To hear the fully produced piece, including samples of Bully Maguire's music referred to in the text below, hit the play button above.
To date, Bully Maguire’s output consists of a self-released two-song demo appropriately titled “Bully House Demo 2022.”
Now comes the debut EP “Pizza Time!”
“The name of the band is reference to the third Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire," Jeremiah Roy explained to WAMC. "And that's because he's got the black suit and is really mean to everyone.”
Roy, 22, contributes vocals, guitar, and songwriting to the four-piece band.
“Everyone always told me in high school, I looked like the emo Spider-Man from the third movie, and everyone called him Bully Maguire. So, we all thought that was pretty funny, so we ran with it," he said. "And that's kind of what led to this EP being called ‘Pizza Time!’ And all the song titles have sort of a Spider-Man tie-in with the title, but none of them are about Spider-Man, but it's just kind of just like one of the conventions of the genre, having wacky song titles.”
Pittsfielders who frequent the downtown might recognize Roy from his jobs at Otto's Kitchen & Comfort and Thistle & Mirth. Bully Maguire formed in the basement of Otto’s when Roy and guitarist Dylan Bell began to flesh out a collection of riffs into fully formed songs.
“A lot of my friends listen to more hardcore stuff," said Roy. "So, it's kind of like the band that like their little brothers would listen to, to kind of open a doorway into potentially getting into that harder stuff. But we're kind of just like an emo band that doesn't sound as emo as it should.”
Drummer George Bissell and bassist Bryan Sheppard round out the quartet.
“Personally, I like a lot of Mom Jeans, Algernon Cadwallader, stuff like that," said Roy. "American Football is like- Their first LP is a masterpiece. But then, sort of more from other worlds of music. I like stuff like City and Colour, stuff that's like downtempo and gentle acoustic stuff, and I feel like that reflects in some of the songs that we have on the EP. And then again, I also, I'll listen to bands like Hatebreed and My Chemical Romance.”
One of the songs on “Pizza Time!” Roy is most proud of is “Sarah Jessica Uncle Ben Parker.”
“There's a line in there, ‘If I-90 Eastbound is too far from your town to make this work, I'm feeling worthless,’" said Roy. "I wrote that song about a girl from Schenectady who I talked to for few months and things didn't end up working out. But, being able to use experiences to draw from and write lyrics makes it a little more meaningful, and hopefully, someone can find something to relate to in the things that I'm saying.”
Bully Maguire faces the same challenges of many Pittsfield bands before them: few venues, the constant search for shows, and the all-hands-on-deck reality of underground music.
“Everything about the band is kind of DIY at this point, because we're all broke," Roy laughed. "So, I hand screen printed 50 shirts last week, because we had a show last week, and we have two, the 24th and 25th, this week. So, I kind of take on just like a little bit of like the manager aspect, and other than that I just another bandmate really. We kind of like spread the workload as much as we can. Bryan our bassist, he actually recorded all of our EP. So, we did all of the recording in a barn in Pittsfield, because that's the space available to us, and we have the equipment to do so. So we try to stay true to the DIY aspect of music making.”
Roy says Bully Maguire is looking to expand its audience and play outside of Pittsfield as much as possible.
“The goal eventually is to do a tour, which I think would just be amazing, to go see parts of the country with three of my best friends in a van," he told WAMC. "But we've got to work up to that. And I don't know, I feel like we're going get to that point, we've definitely been putting in a lot of work and a lot of good has come out of the work that we've put in. So, feeling very fortunate to be where we are for how many shows we've played and how long we've been a band.”
For now, the band is savoring the early magic of its creative bloom, like the recording of the song “Peter Parker I Hardly Know Er.”
“One of the best moments of recording the EP was watching Dylan one-take his recording on it," said Roy. "Because, it was all four members of the band and our friend Alex, and we all just kind of like, we're looking around at each other wide-eyed, like, dude, you just did that in one take and it was perfect. Like, watching a song grow from being like, oh, this riff kind of sounds cool, into like two and a half minutes of something that we've invested ourselves in, and seeing the growth throughout the entire process, having it culminate to being that moment where we're all looking at each other like, this is it. It felt really good to just be in the room. It was honestly astonishing.”
Bully Maguire’s “Pizza Time!” EP will be available digitally as well as on tapes through Chirp Records and on 12” lathes through Sleepy Clown Records.
