By Christine R. Walsh

There’s nothing like a hardcore rock band to start your day off right and Bury Your Dead deserves to be that rock band. Their last album, Beauty and the Breakdown, was reportedly created in two weeks. According to singer Mat Bruso, the lyrics to the songs materialized in the studio right before they recorded the tracks. But the seductively intense members of this band fly by the seats of their pants in style. Pulse Magazine caught up with Mat while Bury Your Dead was winning fans on the Family Values Tour.

Christine R. Walsh: Tell me about the members of your band. Which one of the seven dwarves does each person most resemble?

Mat Bruso: What? Um, ok. There’s me- I’m the lead singer and I’m 22. I guess I’d want to be Sleepy. There’s Aaron Patrick, the bassist. He’s 24 and I’d call him Bashful. Bashful got all the chicks. There’s Eric Ellis who plays guitar. He’s 22 and he’ll be Happy. There’s Mark Costillo. He plays the drums, he’s 25 and he’s Grumpy. Then there’s another guitarist, Slim B., who is 22. He’s Doc.

CW: Do any of you have other jobs outside of music?

MB: I wait tables at a Friendly’s. Aaron is a welder.

CW: Delicious. I love sundaes. And shiny, metallic objects. How did Bury Your Dead get together?

MB: Slim B. and Mark formed a band called Hamartia. They wanted to make music that lots of people could mosh to. They made a record, but were never serious about touring. The band broke up, but then got back together again with some new members. The original bassist was dating my sister, Mellissa. That’s how I got into the band.

CW: Playing the family card, hmm? Are the original bassist and Mellissa still in the picture as a couple?
MB: The original bassist is gone. But whenever I’m stumped with lyrics, I always turn to my sister. I’ll call her up, we’ll listen to the song together figure it out. She’s the best when it comes to lyrics.

CW: What’s it like to work so closely with the other members of the band?

MB: It’s not bad. We’re all pretty easy-going. But we all love being the center of attention when we’re on stage and sometimes the stage is just too small. One time, Eric’s guitar accidentally smacked into me during a show and split my head open. We went on, though, and played nine more songs. I needed 12 staples in my head.

CW: And the guitar?

MB: It lost two of its tuning knobs.

CW: Sad. What does the future hold for Bury Your Dead?

MB: I don’t make predictions. The band is just pure energy. We don’t think about the technical side of songs. We think about how many whisky shots we can pour on an audience during a set. As Slim B. always says, “What would Motley Crue do?” Everything is a stepping stone. I’m not sure if we’ll ever make any money ~ my fiancée Angie still pays my cell phone bill, but we’re just going to keep on trucking.