UCR Interview • Crystal Lariza & Kaden Hurst of Never Come Down
Interviewed by Kevin Rolfe
Award-winning, Portland-based, Bluegrass/Americana band, Never Come Down will be playing the Egyptian Theater in Park City on April 11 and 12.
Never Come Down have toured internationally and found acclaim at festivals such as Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Iceland Airwaves, Americanafest, FreshGrass, and RockyGrass.
Their latest record, Greener Pastures, is out now and available everywhere.
Never Come Down – Greener Pastures (Official Music Video)
We had the opportunity to visit with Crystal and Kaden leading up to this show. It was one of the more enjoyable interviews I’ve ever done. I particularly loved hearing about one of the best shows they’ve ever played. Enjoy!
Utah Concert Review: I’ve only been in cover bands myself, and it’s a fun hobby. But even in that, there’s nothing like that moment where you just gel as a band. So I can only imagine what that’s like when you’re making original music, coming up with your own stuff, your own style, or what you’re doing on your own instrument. Give me a sense of what that was like for you guys when you started just to feel that feeling as a band.
Crystal Lariza: I didn’t come from the bluegrass music at all when I got on stage with these cats. I got invited to this thing just like Kaden did. And it really hit me the first time Joe, my now partner who’s in the band, he started the band, invited me to come and play with these guys.
I really didn’t know bluegrass at all, but the musicianship was so immensely big ears and listening. And I’d never been around men, especially in a group that just cared so much. And it was so acoustic, being around one single mic. It just blew me away.
And then they invited me up on stage to sing one of my songs. And I literally got on stage with these guys. I shook their hands real quick. And the crowd’s waiting. And I’m just like, “OK, do you want to know the chords to my song? And they’re like, no, no, no, no. I’m like, do you want to know the key? They’re like, just play. Just play, and we’ll follow you. I was like, OK.
So I went for it. And it was like the bass came in. The mandolin came in. I’d never played. I was electric, everything, before then. And it was upright, this beautiful banjo, shimmery banjo.
And I was like, oh my god, this is magic. What is happening to me? And these gentlemen just came in and made a nest. And I got to really sing. And they made so much space. So, the dynamics just blew me away immediately. And I was hooked. And then I was like, I’ve got to come back to this every week. And then we did for two and a half years. So it hit me pretty hard right in the beginning, for sure.
UCR: So why bluegrass? Is it because that’s what the rest of you did? Is Portland a big bluegrass area? Obviously, that’s not the root of bluegrass. When I saw you guys were from there, I’m like, oh, I want to know more about this. And if you started from different genres and then just fell in love with bluegrass. I love Crystal that just to come in without having any bluegrass in your life and then being so good at it with the rest of this band. It’s just so cool to hear.
So, Kaden, is your background in bluegrass, or did you come from something else too?
Kaden Hurst: Yeah, my background, there’s kind of a big puddle of like bluegrass, fiddle music, old time music, Celtic music that I kind of grew up playing, more or less in Northern California. But you’re right, you don’t think of Portland as a bluegrass place. And there’s some of it here.
There’s a little bit of a scene here, but it’s definitely not a hub for it. People don’t come here looking for it.
But I think the thing that got me into it, and I’m sure it was part of what got everybody else into it is like bluegrass is incredibly social, both in terms of the culture around it and the music itself.
It’s like the culture around it is bluegrass, especially when you’re talking about traditional bluegrass, like playing all the old standards, it’s like they’re very, for better or worse, often better, they’re very like repetitive. They’re very like, there’s like a set of tools, like a set of chord progressions, a set of like little ways, songs are gonna get put together that are pretty consistent across the whole genre. And each instrument has like a really clear role if you’re doing a traditional thing that it can just jump into and fit.
And so one thing that means is you can go to a bluegrass jam anywhere in the world, and if it’s a bluegrass jam, you’re doing that thing, everybody knows what to do already. Doesn’t matter if you speak the same language or not, you’re all just kind of there and you’re in it. And so the bluegrass community gets built really easily because of that.
But also like the music itself, then we talk about a lot when we’re talking about arranging is how bluegrass has no drummer, right? And the way that kind of gets around that problem, because like it doesn’t have a groove problem, it doesn’t have a like pocket problem, is the drum set is kind of spread out through everyone in the band. Like you can kind of break it down as like the bass is playing a kick rhythm, mandolin is playing a snare rhythm, like banjo rolling is this like consistent eighth note thing that almost gives you kind of a high hat feel, like guitar is filling it in, like all of the rhythmic decisions that might get made by a drummer, when there’s a drummer in like a rock setup are kind of distributed through the whole rest of the band. So the culture around it, but also the music itself, is giving you something like incredibly social and incredibly collaborative that, I mean, I haven’t gone as deep in a lot of other genres, but I don’t see in other genres quite the same way.
Crystal: There’s so much, you know, and it’s like such a great question. For me again, not coming from bluegrass at that time, you know, that was what, eight years ago, Kaden? I just, again, it’s the listening and the intentionality.
And like you were saying, Kevin, like, you know, it wasn’t just a jam, like there, that’s a very big difference. I think distinction is like a showcase, and it was a handpicked kind of cherry pick, Joe would pick the players. And you know, sometimes if somebody couldn’t make it, we’d have other players or we’d have like two, three mandolins sometimes if we really love the players.
And in that sense, there was a really deep intentionality about we are going to play these songs and yes, we’re gonna use standards to create the, you know, community so we know what we’re doing. But I mean, there was intense style. There was so much space for people to go off and do these crazy solos or have me sing and do my own rendition.
But what I really think was cool is like, not to toot our own horns, but that residency we had, I mean, it was two and a half years long, and we trained the audience really to listen, to listen with us. And it was like a true exchange, and the people that would come, you know, we joked, but some people were like, this is like Bluegrass Church. I mean, this is like coming to do a thing with you guys every week.
And I certainly felt like it was some sort of spiritual experience because I found myself having to like get my ass back there every week because I could not miss a minute of it. But I feel like since then I have noticed, you know, there’s always been Bluegrass musicians in Portland. But because of that kind of a jam and a lot of people coming to that, and then we would invite musicians that were on tour through, cause we had a built-in crowd. It was like, it became this kind of safe space where you knew there were gonna be people, you knew there was gonna be, you know, this connection, and it became way more about the songs and what are we saying? What are we doing? And really, I mean, to get anybody to listen to three hours of original music is like wild, you know, but after a couple of years, people like knew the tunes, they knew our songs and then we’d throw in the standards so they knew we could really pick the real Bluegrass. So it was cool. Man, it’s such good memories of that.
So you’re playing this residency to great success. Do you just get to a point where you start to feel like, “We got to hit the road”? How does it get to the point where you became a touring band? I’m always curious how that starts.
Kaden: Yeah, so I mean, there’s a lot of different kind of answers for that question. I mean, one of them was, I mean, it’s something that really gelled the band together and also just feels like one of the crazy kismet things that’s happened along the way is that we happen to get hooked up with this initiative that Travel Portland was putting on, like Portland’s tourism agency, where they’re working with a hostel based in Reykjavik, Iceland, that was trying to open a Portland location. And one of the things they were doing to promote the Portland location coming up was they wanted to bring a band from Portland to Reykjavik during Iceland Airwaves to play the hostel there, which was one of the festival venues.
And we got in touch. We reached out. They sent the people out to Ranger Station to come see us play at our residency. And we got the gig. And so we somehow went from playing, like I joked at the time about making like a tour shirt that was like Portland, Portland, Portland, Portland, Reykjavik, Portland, Portland, Portland, because that’s all we were playing. It was like hometown shows, it was one bar. And then the city flew us halfway across the world to play in Reykjavik. And hung out there for a week and then brought us back home. And it was, it’s absurd. And even now like talking about it, I’m like, how does that, does it happen? That’s not what happens to like little folky, bluegrass bands in Portland. But that, you know, doing the Ranger Station thing ourselves I felt like, oh, we have something special. This is, this is important.
This is something that, you know, all of our hearts are kind of leaning into. But then that happening, it seemed like, oh, it works over there. We can travel and all kind of work together.
I changed it into like, oh no, this could be, this could be something out in the world. Dude, this isn’t like contained in this one place. And so that I think brought us all a lot of cohesion as like a unit trying to be more organized and out in the world and just got the bug in all our heads to start performing.
And then also as Crystal was saying, like our first real outing into the scene was this festival in Lyons, Colorado called Rocky Grass that she was just mentioning where we felt like, well, I don’t know, they got a band contest. Let’s sign up for the band contest and see what that’s about. Yeah, ended up winning, which is why we got to play the festival next time it happened.
And also just got kind of a stamp of approval from, you know, this legacy festival that’s been around forever. So that too, like, okay, we’re doing something right. Better not stop and keep going. You know, just like little nudges from other people like that, that kind of put their perspective around what it needed to be to get us out on the road.
UCR: What do you like about staying home and playing a residency versus hitting the road? And vice versa: What do you like about touring compared to playing in one place?
Crystal: I mean, going from your residency where it’s like cheers and everybody knows your name and you walk through the door, they’re like, yeah, it’s you, we love you. And then getting on in a van with, at the time, I mean, I think we had like six people in the very beginning, cause we also had Fiddle and it’s funny cause now we have Fiddle again, it’s so awesome. But we would just get on the road in our van and yeah, hit up places. But you know, at first we weren’t going so far. We were going mostly Oregon and Idaho and stuff. But I mean, when you’re deciding to get in a van with everybody and go do the thing and sleep on the ground or sleep in people’s houses, you don’t know. I mean, it’s a thrill. I mean, it’s amazing.
You look back, and you’re like humble beginnings, but truly, there’s nothing like it. There’s nothing like getting in the van with your friends and being like, we’re gonna go do this, you know? And I remember, I mean, God, like we didn’t even, we had a cooler full of sandwich stuff. And it’s like, now we have this bus that has a fridge that sometimes the fridge goes on the fritz and we gotta go back to the car. But I mean, it’s so different.
But getting in that van, it was just exhilarating. And the first tour we actually ever went on, you know, it’s spring break this last week. It was literally six years ago on spring break that we went on our first tour. And I think we did like La Grande and Enterprise Oregon. And like, we went East. Actually, I think some of our first shows had really great energy.
Like the crowd was into it, but it was like, you know, we’re playing at like a restaurant bar. And one of them, Enterprises, really great little bar called the Range Rider that is like, it’s got such country, cool vibes. And they loved, you know, loved a banjo in there, loved to fiddle.
So we had some great response, but I mean, you also, how, what is it going from your crowd to playing to five to 10 new people, depending on the night? I mean, if you’re playing a Tuesday somewhere else, it could be really interesting. But then, you know, as things grow, I think just the road in general is so intense for some people, exhilarating, and such high highs. But you know, going, even nowadays, you know, we’ll go from playing to 800 people one night at this like gorgeous, cool, built-in little amphitheater in some rad town to like, okay, there’s 30 people out in whatever this city, this is a, you know, and you do everything you can.
You market, you do all these things. But when you’re in new markets, you know, it’s up to the market. And so you really learn to like level your energies a little bit, because if you are going from your highest high to your lowest low, and I mean, it’s like that crazy, not good heart monitor.
You’re just like, this isn’t good for me. So, I think you learn as you go through this life, doing, being on tour quite a bit, is to just like, yeah, level yourself, you know? Take each day with stride, find the pleasure in what you’re doing, and like, you know, don’t let the small stuff bug you. But it’s intense.
I mean, we’ve really been a lot of places. And it’s also very cool when you go in a new market, and even if it’s 20 people in that room, but all 20 are just like, so with you. And I’ll tell you, like, you know, there’s no gig too small. You can affect people everywhere you go. You can have amazing connections. And then one of our tours recently, you know, was this last fall.
And it was, we played a lot of new markets. We played in like Arkansas, and we did some stuff that was crazy, like Arkansas in July. And we were like, what are we doing? You know, like, we’re these Oregonian people. We’re like, we’re dying in this heat. We did Tucson at like 107 degrees. I mean, holy crap.
But what was so cool about that tour, and I consider this a really deep win, is that every single venue, every single across the country, there was at least one person in there mouthing the lyrics to every song in the set. And I’m like, you know what? That shows me that all the stuff we’re doing, no matter how much you’re like, did this hit? Did this work? Analytics, blah, blah, blah. It’s like, the music’s getting out.
It’s getting out, whether it’s like XM Radio or whatever, somebody’s hearing us on a college station or something. It’s like, it’s out there, and somebody knows our repertoire, our repertoire, which is like insane to me, because everybody knows the Bluegrass repertoire, you know, and it’s like, it’s working. Like, that’s a really tiny, I hold onto that stuff, you know?
UCR: I love live music, that’s why I do all of this, because I just love going to concerts, so I want to know, it’s a two-part question. You’ve toured a lot, you’ve played a ton of shows, so if you can’t fit it to one, maybe a stretch or something, but what is, or maybe just a simple memory of what was, maybe your, one of your favorite concerts that you performed, and then a simple last question is, who’s, what’s the best concert you’ve ever been to, just as a fan.
Crystal: I’m gonna go, because Kevin, your shirt, one of maybe my favorite, I’ve been to a few, but Jason Isbell, 400 Unit, Beacon Theater in New York City, and Shovels and Ropes opened up for them, and I love Shovels and Ropes a little bit more than I love Jason Isbell, because I’ve just known him longer, and I had no idea they were opening up, because it was like a birthday gift from a friend, and I was like, what the hell, it was, and the Beacon is like the coolest, coolest, most beautiful theater, so that’s, that’s one of my top, top shows.
UCR: That’s a great one! I got to see Shovels and Rope open for Gregory Alan Isakov here in Salt Lake City. They were excellent. How about you, Kaden?
Kaden: The answer I’m going to give is, there’s a little venue here in Portland called the 1905, it’s like a jazz bar kind of place, and one of my favorite songwriters there, a guy named Gabriel Kahane, played there. Just him and piano, and his, the way he writes songs is very, like, I don’t know, he almost, like, does research, he’s writing about either, like, history, or a certain political moment, or a certain, like, experience the whole culture is having, and that’s, like, each song is, like, a little, little, like, essay, deep dive, wow, and the whole set had this magical quality of, come out unspoken, everybody knew, we weren’t clapping until the end, everybody was like, he’s playing something, and then he starts telling us about where we’re going next, about what we’re doing, about how that felt, and the next thing, and just, like, the guy just picked up the whole audience, his hand is like, don’t worry, got you, we’re gonna, we’re gonna be just fine. Just give me your attention for a little while, and then we can all go crazy about it later. That, that quality of presence, and attention to detail, and attention to the audience was just totally hypnotizing.
So the best show we ever played, or the show you want to talk about the most, I don’t know, do you want to talk about the frat house?
Crystal: Hell, yeah, I want to talk about the frat house!
UCR: Looking at you guys, I could tell you we’re, like, telepathically on the same page there with what show you wanted to share.
Kaden: Four years ago, something like that, we’re, like, one of our first proper tours through, like, the southwest, like, coming up through California, and we had some weird snafu happen with the venue, where we had, like, a day off, we were trying to fill, and I just got a wild hair, it’s like, two of my, two of my brothers were going to school at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. I called them up, and they’re like, ‘hey, is there anywhere you guys know that we could, that’d be good for us to play, or even just, like, a house show, or something’. And immediately, my brother, Mason, was just like, oh, yes, dude, no problem, no problem at all, you can come here, you can play here, at the house, at the frat house! I was like, is it gonna be, is it good, is it gonna be a fancy? He’s like, we’ll, we’ll, and he just was like, no, we’ll take care of it, we’ll get it, just, just get here, just get here, it’ll be fine.
For context, my brothers are all, like, I don’t know, they’re all, they’re all big dudes, they’re all, like, full-ride football scholarship people. This is the fraternity house. Nnone of us knew what to, what to expect at all, showing up here, but we knew that he was, I knew that he was really excited, I knew he was way more excited than I had any reason to kind of expect, and so we show up, we drive our big old bus up the driveway, it was, like, super steeped driveway, hairpin turn up the road into the, into the frat house. Immediately we walk out, and there’s, like, they’re all the frat brothers, all these, just, like, ripped football dudes are, like, running around, one was, like, carrying a cooler over here, other ones are, like, they’re, like, raking beer cans off of the AstroTurf lawn into, like, a ditch near the house to get them out of the way. People are, like, frantically running around and tidying the thing, and then not letting us carry a single thing, like, all our speakers, all our gear, get it set up, and we play the show.
As we’re, as we’re setting up, like, we’re setting up our own, our own PA, or get it all figured out, and then people keep kind of trickling in, and then, and look like they know what’s going on, like, they know who we are in some way, like, they’re really paying attention to what we’re doing, and then we hear a car.
Crystal: With, like, Abercrombie models in it. Like, think about, like, that image.
Kaden: And what happens is, like, you know, we’re playing a lot of bluegrass festivals, we’re used to a lot of that, the crowd kind of skews older, and what we see show up at the show is this, like, sea of, you know, gorgeous 20-somethings, all just getting, like, beautifully hammered. People with, like, three forties taped together, like a pan flute.
Crystal: Yeah, the pan flute of Modellos, like, in the classic (mimics the playing of a pan flute).
Kaden: They just show up, but my brothers, unknowingly, have been playing music for all their friends and like this whole town for the last couple years and they and everybody just like showed up and was there for us this whole frat crew of people we were not remotely prepared for at all.
Crystal: I mean, we got the coast right behind us; we have like palm trees It’s a sunny day, you know. They’re all these like tan and oiled footballers and their gorgeous girlfriends and like they were just stoked on us, man. I have never felt closer to Britney Spears as when we have the song called “Catch Me” and it has probably like the most plays out of any of our songs maybe. It’s been surpassed now I don’t know on the streaming or whatever. But at the time, our new record was out, so our last record was what was hot, and these kids were like bumping that song in their Beamers.
Then, when it got to when I got to sing that song in the first set, we ended up doing two sets. It was wild. For two shows, they basically wanted a second show because one of Kaden’s brothers unfortunately couldn’t make it for the first one. So he was like Please play again so we did later. But the first time around when i played that song i mean we’re playing it and these guys there’s i do this vocal run kind of during the bridge it’s like kind of goes up and is like pretty big movement and it’s got all these like notes on the way down and all these dudes are standing up like with their beers and they’re singing with the hand out like this. And they’re with me these like beautiful 21 year old guys and i’m looking back at this friggin band like is am i dreaming? Like, is this really happening? Are they singing like with me?
We’re kind of, you know, we’re kind of niche for sure. We want it to be, you know, available for everybody, but it was just like, what a Twilight Zone moment. It was so sick. Kaden’s brothers are just the sweetest men. I feel like they prepped, I feel like they marketed, I feel like they got all their friends listening to the music on Spotify way before we showed up. It just blew my mind, and they love the other stuff. Like Brian, our banjo player at the time, after we played this whole set then we kind of did this like acoustic thing where they were like, no play more and Brian was like I’ll sing a John Hartford tune, very specific, “Gentle on my Mind”.
All men all playing I got to sit down between like two footballers and just like watch the band which is super fun. And these guys are holding their Modelo pan flutes, just crying like emoting feeling brotherhood. I was like Oh my God, there’s a future. These are the future businessmen of America we’re getting to be with. It was shocking and it was so amazing and then we got to party with them all night. I mean, I’d never been to a frat party. I’d never went to like proper college. I went to junior college for a bit but it was like holy shit it’s like the movies.
The really cool thing is one of Kaden’s younger brother uh Dawson took me aside and just said you know “I just want to say we’re so glad you guys came we really love your music and especially you have this one song”, and joe wrote this song it’s on our last album it’s called “Leaving”. It is one of the saddest, longest songs, and these guys were telling me, “you know, after a long night of partyin,g we like to hang around the frat house and just throw on some of our favorite music.” And he’s like, “that is our number one played song. We like to sit around feel, hang out”. Think about the music you were listening to at 21. That music stays with you. These young people were loving it.
What an incredible experience. We’re so lucky to have Kaden’s family in our mix, and big fans are our music and stuff, but Oh my God, we talked about that show for like three months. Like, we couldn’t shut up about it because it was too like the contrast of human beings and like just what we were into, and it was too cool. So we’re gonna play there again. We played another house since then, and we’ll probably do another one, but they’re kind of the best shows ever.
Never Come Down will be playing the Egyptian Theater on Main Street in Park City, Utah, on April 11 & 12. For ticket information, click here. For more information about Never Come Down and to hear their music, go to. nevercomedownband.com