After years of grinding the local Minneapolis music scene, Austin Durry was back at square one. He had been touring and making music with his act at the time, but that all shut down with the rest of the world when COVID happened. Temporarily, he and his wife decided to move back home and joined his parents and younger sister Taryn to figure out their next move. However, instead of giving up on his dream, Austin and Taryn started Durry, a band that would change the trajectory of their lives forever. “Durry formed really naturally in the early pandemic days and then we had a song pop off in 2021 and all of the sudden we’re a legit band and trying to do it,” he explains.

Austin is referring to the song “Who’s Laughing Now” and its accompanying video, which sees Austin and Taryn—along with bassist (and Austin’s wife) Ashley Durry and drummer Dane Hoppe—rocking out in the basement of the Durry’s childhood home as they sing about following their dream against the odds. In a meta sense the premise of the song is exactly what it accomplished for the emerging act. (The video for the song currently has 1.5 million views on YouTube and over two million likes on TikTok.) “The whole thing was so unexpected,” Austin says of the viral smash, which propelled the band’s 2023 debut Suburban Legend into the mainstream consciousness. “We have this horrible habit of having songs go viral unexpectedly and then being totally unprepared for it.”

For that reason Durry hasn't released any new music in a year, a fact that’s all about to change with the release of the band’s sophomore album This Movie Sucks. From the fuzzed-out wake-up call of the opener “Bully” to the jangly powerful pop of “More Dumb” and the intricately arranged ballad “IDK I Just Work Here,” the new album continually showcases Durry’s musical versatility., “Everyone who has listened to the album seems to have a different favorite song and I think that’s really unique” says Taryn. “We do touch on a lot of different genres and styles but somehow we’ve been able to still make it cohesive and I think that’s a big win.”