Shine a Light

THE WONDERS NEVER CEASE AT HELL CREEK

By Michelle Loeb

When Steve Bury, a veteran of the Seattle-area music scene, and his wife Christie, a fashion marketing professional, decided to move their family to Glendive, Mont., in 2003, they knew they wanted to open a store that captured the imagination of the small town they were about to call home.

“Because we are in a small town, we have to be diverse in order to make it. You can’t just be one thing,” said Steve. “The main focus was music, but we slowly incorporated other areas that weren’t in other places and combined that with our hobbies.”

With that, Hell Creek Music & More was born. From the start, the “more” consisted of collectibles and comics, which have become a mainstay, according to Steve, because “there isn’t a good comic book shop in the area.” He added, “Musicians generally like comics and collectibles as well, so we sell a lot of comics and guitars at once.”

In the beginning, Hell Creek Music & More included the Makoshika Dinosaur Museum, a non-profit museum that included an eclectic collection of fossils and sculptures, which became part of Montana’s famed Dinosaur Trail. The museum was a part of the store for 10 years before it was donated to the county’s Frontier Gateway Museum, with the exception of the 38-foot Tyrannosaurus rex that remains as one of the store’s main attractions.

“We wanted to have a curiositytype store, and for us, it was all about dinosaurs,” said Christie, who first became familiar with the town of Glendive because of her daughter’s interest in paleontology. In fact, the store got its name from the Hell Creek formation, a hotbed of paleontology that features exposed rock formations from the Cretaceous period, part of which is located one mile from the store in Makoshika State Park. “The store was named after ‘why’ we moved to Glendive, Mont.,” Christie added.

Despite those grand ambitions to have something for everybody, Hell Creek Music & More had very humble beginnings. Christie took on two part-time jobs while Steve opened the store. They purchased the building where the store is located, scraping together a first month’s payment and spending their remaining $300 on accessories from EMD Music. That, plus some acoustic guitars, amps and band-andorchestra instruments fronted to them by Steve’s former employer at Helmer’s Music, made up the whole of their inventory.

“You have to do what you can with what you’ve got until you get to where you want to be,” said Steve, whose industry contacts and reputation for paying his bills at Helmer’s Music helped the store to gain vendors in the early days.

“We grew the business slowly and steadily. We never took more than we could pay back, and everything we made went right back into the store,” added Christie. “We paid for the building and the merchandise, so when the COVID-19 lockdowns happened, we didn’t have the huge overhead, and that was one less stress.”

Over the years, the Burys added a toy section to the shop, as well as an escape room that, due to COVID-19 restrictions,

Hell Creek Music & More 101 Merrill Ave. Glendive, MT 59330 (406) 377-7977 www.hellcreekmusic.com Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Steve and Christie Bury, Owners

In addition to MI products, Hell Creek Music & More has something for everyone, including comic books and collectibles. The 38-foot T-rex is a main attraction as well.

was closed and turned into a rock and mineral shop. But 60 to 70 percent of the business is still music.

Most of their music sales come from guitars, with amps, drums, keyboards, ukuleles, basses and accessories making up the rest of their offerings. If there’s anything a customer might want that Hell Creek Music & More doesn’t carry, Steve and Christie are more than happy to work with other area music stores to make sure they get what they need.

“We don’t consider other stores to be our competition,” said Christie. “We network with other stores. We’re all in the same boat, and we want to help each other out.”

Added Steve, “We’re not doing this for the money; we’re doing it for the customers.”

Hell Creek Music & More carries a lot of limited-edition and signature guitars, including a collaboration with Sawtooth Musical instruments and the “world’s fastest shredder,” Michael Angelo Batio, which is set to come out next year. Even with such specialized inventory, the Burys make sure that nothing is priced beyond what an average customer can afford.

“If you can’t afford it, we won’t let you buy it, because you have to afford it,” said Steve. “We want our customers to be happy. We don’t want them to have buyer’s remorse.”

Fear of buyer’s remorse is part of the reason Hell Creek Music & More also doesn’t sell any of their products online. “There’s too much buyer’s remorse online,” said Steve. “If someone purchased a $3,000 guitar and then got mad about it and wanted to return it, after shipping and other costs, it ends up costing us money. So, we decided it wasn’t worth it.”

While online sales have been a lifeline to many businesses during the pandemic, Hell Creek Music & More is getting along just fine without it. With 6,800 square feet of space, it’s easy for customers to practice social distancing inside the store. And really, getting to see the store in person is part of the thrill of shopping at Hell Creek Music & More.

“Even people who aren’t coming here to buy will stop in just to look,” said Christie. “They walk in, take five steps and just stop and look at everything we have and say, ‘Wow.’”

Along with the 38-foot T-Rex, other elements of the shop incorporate a collection of music memorabilia, including guitars from KISS and Nikki Sixx, and one autographed by Def Leppard. “We are our own small Hard Rock Cafe,” said Steve.

The front door features artwork by Mike Meissner, who also designed the unmissable relief sculpture that hangs from the store’s ceiling, a riff on Michaelangelo’s depiction of God creating man, but with cherubs in full KISS makeup and an 11-foot guitar that says, “God gave rock and roll to you.” Regarding the sculpture, Christie explained that “God is creating rock and roll.”

Though they remain a small operation, with Steve and Christie running the shop and their two daughters, Chantell and Cortney, occasionally coming in to help, Hell Creek Music & More is nothing if not larger than life, and the goal is to get even bigger as time goes on.

“For the long term, our goal is to be very well known,” said Christie. “We don’t need to expand, but we want to be that one store everyone wants to see. We want to be a destination.”

“Even though we are a small business, we don’t think small,” added Steve. “We give our customers a big musical experience, but also one that is personalized, where we get to know our customers by name and ask how they’re doing. Our philosophy is the customer comes first. And if it’s not fun, we don’t do it.”