Mountain Natives + Crystal Yates

Join us for free live music by Mountain Natives

Following Philip Pappas’ victory over cancer, he and his wife Loren started the band
M O U N T A I N N A T I V E S to sing about overcoming mountains of adversity and living true to your passions and dreams.

After graduating with a Bachelor’s in Physics, Philip encountered deep sadness when he realized that he was doing it for monetary reasons and had never asked the Lord what HE wanted him to pursue. Deep down he had known the answer all along, but never felt worthy to pursue what his heart truly desired. So he stepped out in faith.

Philip had just turned 27, met the woman who was to become his wife, was pursuing his craft of music,
and then he got CANCER.

His soon to be fiance pointed out a mole on his shoulder and asked him to go to the dermatologist. The mole was more than twice the size it needed to be to metastasize and spread malignant melanoma throughout his body. It was biopsied. And it was cancerous. He was then referred to an oncologist for surgery to find where the cancer had spread. After a rally of prayer from loved ones, a surprised doctor sent Philip home from surgery with a 5 inch scar on his shoulder.
The cancer was gone.

The music that was produced by Philip and Loren was not from a place of wallowing in the doubt of life or death. These “Essential” songs were born from a place of hope and gratitude. That hope is impressed on not just the ears but the heart of the listener. Hope for the miraculous. Philip and Loren want you to believe in the hope that the impossible is possible. Mountains of adversity can be thrown into the sea.

Mountain Natives has performed alongside Drew Holcomb, Johnnyswim, Angelo De Augustine, Matthew McNeal, Dawson Hollow, Andrew Holmes, Aaron Einhouse, and Crystal Yates. Performed at the 2018 “Silobration” in Waco at Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia Silos from TV show “Fixer Upper”. Interviewed and performed on KXUL and UTA radio. Radio Play in Dallas, UTA Radio, KCLC St. Louis, Telluride, KXT Dallas, Grand Rapids, and The Bronx. Numerous shows in the Dallas / Fort Worth area such as The Rustic, City Tavern, Witherspoon Distillery, Three Links Deep Ellum, Sundown at Granada, Magnolia Motor Lounge, and performed at Earth Day Dallas to an estimated 30,000 people, and The Deep Ellum Arts Festival. Has performed at The El Rey Theater in Albuquerque, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Napa, Portland, Eugene, Seattle, Flagstaff, & Colorado Springs, Austin, and San Antonio, Asheville, Atlanta, Tupelo, Nashville. Featured in Dutch Music Blog Gobsmag and “Ear to The Ground Music”. Debut Album, “Essential” broke through iTunes top 100 & charted #91. Over 100,000 streams on Spotify.

“If Male-Female duo harmonies are your thing, you’ll love this track. The lyrics are crisp, reminding you of something that could have come out of Simon and Garfunkel or CSNY. It defintely holds that historic weight in my mind” – Ear to the Ground Music

CRYSTAL YATES:
Crystal Yates was listening to a sermon at Cross Timbers Church in Argyle when she had a musical epiphany. “Stop trying to separate the secular and sacred by treating everything as sacred,” implored the pastor, Toby Slough. It was then that the country singer-songwriter from McKinney realized her love of songwriting didn’t require her to compartmentalize her audience or subject matter.

It’s had a profound effect on how she approached her music — country, spiritual or otherwise. “If I were a doctor, I wouldn’t just treat the people who thought and behaved just like me. I would treat anyone,” says Yates.

She and her husband and guitar player, Will, have a new EP, The Other Side, to celebrate, but on Sunday mornings you will find them in front of thousands of worshippers leading the song service for Cross Timbers. “So I write out song prescriptions for my own heart, my friends, my family, and then share in hopes that they resonate and bring some hope and a voice to others.”

Though the songs sung in the sanctuary are different than those performed on the stages of local bars, the two types don’t necessarily come from different places. Yates has been influenced by Hank Williams Sr. more than by any other artist. Since the 1920s, the connection between the down-home tales of country and the God-fearing respect of gospel music — a combination Williams excelled at unlike few other artists in history — has been practically unbreakable.

Yates, who grew up on a steady diet of Merle, Waylon and Dolly, is a student of country music in all of its forms, so her songs don’t categorically fall into some sort of contemporary Christian/country hybrid. Such a narrow distinction would undermine the depth she requires from her own creations.

“Goodbye Letter,” from her last EP, I Believe, is “a cheating song” Yates wrote for a friend whose husband of 17 years had cheated on her many times. The friend was facing divorce and an uncomfortable swelling of uncertainty in her future. She had a “Deep hurt that needed hope,” Yates says. Such real life material requires a nuance that can’t typically be found on a close-minded path.

The new EP was recorded in Denton and produced by longtime friend McKenzie Smith of Midlake, who happens to not only be an acclaimed producer, thanks to recent work with Sarah Jaffe, but also the drummer at Cross Timbers.

The five songs on the new record offer Yates’ powerful voice a proper stage. But as is the case with the best country music, even the prettiest voices must be heard on songs built upon a foundation of rock-solid storytelling. To that end, Yates delves into material not often heard from a mega church’s praise and worship team.

Perhaps the new EP’s boldest song, “Hell on the Soul,” is a classic country heartbreaker. Yates delivers an aching vocal about needing “smoking, drinking, lovers and pills” to deal with pain and emotional torment, regardless of whether it’s the healthiest idea ever. If country music is “three chords and the truth,” as it has been famously described, then this song in particular is imminently country. The truth isn’t usually pretty and it isn’t often G-rated. Yates doesn’t need the truth to be anything it’s not.

“Whether it is worship or country, I approach being an artist as a soul, writing and singing to another soul, bound to a truth that has changed everything for me. I use my own journey to write and focus on relationships and experience. I am undoubtedly a spiritual person, so I write from that perspective. Sometimes I write directly to God, sometimes about God and sometimes about and to His people.”

Whether a song is initially intended for two-steppers, the believers in her church or a close friend in pain, it doesn’t have a genre-specific point of origin. Yates’ songs come from the kind of love she believes in and the kind that’s guided her through the tough times great songs are made of.

“I have battled depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and so many difficult seasons, and the most healing I have ever received was when I began to let love pour in me and then pour out that love on others,” she says. “That love changed how I saw myself, and that is the place I draw strength and write from.”