Editor’s Note: This one has been eating away at me. I had such a tremendous conversation with Hunter and Tristan Martinez of Decent Criminal for Madness To Creation, but technology had to have its glitches. Madness To Creation will be upgrading technology to the point where I can put out quality videos on YouTube. Decent Criminal is this fantastic pop punk/power pop/surf rock type of band that kind of reminds you of the glory days of yesteryear when surf rock dominated the radio with the pop punk sensibilities of today. In this interview with Madness To Creation, Hunter Martinez discusses their “Bleached” music video, the Covid-19 pandemic and mental health awareness. Fans can find Decent Criminal at the following locations:
www.facebook.com/DecentCriminal08
www.decentcriminal.bandcamp.com
www.instagram.com/decentcriminal
Madness To Creation: Take us into the Bleached music video!
Hunter: Well, it was the last day before the city of Los Angeles locked down for quarantine. March 14th. It was a group of us filming, acting, partying and doing what we could to make Eric Schrader’s vision come alive for this video. With his direction and help from actual actresses (Elena Maravelias & Lisa Mason Lee), and our wonderful makeup artist talent – Heather Galipo, we knocked this video out in just one day. I think this love soaked story and lyrics for “Bleached” deserved some what of a goof video, and a zombie love story seemed fitting for this time. But kinda odd to look back and think “wow, this was really our last outing for all of us friends to come together and hang. I’m glad it was spent with these people.
Madness To Creation: How have you guys been coping with the Covid 19 pandemic?
Hunter: We’ve luckily been able to stay with family in our hometown, Santa Rosa during all of this. Being in a band with your brother has its advantages like this. We live together and we get to jam and write music together any day we please. It’s been keeping us pretty busy.
Madness To Creation: Plug your Instagram Live performances and why people should check it out?
Hunter: We did a couple Instagram performances. One for Thee Parkside(one of the best venues ever in San Francisco), one for Sbam Fest, one for our label Wiretap Records and one for Substream Magazine. We like to switch it up by playing both electric and acoustic. Also sharing time on these social accounts to get our other members Brian and Jesse to play a couple jams. Plenty of laughs and drinks in between too!
Madness To Creation: Take us into your very first gig as a band!
Hunter: I think the first one we did was a tour kick off show with our friend’s Screaming Mimis at Sprenger’s in downtown Santa Rosa in 2015. They were famous for their $2.50 pint nights every Tuesday and we had a buddy who started booking gigs there on those nights. So it was plenty drunk, wet and wild. Great way to kick off our first tour.
Madness To Creation: Three biggest reasons why you love music
Hunter: How it makes you feel. It’s relatable. Could be nostalgic, could be how you are feeling at the moment. It’s expressive, while playing its a huge release of feeling. it’s an art form with such a big presence that touch so many emotions. It’s world renown. It connects people from all over. Creates inspiration to want to create something yourself. And you can make it how you wanna make it. There’s no right way to do anything. Just do it. But that goes for all art.
Madness To Creation: One band from your local scene that we need to check out.
Hunter: Nobody’s Baby
Madness To Creation: We cover mental health awareness with normalizing conversations what helps you get through when times get difficult?
Hunter: Reaching out to friends and family is all very helpful to talk through issues or anything negatively affecting you. Putting energy into any kind of art form and creating is a huge uplifting thing to do. We’ve been writing, reading, working on projects centering music that are very helpful and expressive during this time.
Madness To Creation: Plug anything you want about Decent Criminal!
Hunter: We are repressing our sold out latest album “Bliss” through Sell The Heart Records(U.S.) Bearded Punk Records(EU). You should check out our new video for “Bleached” via The Noise Magazine website or on our YouTube channel!
And there you have it! Check out their Instagram page @decentcriminal to see when they’re performing next!
