocean…Bad Mary apologizes for two water metaphors, but you get it.
Another of our challenges has been getting ripped off. When you’re starting out, you’re desperate to get your music heard and you’ll sign anything that looks good. We’ve learned the hard way that no one can get you radio play or attention just because you pay them a fee. You have to go back to basics. The only way to do it is by writing and playing good songs that people want to hear, playing a lot of gigs for nothing, and spreading the word on the web. There are no quick answers, but there are a lot of people who’ll promise you stuff that they can’t deliver.
Our next challenge is finding good Management and recording new music. Luckily we’re resilient, so we think we’re going to get some work done!
If you could pick any time to travel back to for music, where would you go and what year would it ….Well, each member of the band would want to give you a different answer! David would most likely love to be able to see Queen play again with Freddie or to see Stevie Ray Vaughn one more time, Bill would probably love to go back to the 1960s and see The Beatles and maybe relive the 1970s. Amanda…well she’d probably fit right in with 1980s pop/rock/performance art. Anything with bright colors and catchy hooks, or The Police, she loves The Police. Mike would easily buy a van and travel between Berkeley and Orange County,CA between the years of 1993 and 1995, watching every single punk band he grew up listening to.
Who are all of you currently listening to
Mike: Rancid (Honor is all we know), Descendents, Bad Religion, The Aquabats, The soundtrack to Shovel Knight (it’s a videogame)
Amanda: Dead Sara, Tacocat, and Hanson (way too much Hanson)
David: Everything he owns on shuffle: Queen, Motorhead, Miley Cyrus, AC/DC, Jeff Back, Juan Serrano, Taylor Swift
If you could open for any Band right now who would that be and why?
Green Day, Their amazing energy and stage show would mix quite nicely with ours. We’d do a pretty great job of kicking down the door and getting the crowd pumped up.
My youngest son is 13 and in a Band, what advice would you offer him…
Play all the time! Work on playing live, listen to as much music as you can. Use You Tube to your advantage, watch the greats. Understand that music should be considered as a serious performance, even if the songs you write and play can be a bit silly. Always have fun (or look like it), and be as nice as you can to everyone. Treat every gig, venue, and audience member with respect and make sure to make them feel valued.
your thoughts on the state of rock ‘n’ roll in 2015…..It’s weird. The Internet has really just made so much music fly at us almost constantly. Everyone is saying “rock is dead” but we don’t think it is. Rock is just everywhere, as is hip hop, pop, rap, metal, electronica. It’s not that anything’s dead, it’s just that there so much, you don’t even know where to start listening, it’s overwhelming and good music can get drowned out by the latest “What Does the Fox Say” video. We would love for there to be one big massive rock band to come out of the woodwork and give rock and roll a shot in the arm, but we know that things may have changed from those old days. Either that, or we’re that band.
Our plans for 2015…..Work on new music and record. We’re looking to release new songs by the month! We also want to play as much as we can. Our end goal for 2015 is to get some great management, record some great new songs, and drive straight through into 2016.
time for some tunes…
