Gupdate X: Crush Fund
I Ask Some Cool Women About "Music Business" And They Don't Even Get Mad At Me
Welcome back, blogging enthusiasts. I hope you enjoyed your day/weekend/wedding/court date. Today I’ve something a bit nontraditional for you. Usually Gupdate is essay-as-review; a way for me to deliver my Right opinion to someone with taste (you). But, for this, our tenth full-length Gupdate, I’ve decided to celebrate with an interview. Consider it a long form recommendation for one thing which I personally like a lot.
That thing is the band Crush Fund: transfemme punk group, New York cool girls, longtime friends-of-the-pod. Crush Fund is made up of Nora, Kya, and July; I opened for a show of theirs at July’s recommendation in fall 2022. She had never seen me do comedy before and simply presumed that I could handle it. Her trust went a long way– it was one of my favorite shows I have ever been on, obviously special; and staying for the mosh pit that followed showed me the Power of Punk. I sweat my eyeliner off and didn’t have to throw a single elbow. I’ve now followed the girls throughout NYC, watching them amass a success that is as steady as it is unsurprising. I interviewed them for Gupdate on the presumption that you all might like them too.
Listen to their EP Drama on Bandcamp or Spotify, follow them on Instagram, and please enjoy this interview. It has been edited and condensed for clarity, so if it doesn’t make sense, that’s all me.
Gus: How did you all meet?
Kya: Me and Nora met our first week at SUNY Purchase. We hung out and showed each other the first songs we'd basically ever written. It's kind of awkward, but it was good. And we stayed friends, started playing music together in college, between Nora’s solo project and my solo project. And for a long time we've been saying we should do some co-writing together, and [Crush Fund] is the birth of that.
Nora: We were like, let's finally do the thing. Let's finally do like the co-writing thing.
Gus: What’s your process like when you write together?
Nora: Still limited experience to be honest. We've cranked out some cool music together. But when we've done it, it's been like throwing, like line by line back and forth in the room, and just shouting stuff out and writing it on paper until something happens.
Kya: One of us will have a lick or a riff that we're like basing it around and just like having fun with.
Nora: Usually, someone brings in a piece of something, and then we try to build around it.
Gus: Did you write Seeing Stars together?
Kya: Seeing Stars was actually our first song as a band because it was our first collaboratively written song. I came in with the basic guitar riff and the chorus, and me and Nora sat down together and wrote the lyrics. Kind of like, I write a verse, you write a verse.
Nora: Yeah, we go back and forth. Trying not to think too hard about it, I guess.
Kya: When me and Nora started, we had our first few Crush Fund songs, we had Seeing Stars, we had Unwanted Attention. We had Drama and we kind of felt that there was something here. Me and Nora both have had the wild dreams of just like, we just want to play music. We want to do this. We want this to be our lives. So when we were picking a bassist, and picking a third member for this band that was going to quickly consume our lives– and we were right, it has quickly consumed our lives– We were more so looking for a best friend.
Kya: Like we were just like, the vibes have to be perfect. We need someone reliable. And July wouldn’t even advertise herself as reliable. But the friend vibes, the hang, and plus like, how am I, as a kid who studied 20th century weird composition, turning down someone who played sitar for 10 years? Of course they're going to be able to play that kind of weird and killer baselines I need. I just got to teach you how to groove a bit.
Nora: Anyone can learn how to groove.
July: I’ve got the groove, baby.
Kya: July's done amazing. And July is like exactly who we needed. Like, I don't know. It would be hard for Crush Fund to have the momentum it has if the three of us weren't the three of us. We all have our flaws, we can all be difficult to work with sometimes… Especially me. But we love each other, and we understand like, alright, this is family and work. But not in the dumb capitalist sense! Like, we're fucking doing a thing because we want to and people seem to be receptive of it. We’ll stop once people aren't receptive to it anymore–
July: Or we’ll change.
Kya: No, we’ll stop.
July: Crush Fund is promising right now we’ll never change.
Kya: That’s exactly not what I’m saying!
Gus: I know Crush Fund has already amassed a lot of fans since you started playing together less than a year ago. Can you tell me what that reception has been like for you?
Kya: Yeah. So the reception here, from my point of view, has been honestly quite amazing. So I moved to Brooklyn in September 2021, and between then and June I was just going to as many local shows as I found out about, and just like trying to get my face known, meet some people, make some friends. And then in the summer of 2022, about five months after me and Nora formed Crush Fund, this is around the time of our first show. So many other large events were happening, and a community of many separate small friend groups had very quickly formed together into a much larger community. And we have begun just to rally behind each other.
Kya: Like I'm not saying– we wouldn't have the rallying we get if we weren't good. But the fact that there is this community that I have just been watching form before my eyes. And they hold us with such high regard and allow us to perform and give us the pits that our shows have. 'Cause whenever we don't play for that crowd, it's not the same, we've got to work a lot harder for it. But our home base crowd? Our home base crowd is utterly amazing for me. I'm from a small town in Texas where there's really no community once you get out of high school. And not much when you’re in high school either. And so it's honestly just been, it's been magical. Yeah, that's the best way for me to describe it. It’s been magical.
Gus: I know you all play so regularly and sell venues out. I'm curious for the rest of you, what that feels like for you, and I'm also curious about the relationship between that and your audience and community. What does that success feel like to you? What do you think your relationship to that audience is?
Nora: It's a very complex relationship, I have to say. It's like honestly, it's a big privilege to be able to have my music be sought after in that way. There is a certain level where I feel like I did a lot of hard work where it felt like I was going nowhere and like my music was reaching no one. This feels like a breakthrough. But it doesn't feel unexpected, that’s the thing. It's like, I worked hard to get here. But it's cool, 'cause it also just feels like it's clicking between us already. So it's natural that it feels like it clicks with other people. But my relationship to Crush Fund’s audience. I don't know. It's wild to be able to reach so many trans people.
July: Yes. Yeah.
Nora: And it's interesting because I feel like with the band, I'm putting out a larger-than-life version of myself and a specific vision of a performance sometimes. That is what I’m doing. But then sometimes I feel like it's hard to be able to also be normal at my own shows. I feel like I have to avoid people, because I don't know how to talk. I don't know how to just be chill. Because I'm doing this other thing in my brain. But it's cool. I put a lot of energy into the performance and that resonates with people. Probably the thing I hear the most often is like, “you look like you're having a lot of fun”, which is so true. So true. I am having the best time.
Gus: How would you describe the larger-than-life version of yourself that you bring to the stage?
Nora: Oh, good question. Good question. Hmm. Um, brattier, bolder, um, more like not really giving a shit.
July: We’re a very bratty band, that’s for certain.
Kya: We didn’t intend to be, but like it just kind of is – I think the brattiness is a result of all of us just being typically anxious girls in our day to day lives.
July: Yeah.
Nora: Yeah.
Nora: It's very to the point, and it's very “I've been waiting to say this shit” kind of energy. Because a lot of the songs deal with things that need to be screamed to be expressed.
July: I've been finding it so odd. The other day, I guess because we were doing so many fucking shows, I was thinking about like, “who is this person that I am being when I'm up there?” And it's weird because it's like, yeah, I'm putting on a character, and putting on a show, and doing a whole thing. But I'm also putting as much of myself out on that stage as I possibly can. And like the more out there that my stage presence is getting, the more I get closer to that beautiful gay Scottish man as the MC in Cabaret, whose name I can't remember–
Gus: –Alan Cumming–
July: Thank you. The closer I get to Alan Cumming as the MC in Cabaret, the more I'm also just like, "Hi, here I am." It's very fun. There's a lot of people who have only seen me at a Crush Fund show and have only hung out with me before and after a Crush Fund show and probably have an idea of what I'm like that would be entirely unfamiliar to me. Like just like a one-sided perspective of me where I'm this very like… Well, I don't know what I am, 'cause I'm not always fully lucid in those states.
Nora: Oh my god yeah. I go somewhere else when I perform.
July: I mean, I literally don't remember the first show. And I was sober.
Nora: I know, it’s so crazy!
Nora: It's hard. Like, you have to be so comfortable, especially for what we're doing. We have to be pretty comfortable with ourselves.
Kya: There are songs we've had to cut off of our bill because we're not comfortable performing them. I want to drop my two cents about who I am onstage, because… I tend to choke up with my words in a lot of social situations. And this has to do with how I view music as a larger whole– That this is a medium where the emotions that you cannot put into words can be expressed.
Nora: Yes.
July: Mm-hmm.
Kya: And I have a lot of emotions. A lot of them! And so besides, you know, dressing up in a fun cute outfit, one because it looks cool and it makes me feel good. It's like… I'm me, but more. I’m me, but I’m performing what I can't say.
Nora: Yeah, I was going to mention something about outfits too, but I definitely agree. These songs are the best way I'm going to be able to put these feelings– not put them in straightforward words, but– my approach to our stage presence is like, we are a visibly transfemme band. There's no hiding it. And it's not something I try to hide, for myself. I don't think it's wrong if someone didn't want to make that part of their image, but that's what we're doing.
Kya: And none of us try to hide that in our day-to-day lives. We're just unabashedly trans.
Nora: Yeah, exactly. So being a little slutty is fine. That's how I can best show what I'm also expressing, I guess.
Kya: We are talking about ourselves with our words and exposing ourselves with our bodies.
Nora: Yes! Like I don't dress the same way for my solo sets. I dress nice, but almost more formal, 'cause I'm putting forth, like an idea– that project's name is just my name, Nora Knox. So it's much closer to home than who I'm being when I'm on stage with Crush Fund. Even though it's just accessing a different point of myself.
Kya: I feel most myself in Crush Fund, but maybe that’s because I have the harmonic final say.
Nora: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely me that I'm being. It's just accessing a different point. It's not so central to me. It's a specific kind of song I wrote, instead of the [solo] ones that are slow and sad.
Kya: Because we all have multiple voices with our music. Nora has her solo project, July has her folk acoustic act. And meanwhile, I have a handful of solo, personal songs that I don't really put out. And I compose and I write. We all have these multiple avenues, but it's through Crush Fund that we're able to express things–
Nora: I need one that’s bitchy!
Kya: Right!
July: Did you say you need one that’s bitchy?
Nora: Yeah.
July: True.
Kya: You know, trans people are going through it right now. And we have the fucking drive and energy to be loud on a microphone as trans women.
Nora: And other people clearly want to express that same kind of thing, and have that ecstasy of having it be there. And for me, making it is a kind of ecstasy.
July: Yeah.
Kya: Okay, here's something. Knowing trans people who've moshed at shows. And telling those people that at our shows, there's regularly all-trans mosh bits. And in my day to day life, if I choose to, I could experience an all trans-mosh pit at least once a week. And seeing the joy that that image brings to people, is like, I don't know. It's more worth it than anything right now. And I'm having more fun with it than I ever could have imagined.
July: Could I tie this back in with us being very sexy? Because I think the three of us talked about before that, like, Crush Fund being sexy, being slutty, is like very central to the whole vibe of Crush Fund. And we're all trans girls. And trans girl bodies, and trans girl sexiness, it’s a very complicated thing politically and socially. Like, you know, people try to pathologize just being attracted to us or demonize it or pornographize it.
Nora: Yeah, we're living in people's imaginations rent free, like constantly.
July: And what Crush Fund offers instead is, “we're sexy. Don't think about it. Dance.” Like we're gonna get in the room and we're gonna talk about the most fucked up shit that has happened to us and that happens to us and that we feel. Almost all of our songs are about really dark, sad shit. And we're going to invite you to that place where that's the reality, and that's our common understanding of life. And we're just going to be happy and silly and dance and beat the shit out of each other in the pit.
Nora: That’s the mission!
Kya: People love– I mean, there's haters, but people love watching people thrive. And we've talked about being more serious at shows sometimes, but every time it gets down to it, we’re like fuck, let's just have fun. And we just want to have fun. We just want to make people dance. We just want to make people mosh.
July: Girls just want to have fun!
Gus: What do you think the next six months look like for Crush Fund?
Kya: The next six months is going to change our lives, and then the six months after that is also going to change our lives, and then we don't know, because that's too many life changes.
July: That’s iteratively a different person!
Kya: Not saying we’re changing but like, that’s a different band, almost. We're working on a lot of new music and we are working our asses off to find and to try and find bigger opportunities.
July: The tranny in me is really happy that we are reaching out and touching trans people. The musician in me is extremely happy– Musicians fucking hate complementing people in a serious and sincere way without being prompted to. And musicians are being like, “You guys are kind of doing something” and wanting to work with us. And we've gotten to hang with so many fucking cool people.
July: It's insane that several times a month I put on the sluttiest outfit I can find and I go to a tiny dark subterranean room with a couple dozen trannies in it who all lose their minds to us playing music. It's fucking sick. And I get to do that for the indefinite future, possibly at an expanding scale. It's fucking crazy.
Kya: At our core, Crush Fund is just here for the hang.
Nora: I see more states, more states on that map I can check off. I wanna go to so many places. I see the music spreading farther. I don't know, I just see us reaching more people and that means I want to show them new music, too. Because I also see us writing the best shit we've ever fucking done, because every new thing we're putting so much thought into, and so much care into the ideas. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about.
July: [Struck from the record]
Kya: Shhh!
July: I am not saying anything I am not allowed to say.
Kya: [Struck from the record]
July: Okay, okay! We are getting a Grammy.
Kya: We are getting a Graham Cracker from the Grammys.
Gus: Is there anything you feel like has been missed that is absolutely critical to understanding Crush Fund?
July: Did we mention we’re trans?
Kya: To quote our lyrics, “We’re gonna make it, we’re gonna fake it”.
Nora: That's honestly the motto. 'Cause that was an early co-writing song between us as well. And it's like, are we doing the band thing right now or not? And it's like, it just suddenly happened that we were. What else do you need to know?
Kya: We love our fans.
Nora: We love each other. These are my besties.
July: These girls are my family. I have such a deep and profound love for you two, it’s wild. It was like, “I'll play bass for these girls! That’s fine!” And now it's like, I fucking love those bitches so much.
Kya: Yeah, I can't see my life without you at any moment.
July: Oh I’m gonna fucking cry.
Kya: Same to you, Nora, but you already knew that. I told you, I made that clear early on.
Nora: Yeah!
Nora: The last thing you should understand about us is we’re currently in our bottom era.
Kya: Too much foreshadowing!
Nora: I won’t be more specific.
Check out more local music, as recommended by Crushfund!
Pop Music Fever Dream - eevie echoes - AFK - Uncle Pizza - MX LONELY - Jane Doe Ensemble - Spare Feelings - The Bum Babies - The Canvas Collective - Hardly Fits - Funeral Doors - Tits Dick Ass
SPONSORSHIP DISCLOSURE: I am in no way financially affiliated with Crush Fund, I don’t make any money off of Gupdate, and they did not pay for this post. However, July approves my timesheets at Day Job. So please don’t let this flop.
crush fund and gupdates come to LA!!!!! plZ!!!!!!