Camping In Alaska’s Homecoming:
Unexpected response to Please Be Nice, Homestead in Alabama, and Upcoming Album Release!
The five-piece alt/emo-rock band from Alabama, known as Camping In Alaska, has hit over one million streams on their debut album, Please Be Nice, that elicited their career and status as underground emo legends. Entirely deserving of praise after (semi) recently reuniting, members and I connected last week to discuss the current state of the band, and shout-out the things that got them here. Read on for behind the scenes covering the journey from subversive YouTube-only sensations to all-around influential musicians, why Please Be Nice was just an era, and what to look forward to and expect from our 2000s exemplars.
To start off–introduce yourself, and your role in the band!
Dani: I’m Dani, I play bass.
Austin: I’m Austin, I play guitar and sing.
Jacob S: I’m Jacob, I play drums.
Jacob: I’m also Jacob, I play guitar.
What are some of the inspirations for Camping In Alaska, either musical or nonmusical?
Austin: Me and Jacob met in a Taekwondo class when we were 11, and we bonded because we listened to Dead Kennedys. I’d say both of us, and most of us, come from a pretty punk background originally, we listened to Green Day, and Minor Threat, and you know all that kind of stuff growing up. Then I branched off specifically to Jawbreaker, and Samiam, and that’s still a lot of what I listen to is 90s emo and post-hardcore. Like Fugazi, and Pavement, and stuff like that, kind of forms a lot of our music, for me, personally. We also like stuff like System of A Down, and heavy metal. Jacob and I listen to a bunch of rap too. Just kind of from a lot of places.
What was the scene like in Alabama when you guys first formed Camping In Alaska, versus how it is now?
Jacob S: To me, there’s not really a scene here as much as there’s a couple of bands that play together and know each other. It’s not mean or anything, but it is clique-y. When we first started, there were a bunch of Christian metalcore bands that were playing shows together, like Victory Records type stuff, and then there were these garage-y punk type bands that were a little bit older, and those two things never crossed paths at all. But that was pretty much all there was, you know what I mean. We could not play a show, at all, unless we put in on ourselves.
Austin: Well honestly, the Christian metalcore and hardcore, they would book us with them sometimes, it’d just always be weird?! The ‘cool kids’ who ran the punk thing, [...] they just wouldn’t even give us the time of day. They’d just act like we were a bunch of kids.
Jacob S: We’re a lot more well-received now then we were then, but to me there wasn’t really a scene. I wouldn’t even say that it’s evolved a lot. It’s still very much about heavy music, which is cool, and the bands around here have definitely gotten a lot better than they were since we started.
Midwest Emo/Indie-Rock has a pretty strong DIY ethos. Can you share any memorable experiences from your journey as a DIY band, and how it shaped your identity within the scene?
Austin: I mean honestly, we’ve always done pretty much everything ourselves. We haven’t done anything with anybody up until very recently, and it’s still mostly DIY. Actually our manager, she would do everything for us. Our t-shirts back in the day, I mean she’d just thrift a bunch of t-shirts, cut out a pattern with cardboard, and spray paint them. Our friend, Brad, printed out some CD inserts for us back in the day, and then we just burned CDs and wrote with Sharpie, you know. We only very recently went to companies to make t-shirts and stuff like that. I mean we had to do it all ourselves, nobody wanted to fuck with us.
When you guys wrote and produced, Please Be Nice, what were your expectations? Did you know the impact your music would have on the post-emo fanbase or your local scene, or what did you hope to accomplish by sharing your music?
Austin: Hell no, we never thought it would do anything. I mean, we were literally sixteen when we were writing that album, seventeen when we recorded it. We were still in high school. Me and Jacob had been playing in my garage since we were fourteen, and we just wanted to record some songs. We saved up some money and went to this guy who had a home studio. “c u in da ballpit,” we had bought a certain amount of days, and we finished the songs in the beginning of the first day, so I wrote that song in like two hours and we just recorded it. I wrote the lyrics in like ten minutes, they don’t mean anything. We didn’t know what we were doing when we were kids, we just tracked it the best we could. The guy who recorded us did a lot of Christian metalcore, so he had never heard anything like what we were trying to do–we tried to show him Snowing, and Modest Mouse, and he just didn’t get it. He thought the vocals sounded really bad. He’s really great at stuff in his style for sure, but when we recorded it and then played it live, it had a bunch of distortion, I was screaming, it was a lot more punk-y than it turned out to be. Honestly, the reason I think it got popular was because he made everything clean, and punchy.
Jacob: I remember when a friend of ours uploaded that album to YouTube, and it had like 2,000 views after it had been up for a few months, and I was like, ‘hell yeah, we did it.’
With some of the earlier tracks specifically from Please Be Nice, hitting over a million streams, which would you say reflects the overall vibe of your band, or what track should new listeners stream if they wanted a glimpse of what your music sounds like, and why?
Austin: Please Be Nice was something we did when we were teenagers and it didn’t necessarily turn out even the way we intended it to at the time, I mean, all of the albums after that and the ones we’re working on don’t share much with it anymore [...] other than maybe some song structure and vocal things. All the clean production was not our choice on that, so all the ones after don’t have that (which I feel a lot of people were disappointed by) but we’re not going to go try and do what we did when we were teenagers. It would be weird; I wouldn’t feel happy doing that.
Dani: Yeah, it’d be dishonest.
Austin: All of our later stuff and the stuff we’re doing now, if you wanted to hear something like that, I would suggest “ICARUS.” What do you guys think?
Jacob S: “Reaching Heaven By Violence” off the new EP.
With Please Be Nice being amateur and lighthearted in content and overall style, in contrast with the depth by the personal experiences that inspired WELCOME HOME SON (2016), it’s important to understand and accept that a band is bound to grow both musically and personally, and the reflection of that journey from lyrics to melodies will be prevalent in future releases. In my opinion it’s what makes the experience of listening to a band for years, most dynamic, immersive and interesting. Camping In Alaska's progression, spanning from their initial demo to the latest release in 2023, "Hollow Eyes," stands as a captivating illustration of graceful evolution within an ever-shifting musical landscape. I am anticipating this upcoming release!
With you guys getting back together fairly recently (2019 playing shows), how has this reunion been? Both musically and relationally with each other? Has it been an easy transition to just hitting the road and play shows together?
Jacob S: No, we’re loving it.
Austin: I mean honestly, it kind of never feels like we take a break because every time we start again it’s just like how it always is. We’re all best friends. This is my wife who plays bass [Dani].
Jacob: During those times apart, I would always be like: ‘man I wish we were still playing music.’
Austin: I’m always writing songs too even on the breaks. Every time we would bring one to practice, they’re just always making it better.
What can fans expect from Camping in Alaska in the next year?
Austin: We are currently recording the new LP, and it will be out within the next year!
Jacob S: And tour announcement soon.
Austin: Yeah, we’re literally starting to record next weekend.
Any final words to your fans or anything to add?!
Austin: Thank everybody for all the success we’ve had–we wouldn’t be doing any of this without y’all. Thank you for interviewing us, we really appreciate it!
All: Thank you!
There is no question that Camping In Alaska continues to exact a resounding and uncompromising, alternative/emo sound–that has ultimately soared them to new heights. With the promising deliverance of an LP this year, and a tour to follow, fans can expect a packed year. Tune in and stay updated!
Written by: Allison Payne (@alliepaynex_)
Published on: February 7, 2024