Interview With Campfire OK

First off How did the name of the group originate?

Brandon: Similar, to the stories behind our songs, this is a bit of an opaque mystery. I suspect Mychal went into the woods on a spirit walk and hallucinated the band name.

Andrew: I think he was in a bar and it came to him.

Mychal: It was a total fluke to be honest with you. I made it up one day long before the record was made and I just couldn't shake it.

With all the members being able to Play a multitude of instruments …. Have any of you made a instrument from scratch just to play something that no one ever heard before?

Mychal: There is some trash can on the album. No joke.

Brandon: When I started recording music as a teen, I didn't own many actual instruments so I improvised percussion using scissors and cutlery.

Andrew: Before I owned an electric guitar, I built one out of plywood and parts of a guitar that we found lying in the grass, getting wet from sprinklers. I also modified a straight mute for a trumpet to include a telephone mic so I could run my horn through a guitar multi-effects pedal. I think Mychal did some of singing into a similar effects pedal on this album.

If you were the serial killers of the Music industry what bands would you dismember first and why?

Mychal: I would not dismember any bands. They are our friends.

Brandon: I don't have a good answer for this because sometimes when a band is truly awful, I might accidentally like them...ironically.

Do you feel that Videos that basically go viral and make a band famous overnight is a good thing or bad and why?

Mychal: I think it can be very very good for a band if they are seasoned musicians. If a band is full of young musicians who have not yet seen the business side along with the creative side, it can destroy them. But if a band is full of hard working, level headed, talented musicians then I think it is an amazing phenomena.

Brandon: There's really two ways something goes viral - one because it's really exciting and connecting with a lot people, quickly. The other way, alas, is when something is catastrophically and horrifically stupid. Let's avoid that shall we?

With so many members in Campfire OK is there a main writer of the songs or are they a collaborated effort?

Brandon: Mychal is the main songwriter, but we all find ways to put our stamp on things. I play guitar, bass & piano too so I clearly can't be made to shut up. We're very supportive of each other though, and we often try every twist and flavor of a song first before figuring out it might have been better "the way we played it first."

Mychal: True, I write the "songs" and we all contribute to the instrumentation of them. We have a very fluid musical collaboration effort. I put songs in bunny ears because most people refer to a song as the basic chord structure and the lyrics.

What can we expect from you guys this year?

Mychal: A lot. Surprises. Tours.

Brandon: More beautiful strange sounds.

Andrew: Yeah, making more videos and new acoustic recordings.

Campfire Ok at Oddfellows from Christian Sorensen Hansen on Vimeo.

Campfire OK