Interview by Jennifer Bodine and Emma Hintz, with editing from Delaney Staack
Photos by Emma Hintz
The last time we spoke with Camden, he had just released the first single and title track of the EP, “Erosion”. Erosion is a five song conceptual EP, documenting Camden’s confrontation of issues of identity, family, and politics, culminating in his own self-acceptance. Sonically, the work is alive, kinetic, demonstrating Camden’s impressively broad pool of influences. Traces of everything from Chet Baker’s cool jazz to Moses Sumney’s art-pop shine and coalesce into something entirely it’s own. We caught up with Camden in his home studio in Los Angeles, and had the chance to pick his brain about big city vs. small town living, growing up religious and suppressing his true identity, his short stint as a reality tv realtor and more.
We last talked with you in October of last year. How have things changed for you since then?
I’ve really been focused on building out my studio and writing new music.
What’s your favorite part of your home studio?
My favorite thing is probably my Wurli (Wurlitzer). I always wanted one but it just never worked out, but some things aligned and I was able to bite the bullet and finally do it and it's been so worth it because I feel so Inspired every time I sit down and play it. It's the kind of thing Ray Charles played on, you know, Stevie Wonder, a ton of the artists I listen to. As soon as I played it, it just opened up a whole new dynamic. I also recently just got this piano, which was free on Facebook marketplace. I went by myself to pick it up from this couple in their mid-fifties, and they both helped me put it in my roommate's car. It was a labor of love. There’s so much I love in here, I could go on forever. I love this little organ I got from my friend Doron. He’s a musician friend I met just before I moved to LA; he plays bass for The Marías and has this incredible set-up in his garage. He kind of inspired me to set mine up as well. These drums belong to a friend of mine, and he just didn't have space for it. So he was like, can I just leave it at your place?
And who is that?
Oh! This is maybe something. I have a picture here of Ben Folds and his baby. I've always been a huge fan of his, like, since I was in high school and a friend of mine that I met in Nashville worked for him and Ben told her to give everything in his storage unit away. She told me I could just come and get whatever I wanted, and I saw this and it spoke to me, now it sits over the drums in my studio.
They’re watching over you.
They are!
Do you feel like having the home studio has given you more inspiration and motivation to make music?
Yes, it’s translated well into what I’ve been making for sure. I mean, it’s such a mess right now, but just being able to sit down and look outside and have the door open helps me to be my most artistic self.
Before you had a home studio, what was your process like? Were you renting time at other people's places or going to friend's houses?
Friends' houses, mostly. This EP was recorded at my friend’s home studio in Nashville. I lived in Nashville before moving to LA, and he and I—this guy named El Saison—have been friends for a while. We just said, ‘Let's make something without any expectation,’ and we met every Wednesday for like a year and just kind of started. It was usually me playing his Wurli and him on drums, and we would write songs that way. Then, we would bring in a band for the rest of it.
Have you recorded any music since you've been in LA? Or is your heart set on recording in Nashville?
I have recorded music since being in LA. But it’s funny because it's totally different from the EP, which I finished about a year ago. I’ve found that I’m inspired by my friends and the kind of music they're listening to and playing. They’ve been inspiring me toward more folk/1970s/singer-songwriter stuff.
Do you feel like the change in location has played a role in the change in your sound? Nashville has its own specific sound, a huge country scene, of course. How has coming out of that affected your work?
It's so funny because when I lived in Nashville, and I love Nashville, I felt a little bit like a knife in a gun store. The kind of music I made, which was more of an indie rock/jazz/alternative thing—there wasn’t really much of a scene for it. More of my inspiration over the years has actually come out of the London music scene. I would try to go to London at least once a year and be a part of the music scene over there. I played some shows and made friends, and I was heavily influenced by artists like King Krule. I keep calling it an indie salad because there are so many artists I've been influenced by like Dirty Projectors, James Blake, Moses Sumney, Oscar Jerome, Lianne La Havas. So, I just blended this indie salad with my background in jazz but we added an edge to it with weird textures and synthesizers.
I wanted to ask you about that specifically, the use of analog versus electronic, because I
think you can always tell. Like you said, there’s this apparent texture, almost a crunchiness, that I think is way more pleasant and dynamic.
I feel the same way. Stock drum sounds just start to feel like AI at some point, or like shopping at Target, where everyone is going to have the same thing. I think using analog gear is more like going thrifting, where it’s just like, “Oh, what weird thing can I find that no one else will have?” Everything was really organic in that house studio. My friend was really good about using tape machines and analog gear, and not much was made with traditional Logic sounds. Everything was pretty much like an old eighties keyboard, even for a lot of the beats, like on “Erosion.” We used an old beat machine to create the sounds in the beginning.
Tell us a little about the EP. How did you put it together?
It's a conceptual EP focused around growing pains. I grew up in a pretty sheltered environment— a small town, like I said—and my parents were pastors. There were a lot of things I’d never experienced in life as a result of the way I grew up. The first song, “talks Like She Knows” is kind of like a sexual awakening. The second song is called “Throw Up”, and I wrote it during this time of extreme political tension. It was frustrating to have people in my life who didn't agree with my political ideologies, most of which I consider to be basic human rights. I just could not understand why they were on the side they were on. Everything was escalated, and it all felt so gross. I didn’t know what to do other than just throw up. The third song, “Shapeshifting”, is about trying to fit into whatever situation you find yourself in. I didn’t intend it to be a ‘bi’ song, but, looking back on the lyrics, it kind of does fit. Trying to make everyone happy, trying to please your family and friends, and hiding who you are for fear of what people might think of you. The last song, Erosion, is just about coming to peace with yourself, learning to love yourself, flaws and all, however that looks.
When did you write and record this EP? How long did it take?
It took almost two years to finish the music and another two years to finish the videos. I’m almost hesitant to say that. I want it to sound as fresh and exciting as it feels, even though it’s been finished for a minute. I wrote it in 2020 during COVID and that immense political tension, and it took me a while to get to a place where I wanted to release it. I wanted everything lined up, the album, the videos, all of it.
Tell us more about the people you worked with to make this EP happen.
I was really intentional about who I chose to work with. I wanted to work with people who inspired me and/or had worked with artists that inspired this project. I was able to get some of my favorite musicians in Nashville on the record. For example, I worked with a world class drummer named Petar Janjic who worked with Prince and toured with Corey Wong and all of these heavy hitters in jazz and funk. I also got to work with Beni Giles,
who mixed “Talks Like She Knows.” He mixed and produced Lianne La Havas’ last record. I was really excited to be working with people like them. It was hugely inspiring.
Tell us about the visual aspect of the EP.
I went to England to shoot the videos. I went specifically to work with this director I connected with on Instagram named Liam Painter. He did some work for Oscar Jerome and King Krule that I really loved, so I was very excited to get to work with him. He and his partner Frances Morley co-directed. It worked out well too because I had an excuse to visit England. We had five days to shoot, which was tight. We had a crew of about ten people hanging out and working from like 6:30am to 2:00am every day. It was a lot of work, but they were all friends and everyone was so excited to be there. It was amazing. There was one scene we shot on a beach, and I’ve never been so cold in my life. The wind was cutting right through my coat. It was the middle of spring, so you would think it would be warmer, but you would be wrong. As cold as I was, it was so much fun. Such a great crew.
Have you done anything like that before?
Yes and no. I’ve done one video, but doing a conceptual visual EP is very different. There are five videos—well, really I’ve been saying four and a half. It’s four songs and an interlude.
I like four and a half.
Liam Painter, the guy who edited and co-directed the videos, is an amazing visual artist as well. He has a unique, very special style. I haven't seen anything like it. In the videos you’ll see, he did hundreds of drawings and animated them to a really cool effect. It’s amazing to have someone come in and create something based on your music. It would’ve been very easy to just shoot and edit the project and be done with it. It was amazing to have put in additional effort. It really elevated the craft. Another example of that elevation actually came with the wardrobe. There’s a guy named Callum Painter, who is the brother of the director, and he’s also an artist. He has a company called Made By Callum where he makes bags and clothing. There’s a sweater vest I wear for the first two songs that he made out of carpet specifically for me. It was a little big, but Liam was able to quickly tailor it right before we went out to shoot. I was just surrounded by creative geniuses. The wardrobe as a whole was sort of a mad dash because the stylist we booked backed out, so we were throwing together what we could. I found this great, very seventies suit in a charity shop over there, and I wore it alongside my grandfather’s bolo tie, which was special to me. It was a little chaotic, but it came together beautifully. It was
really valuable to be working with people who have diverse talents and interests, you know?
In preparing for the shows you’re playing in support of this EP, how does it feel to go back to the style of music you recorded rather than the style you’re creating now, a year later?
I'm actually really excited. It is a little more pressure because it’s so different. I’m most excited to get a band together again. I haven’t played any shows since moving to LA about a year and a half ago. I had a full jam band in Nashville and this music is just so fun to perform live. You have to get amazing musicians on it because it’s really quite complicated. With the new music I’ve been writing, I could just show up with a guitar and play acoustic and that would be fine. This requires a little heavy lifting. I think anyone who sees this EP performed live will be really pleased. The band is pretty impressive.
Are you looking to plan and book more shows for the future?
I would definitely like to! I think I'll start booking more shows. My dream scenario would be to hop on a tour and open for somebody, and I think, now that I have the EP out, this would be a good time to start putting that out there.
In your wildest dreams, who would you like to tour with?
There's so many people. I'm a huge fan of this Brazilian guy named Tim Bernardes. King Krule would be a dream. I think James Blake would be awesome, too. Just people in a very experimental/jazz kind of space.
You’ve been in LA for about a year. What effect has being in LA had on your music? Do you feel like you’ve met people who inspire and push you?
There’s a huge pool of talent, and there are all kinds of different artists and different scenes that you can plug into if you want. It’s nice to be somewhere where it feels like the possibilities are limitless. Even going to house parties and things like that, you run into people that could impact your career more often than anywhere I've lived in the past.
Does that ever intimidate you, knowing that any interaction could be an important one?
It used to, but I think I’ve been around it so long that I’ve become a little jaded. I've kind of learned that even if somebody can change your life, the odds they're going to are very slim. These days, in music, you kind of just have to do everything for yourself until what you have going is undeniable. Because why is the label going to sign somebody who's not already famous on TikTok? Especially when there are a hundred zillion people who are already famous on TikTok who they could sign. There’s less risk involved for them.
So, there are negatives to that. It can be hard to focus on actually making art when you feel the need to be creating content on a regular basis. I’m slowly accepting that as just a part of being in this industry. You've got to make your own splash first to get people to come to you.
I think that’s an interesting conversation in and of itself, the way you used to hear stories all the time of someone from a record label walking into a bar and hearing this amazing artist and signing them on the spot. That will probably never happen again. Like you said, labels—bigger labels, at least—are less focused on talent and music and more focused on marketability. There are positives and negatives to social media, though. It has made it so much easier to find artists as a listener.
Exactly. For the first time ever, you don’t need a label to find an audience, you can find that for yourself on social media. That has become a catch-22, because labels don’t want to work with someone without that audience and notoriety. Also, there are more people making music now than ever before. It used to be so much harder to make music and distribute it; you needed to pay for a studio and have the support of a label and sell your CDs. Now you can record at home and just upload it to any streaming platform, and anyone in the world can access it.
It’s so interesting to think about how much of an impact social media and the internet has had on music and art as a whole. It changed so much in such a short amount of time. It’s crazy how much it’s expanded since we were kids.
Yeah, when I was growing up, everyone was obviously on the internet, but it wasn’t huge and all-consuming like it is now. It’s the same with social media. I made an Instagram account when that started, No one really had it then. It was the same with YouTube, you know? There used to be a handful of people with one million or more subscribers, but now I’ll see the most random accounts, and they’ll have something like 17 million subscribers. I see that and just think, who are you people? How have I never heard of you? And I’m finding people every day on Spotify, and I’ll have never heard of them, but they’ll have millions of monthly listeners.
I think a lot of that is owed to labels and artists paying or negotiating with Spotify to get songs put on playlists.
That's a big thing. Also, so many people are going viral on different sides of TikTok. I’ll sometimes get a TikTok on my For You Page that’s like, “I can't escape this song?” It’ll be something I had no idea existed, and the sound will have tens of thousands of videos.
Yeah! I’ll get something like that and just think, “That is not my reality. We’re in different worlds.” I love hearing about people’s algorithms. I think it tells you so much about a person.
My algorithm has picked up that if it shows me a video of a tornado or like, how to avoid a shark attack, then I will watch it every time. Or I’ll get those million-part true crime videos, and I don’t care about true crime content like that, but they’ll start off like, “This crazy shit happened!” and then I’m sat for the next thirty minutes. They got me. More often than not, though, I get through the whole thing, and they don’t reveal anything at all, or the opener was just fully a lie. And then you’ve just wasted an hour of your life to not even get the satisfaction of a reveal. It’s crazy.
Do you see yourself in LA for the long haul?
You know, it’s hard to say. I love it here for so many reasons. Always something happening, the weather, the nature—the mountains and the beaches and the desert are right there. At the same time, there is something very homey about being somewhere more grounded. I just visited my brother in Nashville, and Nashville in the summer is so nice. There was something nostalgic about it. It felt like it did when I was growing up. Like, you're walking barefoot on the concrete, and people are wearing their cut-offs. We made homemade ice cream. I just felt super cozy and nice. Ultimately, I think where I end up depends on who I end up with, but I do love living here right now.
Have you been back to your hometown anytime recently?
The last time I went back was five or six years ago. My cousin still lives there. She lives in the house I grew up in. We went back for Christmas, and it was just crazy to be back. It was interesting growing up in a small town. I never really felt like I belonged there. But since I’ve moved away and lived in LA and Nashville, I feel this desire to embrace my small town-ness. I like remembering where I'm from and embracing the impact it’s had on me. I think a large part of my personality comes from growing up in the Midwest, like how people there are overly nice. You bump into them and they apologize to you, you know? Of course, not everyone is that way, but it’s an overall Midwestern thing, as opposed to New Yorkers who will just tell you how it is. It has its negatives for sure, though. Small towns can be pretty close-minded. Like, my parents put me in gymnastics when I was little, and I was good at it. You can imagine how badly I was bullied. Being in a tiny town, you either played football or you hunted. Those were the things boys were allowed to do. Anything else, even playing piano, was just inconceivable
Erosion is, in part, about self-acceptance. I know that for you, this self-acceptance includes coming to terms with your bisexuality and becoming comfortable being open about it. Can you tell us more about that experience?
It’s one of those things—I've always been bi, but I've never explored it. I just officially sort of came out about it. I posted about it on Tik Tok a few months ago, actually, but I still haven’t been brave enough to post on Instagram because of extended family that is not super supportive. Not that I should care what they think, but it’s a big step, you know? I
grew up in a religious family in a very small town. I’m just dipping my toes in the waters and seeing what it's all about.
I can understand, I also grew up very religious and closeted.
What was it like for you coming out?
It was complicated. My family is religious as a whole, but my father's side is very French and very Catholic. I’d been told I would be dead to them if I married a woman. Eventually, I realized that, at some point, I had to live for myself. They could take it or leave it. One of the scariest times of my life, but one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. It’s freedom. I’m happy that you’re taking that step.
It’s just been in the past few months. I want to be open about being bi, and I want to talk about it, but at the same time, I'm nervous. I don't want to make that my whole identity, you know. It’s part of who I am, but I don’t want to beat a dead horse. I want the music to speak for itself.
I totally get that. Whenever an artist’s work is described as queer before anything else, I tune out completely. I do think, however, that it is interesting and valuable to have that context when listening to or reading someone’s work. That understanding can make the experience richer and more fulfilling. It can add incredible dimension to already good work. The only problem comes when it’s used to prop up mediocrity. Like, is “queer” all you are? What about the work?
No, I totally agree. I do feel like, with good music, you can hear the pain, even if it’s a happy song. Think about a lot of those Motown records, even a song like “My Girl” by The Temptations. It’s so upbeat and happy, it makes people smile, they play it at weddings, but there’s sadness there, too. You can hear the pain from the performers, just from the crushing of life. Especially when it comes to music made during or the civil rights movement. Everything the black community endured is palpable in their art, even when the art is upbeat. Obviously my experience is not the same, but I think that being from a small town and growing up closeted makes a difference in my sound and the way I make music. There’s this pain behind even the happiest songs, because I’ve lived a life where I’ve come to know what it’s like to be rejected or not seen as normal because of the way that I am.
Before we go, one last question. What was it that made you pursue a career in music?
This is kind of a long and convoluted story. Bear with me. When I lived in Tampa, I was briefly in real estate. I worked with this woman named Jackie Youngblood. The Tampa Bay Times wrote an article about her calling her “the nudist realtor”, and TLC picked up ten episodes. They wanted young people to be on the show, so my older brother and I were Jackie’s apprentices while she sold real estate to nudists in Tampa.
Oh wow. I was actually reading about how many nudist colonies there are in Florida the other day. I saw that Pasco County is apparently the nudist capital of the world. How long were you doing that?
It was just about a year. It ran for ten episodes. Our time slot was right after Honey Boo Boo and right before Sex Sent Me to the ER.
Primetime.
And then we didn't get picked up again, which I'm thankful for in a way, because it was such a weird work environment. For the record, I was never naked. In case you were wondering. As weird as it was, though, I’m glad for it. That’s kind of what got me into actually making music. Being from a small town, I didn’t know anybody who had a career in music. It kind of seemed like a farfetched fantasy, so I never pursued it. I told myself I would just be a teacher, a singing teacher. But then I was suddenly, accidentally on this TV show, and I was around people working on that show who were creative for a living, even if they were making a reality TV show about nudist real estate. It's funny, but it made a career in music seem possible.
That is a really interesting pipeline. I’ve known a lot of musicians who work in real estate while they’re working toward having a career in music. It’s like that Vulfpeck album, The Joy of Music, The Career of Real Estate. That is a highly compelling piece of Camden lore.
I’m glad it happened, even if it was so strange. It’s a good story at least.
Watch the new "Erosion" Visual EP here.
Keep up with Camden on Instagram.
Stream Camden here.
Catch Camden on tour this Summer opening for Daniel Nunnelee, see tour dates here.
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