Elijah Rehill fueled his course of study in business with his love of music, and following a subpar summer, inspired him to form a house show venue with his close friends, Aidan McCarthy and Caleb Couri. They felt that New Paltz’s house show scene needed some amping up. They took action, forming Crossroads NP.
I had the pleasure of interviewing the Crossroads boys for this issue to discuss their upcoming shows, as well as their creative vision.
Caleb Couri is a fourth-year jazz guitar major. Aidan McCarthy is a fourth-year English major. Rehill is a fourth-year general business major and music minor.
GW: Why did you guys want to create a house show venue?
ER: It all started on one stormy, stormy drive home— I worked at McDonald’s 40 hours a week over the summer, commuting, and I realized that I needed to live in New Paltz again. So, I called Aidan, after having seen fliers for other house shows, and was like… we could do that. There aren’t a lot of venues left in town, and we hope we can help spark a couple more.
AM: It’s also just so fun to be a part of this community, everyone is so welcoming.
ER: So we just decided to move in together and do it, it was 2 a.m. or whatever—
AM: —I was also working at McDonald’s 40 hours a week, depressed as hell, no place to live, just so stressed—and then I got a text from Elijah saying he has an idea, that he has nothing figured out, but that we should just go for it. It just snowballed.
ER: Caleb was also looking for the exact same thing. We’re in a band together, and I called him the next day, picked up another roommate on the New Paltz Bartering Community, and we did it.
GW: What does your vision for Crossroads look like? Ideas that drive what you guys do?
ER: Oh, yeah! The basic idea, where the name comes from, is that we’ve played with a bunch of bands from outside of the New Paltz scene, from before we came here, from Montgomery and surrounding areas, and we were helping to bring them into this scene and get them some New Paltz exposure, while also having bands from New Paltz play. So, Crossroads! The name just stuck.
ER: Other than that, we’d like to make this more than just a monthly thing, like a kind of DIY community center—we have a board where we promote other house shows and events in the area, and we’re also loading it up with business cards.
AM: We want to incorporate performers’ art into the show as well, maybe as a backdrop. We’d like to advertise the performers and artists as much as possible, it’s a community-based kind of thing; it’s just a community, there’s no competition or one-upping each other. It’s always about helping everyone else out.
ER: Our hope is to also promote local student business. We’re trying out new things— we figured out that if there’s coffee at a show, everybody will want some, so we have to up our coffee game— maybe get Joe who sells coffee on campus in here.
AM: Our next show, the bands are gonna be more mellow, more dream-pop or jazzy sounding. Atmosphere is super important for what we’re going for, so we try to make sure all the bands complement each other.
ER: Yeah, we theme the night. We also try not to piss the neighbors off— but they’re down with the shows, thankfully. We charge a $5 donation, but none of that goes to us— it’s split between the house photographer, we get a different one every month, we have two dudes on security, so they get a cut as well, and the rest goes to the band.
AM: We made $12 profit last show, which was awesome. So now we can buy pizza for the bands at the next show!!
Crossroads will host their next show on Nov. 16 at 9 p.m. The show will feature local bands Girl Gaze, Lulu and Marlboro.
For more information on Crossroads, visit their Instagram @crossroadsnp.