Crisis Crew rolled into Medium Sized Backyard straight from a highway ditch in the Los Angeles hills - van parked, tent pitched off the side - and somehow made it look like exactly the right way to arrive. The New Orleans-born trio, who coined their own genre called "blue gaze," sat down with Medicine Box for one of the most unexpectedly moving conversations we've had in this series, touching on school buses in rural Michigan, the slow death of busking culture, and why sleeping four people deep in a minivan might actually be the foundation of something real.
On How Crisis Crew Came Together
Medicine Box: I need the Crisis Crew lore. Talk to me. How did this come about? I know bits and pieces, but I'd love to hear from you guys how this happened.
Crisis Crew: We've been traveling now for quite some time, kind of all separately. Then we met roughly three years ago in New Orleans just playing on the street. We ended up staying in this house together that was just a mess - and out of escaping that house together, we kind of formed this little trio bond. It probably wasn't until Michigan where we broke down in a school bus for a couple of weeks. There was nothing to do but play music. So Crisis Crew was kind of born out of that - sitting in a school bus in rural Michigan with nothing to do.
Medicine Box: As many bands are, you know.
Crisis Crew: We were living in the back lot of a mechanic shop and happened to be there right on July 4th. So we're in this tiny little backwoods Michigan town - shout out Ludington - more American flags than I've ever seen in my entire life on every surface. And we're just walking around looking like this. This is our normal fit, so.
Medicine Box: At what point when you guys met - and you knew Jackie was a musician - when was the turning point of like,
