Never Ending Fall Interview

On Halloween, I sat down with LA-based rock-fusion band Never Ending Fall to discuss everything from their TikTok fame to gas station snacks to essential driving albums.

• A single coming soon obviously implies you’ve been writing, is there another LP in the works? 

Jack: Yeah, I’d say there’s more along the lines of an EP, looking for [release in] February.

• Your previous album, “Space City”, was released right before the pandemic hit. How did that affect your plans surrounding the release? Did it have any positive effects you were surprised by?

Tommy: I would say it was almost, like, extremely positive, because during the pandemic, we were all mostly in college or just graduating. But then right after the pandemic [restrictions] started to close, we drove to Los Angeles to record some stuff, and then that trip was kinda like, “Oh, we should just move here.” Then we moved to LA, and everything happened and now we’re ready to release some of the music that we’ve been recording.

• Who’s the best driver?

Pearce: Johnny. He’s the best, most dependable driver we have.

Conrad: But also the most stressful to drive with. If you’re in the backseat, you’re totally freaking out but he will get you to your destination safer than anyone else.

Johnny: I am a great driver. I pride myself — I’ve never gotten a ticket and the only time I got pulled over was by my cousin so it didn’t count.

• Do you have any artists that really inspire you and your writing process? Or any favorite releases from this year that made you excited about music?

Jack: Right when I moved out to California this band, Drugdealer, dropped a song, “Madison”, that I was obsessed with. Turnstile kinda got us back into our rock phase, they really brought back the rock genre.

Johnny: I would also say Harry Styles’ album [“Harry’s House”], that was definitely an inspiration.

Tommy: Kings of Leon, definitely. Origami Angel, probably —

Johnny: Yeah, but we just discovered them, they’ve had albums from 2017 and stuff that were insane. But we just got into them and they’re a huge influence right now, especially with our sound.

• Starbucks or Dunkin?

All: Starbucks

Conrad: Minus the price!

• I found you guys through the “Can it Kirkland” series on TikTok, how did that start? Was it like a group idea or did one of you come up with it?

Tommy: Everything we do is a group effort. We moved out to LA and we eat a lot of food so we were like, “Let’s get a Costco membership!” because it’s wholesale. And then [the rest of the band] went and came back and they had, like, the biggest bottle of Kirkland vodka, like, ever.

• Apparently it’s just Grey Goose with a different label

Jack: We’ve heard some different things through different people. We’ve heard it’s Grey Goose, and then we heard it used to be but it’s not anymore, since like 2018.

Tommy: Costco doesn’t say where they manufactured it. I think they taste very similar but there’s a difference.

Pearce: You can tell. It’s a different type of burn.

• Do you have any plans to change it up in the future? I know you guys have started doing cocktails now instead of just straight liquor or wine.

Pearce: So with that being said, there are some types of bottles of Kirkland that we haven’t gotten to yet. We’re planning on doing two new Kirklands coming up, there’s a 7-something malt Irish whiskey we haven’t done and then there’s a bourbon we haven’t done. So those will be straight liquor, but what you were saying with the cocktails, we can now expand into that and keep going. Not that it’s our only route, but it’s definitely the route we’re gonna take right now just because of where it’s going.

Tommy: And we’re working on some pretty big collaborations right now so I think that’ll definitely start trickling in. Collaborating with other people, and probably just doing other drinking taste testing as well and see what works and what doesn’t.

• You guys have 5 minutes in a gas station, what do you grab?

Pearce: I’m gonna grab a bottle of water and peach rings.

Johnny: A Red Bull, a regular Red Bull, probably a 12 oz. … 12 oz. Red Bull and — oh, this is hard.  Alright, we’re at 7-Eleven, I’m getting two monterey jack taquitos and a Red Bull.

Jack: This is so hard. I’ll probably grab a water and — oh shit — probably a banana.

Conrad: I don’t know, probably some Chex Mix, a water, maybe a coffee?

Tommy: I’d do, like, a water or Red Bull and probably a protein bar or Cheez-Its or something. 

• Outside of the “Can it Kirkland” series, releasing music, and touring, you guys also have a steady streaming schedule on Twitch — do you plan out what you’re doing each stream beforehand or do you wing it when you go live?

Pearce: The schedule stayed pretty consistent. There’s only, like, three games we really play so we’d talk to chat and say “Hey chat, what do you wanna see us play?”

Tommy: And we did our Never Ending Stream. We streamed for 172 hours straight, I believe, so it was all over the place. But when we get home from tour there’s gonna be a more strict schedule.

Conrad: And instead of being continuous there’s gonna be, like, episodes per night. We’ll do certain things on certain days of the week and whatnot. Almost the same way you would go and watch Spongebob every night after school, you can go and watch Never Ending Fall.

• What’s the go-to social media? You guys are everywhere, what do you favor the most, personally and as a band?

Jack: I would say right now, personally, it’s BeReal. It’s so fun, I think it’s so entertaining.

Tommy: I think, as a band, it would probably be Twitch and then probably TikTok. Those two do really well.

Pearce: Personally, TikTok. My FYP is just comedy, I love TikTok.

• Do you have a favorite thing you’ve done on Twitch?

Tommy: Just growing a community. It’s so cool when there’s a really hardcore community that joins every day and we just get to talk to them.

Johnny: And to see that within that community there’s people that have become friends. The people within our Twitch, Discord, stuff like that, we call it the Never Ending Fam, they’ve become friends. Some of them have been flying out to see each other in different states, to show up at some of our shows. We’ve connected a lot of people with other like-minded people as well within our community which is awesome. That’s probably my favorite thing about it, we just get to connect with them so much.

• What’s everyone’s go-to driving album?

Johnny: “Peripheral Vision” by Turnover, 100%

Tommy: Frank Ocean’s “Blonde”

Pearce: You know, there’s this really chill album, it’s the Chon self-titled album. It’s still their heavy stuff but, like, chill heavy. It’s very instrumental, easy to drive to, easy to listen to.

Jack: I’d have to go with “Workingman’s Dead” by Grateful Dead.

Conrad: I’m gonna have to give you two — oh god, now so many more just rushed in — I’m gonna stick with my classics. If I’m trying to mellow out, “Ballads” by John Coltrane, just the greatest album ever. If I’m trying to get amped up, I guess for now it’ll be the Origami Angel album that we listen to, “Somewhere City”. I was also gonna toss in “Butterfly 3000” ‘cause that’s a great one too.

• And of course, what we’ve all been wondering, when can we listen to the “Can It Kirkland” theme on Spotify?

Conrad: Ah! No plans for putting it on Spotify yet.

Johnny: Our spiel behind it is that I always say it’s like a TikTok covenant. Let’s keep it on TikTok, you know, let it live there. ‘Cause we also have been a band for years and we wanna let TikTok have its own realm of what NEF is, and then our actual band side of things can be more serious rather than just riding the wave of “Can it Kirkland.”