Crisis Crew rolled into Medium Sized Backyard straight from a highway ditch in the Los Angeles hills - van parked, tent pitched off the side, hummus secured. The traveling trio sat down with Medicine Box for a conversation that covered their New Orleans origin story, the self-coined genre they're calling "blue gaze," and a genuinely moving defense of why busking still matters even as the world goes cashless.
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 - all separately for quite some time - and then we met roughly three years ago in New Orleans, just kind of 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 and there was nothing to do but play music. So the 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 we just 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, pretty much.
Medicine Box: At what point - when you guys met and you knew Jackie was a musician - when was the turning point of like, "Oh, this could be a thing?"
Crisis Crew: When we were up in that little tiny town in Michigan and we had to walk like 30 minutes to the nearest grocery store, we were just sitting on the school bus together with nothing to do but play homebrew D&D and write music together. That was pretty much it. And I think back to one of those moments in New Orleans - before we left, we went and busked together. It was one of the first times we'd ever played together. We were just trying to make a couple bucks and it was very clicky. It kind of immediately clicked, and in that moment I was like, "I want to play with these guys for a minute." I didn't think that three years later we'd still be here - because that rarely happens - but here we are.
On the New Orleans Influence
Medicine Box: You said you met in New Orleans. New Orleans has such a rich music lineage. Do you feel like you guys pull that into your music? How has living there inspired the sound?
Crisis Crew: Definitely, greatly. Especially on this project we're about to release, there are all these little New Orleans Easter eggs and themes that if you know them, you can kind of find them. And since we kind of originated there, we really want to platform that area and the smaller, cooler music scene that exists there - independent people making really raw, vulnerable music. I think our sound is indicative of what you can hear on the streets of New Orleans just walking around. That jazz aspect of what we do is rooted in that. Like, you wake up every morning and you hear the same cover band playing "Walk On By" or something, and you just hear that every day all day long. It's kind of hard not to let that seep into what you do.
On Inventing a Genre Called Blue Gaze
Medicine Box: I want to pivot to the music. If someone came up to you and asked, "What is Crisis Crew's sound?" - what would you say?
Crisis Crew: We've been trying to coin the term "shoe grass." Or "blue gaze" is another one we've been playing with. It's definitely got those two influences the most. I come from a bluegrassy, blues background playing guitar, and I listen to a lot of indie shoegaze bands - like Great Death and those kinds of guys. I think they meld in our sound into this really spacey, environmentally inspired slow rock music mixed with the fast pickingness of bluegrass. Southern music influence is definitely in there.
On Van Life and Living Together
Medicine Box: You guys live in a van and travel together - I need more context there. How did that come about, and how is it not only being collaborators but also roommates?
Crisis Crew: Things can be tense sometimes. We love each other so much - both days, you know. But the real truth is that underneath it all, we actually like each other. The fact that we can spend so much time every single day - we wake up and are immediately working or immediately traveling thousands of miles - we've found a good balance between how much space we need and what the future looks like. Hopefully we're not all four living in a minivan in the very near future. I think we're going to be living in two vans. Not going to miss it at all. I do think fondly of the first trip we took together out of New Orleans - we had a bigger van. We really went nowhere over the course of two months. It was nice.
Medicine Box: I'm sure there's also going to be a part of you eventually that's like, "Damn, that was a time."
Crisis Crew: We're sleeping in the van. Jackie and her partner are in a tent off the side of the van. Up in the back of the LA hills, there's some great pull-offs. Beautiful highway ditch. You could live there for three days if you wanted. Just take a little vacation, drive into town. Collect some hummus. The day in the life definitely involves hummus at some point and coffee. The days end early when you go to sleep with the sun - around four o'clock. We try to be tucked in bed, ready for eight to roll around, fall asleep like grandmas. You wouldn't think it to look at us, but we're all sober.
On Making the Album
Medicine Box: When it comes to the music-making process, how do you each add to that? Who is more on the songwriting side and production?
Crisis Crew: Almost every song is almost entirely yours, and then we'll throw in some lyrics on a couple of them. From there, our parts we pretty much independently work out - we layer over the top to see what sounds good and what doesn't once the core frame of the song's been written. To compare it to building a house - I kind of hang the framing and the foundation, and then I'll bring it to these guys and be like, "Does this work? Do you like this? Is this our sound?" And then from there our songs evolve so much. Usually I've been in the habit of writing something and it just sits. But I know for sure when I bring a song to these guys that it ends up metastasizing beautifully into something else. That's kind of where we end up in that little sweet zone where we try to record them, because they continue to evolve past that too. I do most of the production stuff.
Medicine Box: Can we talk about the new music? How does it feel with new music on the horizon?
Crisis Crew: We're all pretty excited about this project. The songs that are making it onto this next album were originally intended for our first release, but just didn't make it onto that album. So we kind of made a different record to begin with that didn't have these songs on it. Now to be bringing them to fruition and actually have all these songs that we wanted to already release ready to go - it's nice. It makes us really pumped about what we're putting out. I've been playing pretty much my whole life just acoustic folk fiddle, so I'm excited to go electric with it. Do some more spacey type of sound.
On Busking Culture and Taking Up Space
Medicine Box: You've mentioned busking a couple of times in this conversation. I want to talk about what busking culture has done for you guys and any takeaways or tips for aspiring artists who want to do things that might be uncomfortable.
Crisis Crew: You can make a lot of money at the Walmart before they get you out. As we ease into the digital world more and more every day, the money is definitely drying up as far as traditional busking goes - going out to a downtown area and playing guitar. People don't have cash. So if you do that, it's a homage to your dedication. You'll hear a lot of people say busking made them the musician they are. The ups and the downs of it - you spend a lot of time, years of my life, like six to eight hours a day, and I imagine most buskers is about the same. You spend the entire day either getting to the spot or playing, and you maybe take a lunch break and then you have to play for six more hours. That breeds a work ethic that's really healthy. But it's not a way to make sustainable money for your art as much as it was ten or fifteen years ago. When I first started busking I was definitely making enough money to live in a house and do okay just from playing guitar in the streets. The global shift to digital currency is really only to blame for that. But there's really only one tip and it's just to do it. Just find a place - if it's a Walmart or a Trader Joe's or a Goodwill or whatever, if you can sit there and play, you should.
Crisis Crew: The culture's definitely gotten more hostile in general to people being outside in any capacity - whether that's playing music or sitting on a bench. There's no room for that anymore. People are upset if you feel like you're allowed to take up space. But that's one of the reasons why busking is so important - it teaches you that you are allowed to take up space. I am an artist and I'm allowed to make my art.
Medicine Box: I agree with that. Absolutely. Well, I think I can confidently speak on everyone's behalf here that you've earned twenty new fans in the last hour. Truthfully, I went to your Instagram and Scott, our lighting guy, is already following you - I was like, how did you beat me? Crisis Crew, thank you guys so much for coming. Last question - where are you off to next?
Crisis Crew: Oakland. Headed up to the Bay. See some friends and play some shows up there.
Medicine Box: Amazing. Thank you guys again.
