The Daily Gamecock

Grunge sound lives through Marytre

	<p>Left to right: bassist Donny Bastian, lead vocalist/guitarist James George and drummer David Dietze, who have known each other since high school, formed Marytre in 2011.</p>
Left to right: bassist Donny Bastian, lead vocalist/guitarist James George and drummer David Dietze, who have known each other since high school, formed Marytre in 2011.

Band draws inspiration from early 90’s movement

Do you long for the music of the early 90’s when depression was cool and the scene was built on plaid and apathy? Instead of digging up old Nirvana and Pearl Jam tracks, give Charleston grunge rockers Marytre a listen.

Pronounced “merry tree” (also the title of their latest album) the trio is about as close as you can get to reliving the grunge movement: unkempt appearances, sludgy guitar, slower tempos and angsty lyrics.

“Dust me off with rusty nails, driven through my hands,” sings lead singer and guitarist James George with a voice like a less whiny Kurt Cobain on the song “Trigger Happy.” “I’ll get off on my own insanity, hurry before I’m done.”

While the lyrics can verge on the violent side, there’s also a fair amount of global mindedness — something the deeply introspective, “look how tormented I am” lyrics of the ’90s never touched. “Infidel” examines how, no matter who you are or what beliefs you have, everyone is still unworthy in the eyes of someone else’s God.

But despite tracks like “Infidel” and “Mary,” which chronicles a young virgin’s loss of innocence and subsequent downward spiral into a world of sex and drugs, the band says religion has never been a part their message. George, who writes almost all of the lyrics, wants everything to be up to a listener’s personal interpretation — something Christian rock bands were never too good at.

“I’m very Christian — and I don’t try to hide it — but I’m not trying to shove s—- down people’s throats,” he said. “I’m not preaching. I want a hundred people to get a thousand different things from one line.”

George formed the band back in high school in 1996, but left the project after graduation to live on the West Coast and “get as far out of South Carolina as I could without falling in the ocean.” While he knew drummer David Dietze and bassist Donny Bastian in high school, the trio didn’t play together until George returned from his west coast sabbatical and scooped them up after they broke it off with the lead singer of their old band in 2011.

As men who spent their high school days in the mid-90s, the grunge influences come from obvious places, but the band says they draw inspiration from all over the place: Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, The Melvins — even the Beatles.

Marytre has made a name for themselves in the Charleston scene (they opened for All That Remains last year at the Music Farm), but this year they’re hoping to branch out both geographically and musically. While their first two albums were “straight up grunge,” the band is looking to try something different with their next album, which they expect to release a few singles for by fall. The band says this change in sound will be a way for them to explore the diversity of music they like and keep themselves from falling into the stereotype that comes with sticking to one genre.

“We don’t want to revive grunge, we’re not a tribute band,” Bastian said. “Grunge is in all of our roots, but this next album will filter through the grunge and have our own influences.”

Listen to Marytre at www.marytre.com


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