by koby hirschaut
photo by ryan simmons
There is true beauty to be found on the broken road. And if the path is confusing, it only makes the destination more deserved. Cameron Whitcomb has walked on more confusing paths than most. Coming to music very late, he was discovered on Reddit after posting videos of himself performing karaoke on his couch. He’s stepped into the spotlight of the American Idol stage as well as the much of a Canadian pipeline maintenance team. Battling vice and the daunting task of marketing yourself with no team around you, Whitcomb has put in those oft-discussed hidden hours that many never get to see. Now, on the brink of an EP and his first headlining tour, Cameron sat down with us to talk about his mindset and the value of keeping in tune with every piece of your own journey.
How do you think growing up in Canada shaped your musicality and your love of music?
Cameron: “Y’know what’s so funny? Growing up, I never listened to country music at all. Not until I was, like, 18 years old… I always looked at country music as, ‘Oh, Luke Bryan and I don’t wanna listen to Luke Bryan.’ ...For me, I strictly listened to Eminem and a lot of the British Columbia rap scene, the Vancouver rap scene had a huge impact on how I looked at music and what I listened to, y’know? Like Stompdown Killaz and Madchild, Swollen Members… Canadian rap groups. That’s what I grew up on. At 17 or 18 my brother introduced me to Johnny Cash… I started singing when I found myself listening to Tyler Childers, I was like, ‘Wow, I can kinda sound like that.’ That was around when I was 18… I started posting little karaoke videos singing Tyler Childers on my couch and posting them on Reddit… and that was the start of my career.”
You’ve really garnered so much success in just a few years. You’re still just 21 years old! Has your youth affected how you view your place in the creative world? Do you trust your perspective when you’re writing?
Cameron: “I think what a lot of these kids have wrong nowadays is that they’re writing what they think people want to hear versus stuff that they’ve actually experienced and actually been through. I’ve noticed personally, whenever I’m writing a song, unless it literally comes from myself, you don’t end up with something that great. Even if it’s from the perspective of someone else. One of the first songs I ever wrote was for one of my buddies, his brother had committed suicide four years ago and we really sat down and I got to really pick his brain and we ended up with a really great song… Write songs that mean something to you, and hopefully they mean something to someone else. That’s what I’ve learned. For me, I write a lot of songs about addiction… because that means something to me, that makes sense to me… something I understand… I’ve struggled with addiction since I was 13 years old and I’m a year and four months clean now, but I’ll always understand that, the desperation and trying to understand why I liked doing drugs so much.”
So much of your journey has been done in the public eye. From being a teenager, battling vices and working on pipelines to being discovered and thrown into the spotlight of American Idol. Not to mention how vital promotion on social media is these days to musical artists just starting out. Do you feel in any way like your growth has been affected or altered by having all these eyes on you?
Cameron: “I think I was waiting for some wins, y’know? It was a pretty dark point in my life… just drinking so heavily and doing drugs and American Idol was really cool. That was a point where I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll quit drinking during the show.’ I was really looking forward to that and when I got kicked off the show it was like, ‘Holy fuck.’ I thought that was the point when my career was really starting to accelerate but it was the opposite. I got sent back to Canada and I didn’t know anybody in Canada and didn’t know how to write songs or play guitar. I tried doing the music thing for the whole summer… I didn’t have any songs of my own. I would go play these little bullshit shows with all cover songs… so many things I wish I did differently. But, honestly, I’m glad I got a taste of like — I thought I had made it! But then I got kicked off Idol and I was totally mistaken… I’d go around and see if I could get recognized in my hometown… I didn’t know what to do! So I fucked around all summer, did some shows, spent all the money I’d made on the pipeline and then went back to work in the winter. That’s when I was like, ‘Okay, I’m just gonna put everything I’ve got into getting better at my craft… I’m gonna learn how to play guitar and learn how to write songs. I’m gonna do it and I’m gonna work social media and that’s gonna be it… get voice lessons… I’m gonna post every day!”
It sounds like you’re saying you became notable and then you had to teach yourself to do the songwriting aspect after. Was it difficult to come off American Idol and then have to teach yourself that?
Cameron: “Yeah, I wrote a lot of shitty songs man! Honestly, I credit the music I grew up listening to, the straight rap music… A lot of writers, they hear other writers that they wanna be like and they try to write like those other writers instead of writing like themselves; don’t be scared to say weird shit! Dude, a lot of writers look at me and they’re like, ‘Why are you saying it like that?’ I’m like, ‘‘Cause I want to!’ But I’m still learning all the time, I’m learning every day… I’ve written now with a lot of writers and I’ll pick their brains every time. Never stop learning. As soon as you think you’ve gotten to a point where you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m better than that guy,’ like, fuck no, you aren’t… Be around who you wanna be like.”
So, upon listening to your song “Quitter,” I was struck by how straightforward and raw your discussion of sobriety was. Scrolling through the comments, I saw many people discussing their experiences and journeys through sobriety and even discussing family members struggling with the disease. I cannot imagine that the connection you share with your fans is lost on you. I’d love to hear your thoughts when people are able to hear your music and see themselves and their journeys in you?
Cameron: “Man, it’s incredible. It seems like every experience is so different, but at the same time they all correlate. Even if you aren’t an addict yourself, everyone has had somebody that struggled with addiction and it takes a toll on everyone around you… I think that’s why the song resonates with so many people even if you yourself haven’t struggled with addiction. On Facebook, really, is the only place where I’ll get hate for that song. People will be like, ‘Oh, you’re getting sober for the wrong reasons.’ But there is no wrong reason to get clean… It’s neat hearing people’s experience with it and especially people really resonating with the song and I try my best to — I don’t reply to comments as much as I should, but I do go through my DMs and I do find every now and again a story will really resonate with me and I’ll take the time to just talk to that person, y’know? I try my best to, it gets kinda overwhelming sometimes. But, I’m really grateful people feel they can be vulnerable with me. I think that’s important, I think we should all be a lot more vulnerable. That was really important for me, taking the time to really talk about shit and really find out why I am the way that I am.”
How do you know that a final product has satisfied your vision of it?
Cameron: “It’s just a feeling, man. The latest tune that I released, ‘Love Myself,’ we recorded that like four different times before I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ As far as the mixing and mastering, I have no idea. If it sounds the way you want it to sound when you’re in the production stages of it, the mixing and mastering they can do whatever they want with it. For me, I’ve never been overly precious about the music itself at all, I’m more of a lyricist to tell you the truth, I’m all about — if you’ve listened to ‘Shoot Me Dead,’ that shit sounds terrible. It sounds awful, y’know what I mean? It’s an awful sounding song because we recorded it, never got it mixed, never mastered then put it out the next day because I was like, ‘Fuck it, dude, I need a song out, this is ridiculous.’”
You are about to embark on a headlining tour this fall! Congratulations first and foremost. Upon speaking to artists, they all talk about how exhilarating a tour can be and I am always interested in the mindset of the headlining act on these tours. First off, how are you feeling? And secondly, do you feel that responsibility? To an outsider like me, it honestly seems like the headliner is the host of a big, traveling party circus sort of thing.
Cameron: “For me personally, I’ve never been on tour before… I’ve heard a lot of stories but I don’t think you actually understand it until you’ve been immersed in it and I have not yet… I put all the right people behind it, I bought my own tour bus, we tried the Sprinter van and tried a couple overnights and I could tell how tired the band was and I just said, ‘Fuck it.’ And bought a Prevost. I wanna do this right and I wanna make sure everybody’s comfortable and make sure my guys are taken care of, I’m taken care of. I’m just gonna really stay healthy and get as much rest as I can but treat every show like it’s the last. I want everybody to get an equal opportunity to either meet me or say hi; I think that’s extremely important. That’s my favorite part of doing the shows, just meeting people… I’m gonna try my best to put on the best show that we can. An honest show, a real show. I don’t even know what to think or how to prepare; I’m gonna prepare the best I can, but I don’t even know what the fuck to expect.”
You excited though?
Cameron: “Oh. Fucking hyped dude, yeah. It’ll be sweet. I’m so excited to see the States.”
Lastly, what’s next for Cameron Whitcomb? What sorts of moods and ideas are you hoping to delve into next?
Cameron: “I’m just really excited for some more experience in my life. I feel like everything — I’d love to pull shit out of thin air, but I think for me, personally, I’m just gonna see what this next chapter of my life is and then just keep going with that. Just keep putting 100% into whatever I’m doing, whatever that may be and maybe we’ll get some really cool songs out of it. Just try my best. Just look forward and try to put — I feel like whatever you put into the world it’ll come back tenfold.”