Cold River City

“Each of us listens to a bunch of different genres and bring our own styles and ideas to the music,” shares Cold River City’s bass player Austin Pacharz. “But when we get together something magic happens because the result is greater than the parts that go in.” Combining elements of funk, soul and blues into their music, Boulder-based Cold River City already has several summer shows scheduled throughout the state. The entire band sat down for this exclusive interview with AXS.

AXS: Are you Colorado natives? If not, where is everyone originally from?
Austin Pacharz (bass): Almost all of us are Colorado natives actually, two of us are from the east coast - Brian Hubbert [vocals, slide] is from Connecticut and I’m from New York state.

AXS: What brought Cold River City together?
Jeremy Baugh (vocals, guitar): Most of us came from playing very genre specific bands in high school and after, but Cold River City has always been about having fun with our music and playing whatever we feel like, whenever we feel like it.

AXS: How long has Cold River City been together? What have you learned during that time?
Brian Hubbert (vocals, slide): We’ve been together three years now and we've all learned a lot about what it takes to do this. There's a lot more to it that most people think. We’ve also learned a lot about each other... like the fact that one of us quotes pretty much anything all the time, one of us can seduce the pants off of college students by giving them free coffee, one of us gets a little grabby in their sleep, one of us wears man thongs and one of us is totally a hologram.

AXS: Where was your first show in Colorado, and what was the experience like? Who else did you play with at the show?
Emma Fields (vocals): Our first show was at Catacombs (now License No.1) under the Boulderado. We played an open mic for 45 minutes, and I was escorted out of the venue because I was underage.

AXS: Have any Colorado musicians inspired Cold River City?
Austin: West Water Outlaws were definitely an inspiration. We lived next door to them a few years back, when we first got started, and we'd be packing up for a local show while they were packing up to go on the road. It gave us that itch to tour early on in our career. Plus, their music is badass.

AXS: What inspired Cold River City’s 2014 album, Let Me Shine?
Jeremy: We had a lot of new music building up, and we really wanted to release a full length that showed where we were at that point. We got an opportunity to work with Joel Scanlon at Scanhope Sounds and we jumped all over it.

AXS: What was the writing and record processes like for Let Me Shine?
Austin: We wanted the album to reflect our live show, so we decided to track all the instruments and vocals at the same time straight on to tape for a warm analog feel. Then we got to go in after and get everything just right digitally. But overall I think the way we recorded it comes through in the final product.

AXS: What projects are Cold River City currently working on?
Brian: A diorama of ancient Egypt for social studies.
Austin: Our goal right now is to be on the road as much as possible reaching new fans as well as building a fan base in cities we've already played. It's amazing getting to make friends all across the country and go places we've never been before. We're definitely hooked on tour life.

AXS: What else is Cold River City involved in locally, either as individuals or as a group?
Brian: Music, any way we can get it. Some of us have side projects that will be coming out soon. But really we're just constantly trying to get Cold River City to that next level.
Emma: Connecting with others and finding deeper understanding, inspiration, as well as generating more questions about life and everything. Meeting beautiful people and seeing the world and making the most of every lucky minute we get here—all of that boils down to creating music. We're both fortunate enough to have figured out how to do this, and to have found other people willing to do this.

AXS: Does Cold River City have a goal in mind for the sound the band produces? Are there certain influences or themes the band tries to inject into its own music?
Austin: We strive to make music that comes from our soul. Each of us listens to a bunch of different genres and bring our own styles and ideas to the music. But when we get together something magic happens because the result is greater than the parts that go in.

AXS: For someone who has never seen or heard Cold River City, what would you tell them to entice them to watch your set?
Brian: There's pretty girls in there.
Jeremy: We pour our souls into every performance, because we love what we do. Be ready to dance, bob, groove—whatever you like to do—because we make music that makes you want to move around.

AXS: What would your ideal live show look like? Where would it take place? Any particular time of year? Would a specific band/musician share the bill with or open for Cold River City?
Cody Hart (guitar): Headline the first show on Mars. With Red Hot Chili Peppers opening and Gramatik playing the after party.

AXS: What shows are you looking forward to over the next few months?
Austin: There's so much good local live music that I could go out almost any night in Boulder or Denver and find something awesome. Also, Lettuce and the Motet at Red Rocks is gonna be a dance party.

AXS: What do you enjoy most about Colorado’s music scene, and why?
Cody: Danciest fans in the country.
Emma: It happens in other places too, but in general Colorado music fans are incredibly involved and loving of music in general and especially their home scene. Anywhere in the world you go where there's a huge gathering of music, you're likely to find a Colorado flag! - AXS

The six members of Cold River City, one of Boulder’s most promising up-and-coming bands, sat around a cramped table at the Weather Tech Café dripping wet. Their set for CU’s Housing and Dining Services’ vendor fair had been suddenly interrupted by a torrential downpour of rain and hail. But they were still in good spirits as they joked with one of their members that what was happening wasn’t actually an interview but instead an impromptu intervention.

As I joined them, I only added to the joke by stating that my reporter title was just a cover and I was actually an intervention facilitator. Don’t worry, they didn’t buy it.

Meet Cold River City: There’s Emma, singer and percussionist; Austin, bassist; Cody, the guitarist; Brian, guitarist and singer; Jeremy, guitarist and last but not least, Andrew, the drummer and kazoo player.

If you live in Boulder and have never heard of this six-piece band, then here’s some important things to note. They’ve headlined the Fox Theatre and sold out the venue…twice. They recently played at Austin’s SXSW festival in Texas. And their music is self-described as “the love child of funky soul and dirty blues.”

“We spent years toying around with different phrases,” guitarist Cody said. “Because we play a bunch of different genres and it’s really hard for us to pinpoint what we’re doing, so…”

“But there’s a sound,” Emma chimed in.

“Yeah we just had to figure out how to describe that sound,” Cody said.

It all started three years ago when the six members were about to become a part of CU’s graduating class of 2012. The band, however, had been in the works for many years by this point. And through a lot of chance connections, they were all thrown together.

The story roughly goes something like this: Brian and Cody met freshman year, became friends and decided to move in together their sophomore year. Well, they moved in right next to Austin. By junior year, all three of them decided to live together and found themselves living down the street from Jeremy, who also conveniently knew Emma from high school. And thus by senior year, Cold River City took shape.

With complex and unique song structures like in “Blues Heavy” or genre mashup pieces like in “Used to Be in Love,” I was curious as to what their songwriting process was like.

“It all starts with one kazoo,” Andrew proclaimed.

After the laughing died down a bit, the band members had a lot to say about the layered process.

“It’s usually like one person will have a riff or a vocal line that they like and they share that at a band practice and we’ll play that riff over and over,” Brian said. “And then Austin will make his bass part, and Cody will make his guitar part . . . and everybody creates their own part organically in the moment.”

“And then someone will be like, ‘what if we do this, oh yeah let’s try that’ and then we try it,” Austin added. “We normally try every idea that’s thrown out . . . So it’s pretty diplomatic in that sense.”

“We also marinate the song for a long time,” Emma said. “Like once it’s ringing, it’s so not done ‘til we’ve been playing it for a year and a half.”

“One of the coolest things I’ve found with this group of people and why I love playing music with them so much is like, if I’m playing the guitar part and I imagine a bass line he’ll just play that bass line,” Cody said. “And I’m like ‘oh that’s what I’m looking for.’ And then I’ll imagine another guitar part and Jeremy will just start playing it, and I’m like ‘vocals would be like this’ and they’ll start singing it.”

Aside from supernatural rituals or certain “blood oaths” the band joked about, this musical connection that Cody spoke of can mostly be attributed to a shared central vision. And it seems to be paying off for them.

SXSW was something Cold River City definitely wanted to do, but wasn’t actually putting a whole lot of energy and focus into. That changed when they suddenly had a couple of shows lined up at the huge Texas festival, one of which came through the Boulder Arts Council. And that led into how supportive the music community is here in Boulder. There were even several other Colorado bands at SXSW that CRC knew. Well that, and really good barbecue.

“The Boulder-Denver scene is very cool,” Emma said. “It’s a very supportive scene compared to a lot of scenes in the country.”

Cody went on to describe the camaraderie among the musicians in town, meaning that if one band is playing in Boulder, then all the musicians are going to come out to see that one band play. Brian jokingly laughed that that’s pretty much the extent of their social life outside of performing.

And with that type of community, they’re bound to have a large fan base. Brian said it mostly started with their friends coming to shows around town, and of course the girls who were crushing on Andrew.

“Andrew’s been fighting off girls since day one,” Brian said. “It’s like that scene in The Matrix where Neo has the pole and he’s like fending off all the Smiths. That’s what Andrew does every night with a cymbal stand.”

But Matrix references aside, the fan base largely grew out of friends networking through other friends. The band calls their fan base incredibly supportive and says that they take pride in having the ability to know practically all of their fans individually.

“We’ll find that fan that we don’t know and we’ll be like ‘I’m going to know that fan,’” Cody said.

In the immediate future, the band will be playing in Denver at Cervantes Otherside with The Lonely Biscuits on July 28 to kick off a Montana and Idaho tour. They are set to head out to the East coast in the fall. The band added that they will have more exciting announcements coming soon.

You can check out Cold River City’s music and tour schedule here: http://coldrivercitymusic.com. - CU Independant

Austin Pacharz gets by with a little help from his friends.

The Saranac Lake High School alumnus plays bass in Cold River City, a Boulder, Colorado-based "rock psychedelic soul" band. Together with vocalist-guitarist Brian Hubbert, vocalist-percussionist Emma Fields, guitarist-vocalist Jeremy Baugh, guitarist Cody Hart and drummer Forrest Raup, Pacharz has been busy introducing audiences nationwide to the "love child of funky soul and dirty blues."

"One of the biggest assets we have right now is friends, especially while we're going out on the road," he said. "People are putting us up every night. While we're crashing on their floors, they're bringing their friends out to the shows.

"It's a pretty incredible experience, and priceless for sure."

Speaking of friends, the band recently shot a video with their friend and fellow University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus Colin Anders for "Used To Be In Love," available at their website, www.coldrivercitymusic.com.

As part of their current tour, the band will play a free show at 9 p.m. tonight at Smoke Signals in Lake Placid. For Pacharz, it's an opportunity to play in the town that gave birth to his love of music.

"My dad owned Audio-Vision in Lake Placid, which was the only music store in Lake Placid," he said. "He sold CDs and guitars and televisions and home audio systems, and that kind of thing.

"I grew up surrounded by music. Neither of my parents are musicians, but growing up in that atmosphere made me want to become a musician."

Pacharz said he began playing piano around 7 or 8 years old. He joined the school band while in middle school and began playing bass for the high school jazz band. He graduated from SLHS in 2008 and wnt to university in Boulder, where he majored in math and secondary education, graduating in 2012. While math and music may not seem to be naturally connected to some, Pacharz sees them both as related interests.

"My best theory is that both of them involve a recognition of patterns," he said. "They're both all about patterns and finding them and manipulating them and all that, so I think my brain likes that kind of stuff."

Pacharz said he began playing with a few friends during his sophomore year in college, and the band's present lineup played its first show together in 2011. Soon after, they made the most of a key opportunity.

"We got a residency at a really small local bar in Boulder that could hold, like, 50 people," Pacharz said. "It had a really tiny stage, and we played there twice a month for the next six months, and that's how we got started.

"That bar took a chance on us and let us play there without having any recorded material or anything, and they liked us and kept having us back. It allowed us to really focus ... on how we wanted the music to go and writing our own songs and putting together a set list."

Pacharz said the band incorporates many different genres into its sound.

"We all love a lot of different kinds of music, anywhere from reggae to electronic, lots of hip-hop, all sorts of music," he said. "I think we bring that love for all these different sounds to the band, but the overall theme is that it's rock 'n' roll and it's soulful, and we like to get a little weird, (so) it's psychedelic."

Cold River City released their first full-length album, "Let Me Shine," in 2014. Pacharz said they plan to release the single from their follow-up during the present tour, and he expects to release the album in its entirety early next year.

"This one is on the shorter side," he said. "It's five songs, but we did that on purpose.

"I really feel like every song on this album could be a single on another album, but why do an album with filler songs when we could do one, good short album that's just jam-packed with good songs? It's more on our soul side but definitely still toys with other genres. You'll find a little bit of swing, a little bit of ska, a little bit of hip-hop as well."

Although Cold River City's music is available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, Soundcloud and on the band's Pandora station, Pacharz recommended checking them out on Bandcamp at coldrivercity.bandcamp.com.

"(People) can buy it right on that site, and they can stream it and check it out and decide if they want to come to the show Thursday," he said. "I think they will." - Adirondack Daily Enterprise

Playing high energy grooves that feed your funky soul, Cold River City is a six piece live band that has been turning heads and moving bodies everywhere they go. Their hard hitting live performance features seductive vocal harmonies, screaming slide guitar, and a tight rhythm section guaranteed to make you get down with your bad self. With an obvious passion for what they do, they have built a strong following both at home around Boulder, Colorado and on the road. Having produced two EP’s already, they are gearing up for the release of their first full length album entitled Let Me Shine in early 2014. - The Source Weekly

For a band that started in 2012, Cold River City’s debut full length Let Me Shine is miles beyond the group’s youth.

The incredible diversity put forth by the Boulder sextet is as wide ranging as it gets and the band winds through axe slinging numbers like “Blues Heavy” deftly before shifting gears into funk, hip-hop, reggae and electronica-inspired tunes. All that diversity keeps each song fresh, but at some points it’s an overwhelming undertaking to follow the main flow of Let Me Shine. Having a variety of influences is wonderful, but balancing them is the real trick.

Still, the foundation that Cold River City has laid down with this debut gives the band a huge opportunity to pick its direction from this point forward. The possibilities are endless. - Marquee Magazine

It’s all fun and games … Until you’re the next headliner at The Fox Theater.

Meet Cold River City: a sextet from Boulder, CO that started playing because it was nice outside and, well, what other reason does one need? This (insert any genre here) group formed according to happenstance and a not-so-staunch punk-rock approach to music. Snubbing labels like a hipster denies his “hipsterdom,” CRC’s sound is explained best by it’s title.

Named after Noah John Rondeau, a hermit from the Adirondack Mountains of New York who called himself Mayor of Cold River City (Population: 1), CRC identifies with Rondeau’s self-inflicted isolation. Through an all encompassing sound which will feature blues, hip hop and reggae all in one track, CRC is floating somewhere along the ether in a limitless place few bands have the guts to explore.

Their first full length album Let Me Shine was released in February 2014, shortly after finishing an 11 day tour through Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma where their reception was varied and experiences were, er, interesting. After making it to the edge of Texas and back, CRC is back home and ready to headline the Fox Theater on Thursday, April 3rd for the first time.

303 Magazine had a chance to sit down with all six members of CRC (Jeremy Baugh, Emma Fields, Cody Hart, Brian Hubbert, Austin Pacharz, and Scott Russell) for a symposium—substitute wine for weed—on staying open-minded, having fun and how to make having a stellar, six-person band look easy.

303: How does the name Cold River City correlate with the type of sound you strive for in your music?

CRC: I feel like our music is something I’ve never heard before. When I think about when Cody told us about Cold River City, the story and everything, it kind of resonated with me. I thought “well that’s cool,” because to me, there was a parallel there. We are kind of by ourselves, somewhere else.

303: Do you guys have similar backgrounds in music?

CRC: No. I think that was part of the reason it’s worked out so well. Up until this point, you’d meet those types of people where all they want to do is play that one type of music and then they’d get really stagnant really fast. Because you’d come up with like 12 songs and ehh, it kind of all sounds the same. The interesting thing is that the only connection musically that any of us have had in our past is that the four of us all used to play in some sort of punk band. Then we were like “well that was fun, let’s go make all the rest of the music now.” Every now and again we’re like “let’s do a punk breakdown here for like eight bars and then go back into the song.”

303: I would never peg you guys for a punk rock band. But I guess if the philosophy is there, that’s what punk really is, right?

CRC: I wouldn’t call us a punk band, like to define what we sound like, I would just say maybe in the way we approach music.

Cold River City is a little bit of a punk band because just the fact that it doesn’t have to be something that maybe is necessarily right as long as it’s something that you like the sound of. Then you just go ahead and keep doing it. There’s a lot of predetermined ways a song could go or ways a style can go, but if you’re just doing what your hands happen to do and you’re like “hey, I like that” then keep doing it. That’s kind of just the punk rock mentality.

303: Did you have any unified vision when you started playing together?

CRC: No. It started as straight fun. The cool thing is that from the start we all just kind of knew what each other wanted the music to sound like without ever talking about it. I knew that if I would play a guitar part I could imagine a bass line and then Austin would drop the bass line. And then I would imagine, “oh, this is a drum beat, but I don’t know how to play that” and then Scott would start playing that drum beat, and it would all just kind of come together how we all saw it coming together.

303: There are a lot of different genres present in your music which is part of what makes it so unique. How do you come up with it?

CRC: Well that’s the thing.

I wouldn’t say that we’re necessarily doing something insane, out-of-the-box except for that we’re doing what we wanna do.
We don’t want to play reggae, we don’t wanna play punk or blues. We want to play all of those things. You don’t want to be conformed to one genre. We all came out of bands that were doing that. That was kind of our faux pax. We were like “we love playing music, period. All kinds of music, not just like ‘we play this, that’s it.'”

All of us have a different favorite type of music or music that we’re really getting into at this point. Brian loves hip-hop so he always brings that side to our music and we never want to be like “no, this isn’t a song for hip-hop.” If it fits in the song, it fits in the song, so we’ll keep doing it. Then we have Cody who loves electronic music so he always brings a little bit of that newer sound edge to it. The decision making process is definitely—democratic isn’t the word (like “alright, the votes are in”)—it’s more just a team effort or “how about it we try this? That sounds good, lets keep going.” Even to the extent of like “ohh, a hip-hop song! Wait, stop! Do a punk break because we wanna play punk!” Whatever, you know what I mean? And that’s what’s been so fun being with this group of people. We don’t have to do one thing or not do something else because we’re supposed to or not supposed to.

In a certain sense it’s like these are the sounds through which we express what we want to get across in a song. If we want a certain emotion, maybe we have to draw something from ska music, to kind of like, express some intention in the song or something like that. We just use all these different sounds from different genres ’cause we’re so influenced by all these different things and we use those sounds to get the ideas across.

303: Can you guys bring me through the process of where a song starts and when it gets finished?

CRC: Which song? (laughter)

For the most part, it starts out individually. One of us make a line — normally on whatever instrument that persons on, you know? I’ll make a vocal line that I like, or Austin will make a bass line and show it to one of multiple members of the band, and be like “hey, let’s just play on this real quick” — and it kind of comes naturally after that. Everybody comes up with a cool part that they like to go along with and, you know, we find one part that sounds really good. Okay, cool, that’s the A part, and then you know searching for that next part is kind of … I feel like searching for the next part of a song has usually been a group thing, somebody will come with the initial idea, and then the group will build it on that.

It’s not limited to what instrument you’re playing, its often like “how about you try whatever,” or “I’ll show you what I was thinking on your instrument.” And then sometimes is comes purely out of just jamming and then being like “wait, remember that; let’s mess with that!”

Those are the fun ones. Those are often we make. When we’re just playing a song and we’re like “that sounded really good, wait, let’s record this real quick.”

When you talk about expression, like honestly, we all make up a song up when we’re jamming. It’s both some of the most expressive things we do and the singularly only creative thing that I do that isn’t expressive with a purpose so much as what we make, you know what I mean? Although at the same time it says everything it’s supposed to at that moment. I don’t know. It’s really funny, but its very interesting. Sometimes one person will come with a completed song, but for the most part it’s “I had an idea.”

303: What’s the band dynamic like with you guys? Six people is a lot of people to be working with.

CRC: It’s a lot of people. I got made fun of last night for saying we’re a really small six-piece band. (laughter)

It’s really tight-knit and it like doesn’t feel like it’s a bunch of different competing people but like we’re all working together. It’s very egalitarian. In general, musically, we’re all on the same page. The band dynamic is a lot like a family. It’s kind of like making a deal with six people and all the things that are awesome about being in a solo act are the things that make it more difficult to be a six-piece—you know, just finding time where everybody gets together. But all the things that are negative about being in a smaller group are so amazing about our size.

There are a lot of bands out there that are one person’s vision and they kind of coach the rest to make the song what they envisioned it and that is not at all what we do. Maybe someone will take the lead on a song here or there, but it’s never like … There’s no one person you could single out as the band leader, which I think is really cool and unique. I think that dynamic is a huge catalyst to why our styles are so, you know, intricate or varied.


We didn’t want to have to be limited and we found six people who felt like that was okay too.
303: What do you guys have coming up, any tours? Summer’s coming, are you going to be at any festivals?

CRC: The Fox is the next thing coming up … We’re planning on a tour to the Pacific Northwest. We haven’t announced that yet though. We’re playing a festival, Apple Camp. It’s a little one in Oregon. But we as a band haven’t announced a tour, or the dates or anything like that. A few other things are coming up around Denver and Boulder. We’re performing on one of the main stages of Root 40 music festival in Denver, on Colfax.

303: What was your last tour like?

CRC: We made it to Corpus Christi, tornado alley and almost to Mexico. It was really cool. In October, we had our first tour and we had our van and our trailer, and we literally, we made it to the beach, we drove the van on the beach, and got to swim in the ocean in October when it was snowing here [Colorado] and that was a really awesome accomplishment. We played in a pier over the ocean, for a Halloween party.

303: Tell me more about that.

CRC: A bunch of costumed tripping people … It was awesome. We were supposed to go to Houston for a show that we had no guarantee for. We only got paid if 75 people showed up to some warehouse that was BYOB. We obviously wanted to go and play anyway, but when we first got to Corpus Christi, friends of mine from three years ago that I had met in Costa Rica, showed up randomly, knew us, and we ended up hanging out. The people we played for the first night were like “hey, we can get you a show at this party at the pier.” So, they asked us if we wanted to stay and play the next night and all of us were like “uhhh, can we just stay on the beach and pretend we don’t have to do things for one day, have one day on the beach and then play a party?” Everybody’s like “yes, of course we can do that.”

The party was the best kind of disaster. Everybody in costume, a diverse crowd. There was a lot of young people who were raging hard, and old people who were in costume and raging like really hard. Most of them tripping on mushrooms. We didn’t find out until after the show. All of them we tripping mushrooms. The whole show we just thought they were crazy islanders or something. That was both the highlight and an awesome closer, like “were a success, we did that.” Then we drove all the way through Texas. So much Texas.

303: What were the crowds like on your tour, did people know who you were?

CRC: Nobody knew who we were. A few people came, like we knew some friends in a couple of the cities, but for the most part, everybody who saw us didn’t know us. Turn-outs were good for the most part, surprisingly varied.

In the smaller towns we were hits, because we were the only thing happening that night. We went to Stillwater, OK where we didn’t know a single person in that town or within a radius of about 50 miles. But the bar was raging and they kept buying us drinks. It’s just that there’s so much music going on in big cities that the small towns would get crazy and the big cities wouldn’t be a bad turn-out but just a different scene.

We played bigger venues too. In Austin we played a pretty big venue compared to most of the other ones. Austin was great because you want to get to play Austin. Which was killer. It was really fun. We’ll keep going there. Every time we drive by, we’re going to Austin. One day people will recognize our name. It’ll be good. I guess you know the next step for us is kind of taking on the tactics (if you can call them that) that we did with Boulder, just localizing in other places. Just going and playing as many of the places we’ve played, and new ones, again and again. I think that’s the next goal. - 303 Magazine