The Band CAMINO have had a busy past year, but not in the way that you think. With plans to tour nationwide postponed due to the pandemic, Jeffery Jordan, Spencer Stewart, and Garrison Burgess had nothing but time — time that they dedicated to writing, recording, and finalizing what’s ready to become their new album set to release this Fall, but not before the release of their brand new single, “Sorry Mom.”
Fresh off the heels of their last recent single, “1 Last Cigarette,” — an infectious rock anthem about regret and disappointment — today the indie pop-rock trio drop a new track. “Sorry Mom” showcases a quiet, acoustic, and emotional turn for the band’s discography. Rooted in Jordan’s natural approach to acoustic music, the single is a song story built on both apology and gratitude — one that sits somewhere in between the optimistic appreciation in this new era’s lead single, “Roses,” and the emotional brokenness heard throughout their 2019 release, tryhard. It’s a song of both regret and grace, and it proves there are more sides to The Band CAMINO than anyone but a diehard fan might realize.
“I’m trying / I’m human, I don’t know what I’m doing / This is me just being real with you, I guess,” sings Jordan on the track, which pulls back the curtain on the unfiltered shame the group has never had a problem sharing in their songs before. “Sorry Mom” sets the tone for a conversation between the band that ties together the threads between family, friendship, connection, and music. The trio meets up at Burgess’s house mid-morning in Nashville, sitting on a couch shoulder-to-shoulder like brothers, leaning into the friendship-fueled atmosphere, and opening up to EUPHORIA. about the musical influence their mothers had on them and how their camaraderie translates into them becoming one of the best bands on the rise today.
You guys are all about the live show and I’m sure it’s been hard to not play any, but has being away from touring the past year made it easier for you to put the finishing touches on your upcoming album?
Garrison Burgess: I think it’s been easier because it’s given us a mental break. Touring is a lot. When you’re out there, you’re not thinking about anything else except the job in front of you, so I feel like being away from it helped our writing and recording process.
Jeffery Jordan: We just had so much time! There were no time constraints so we got to go into full album mode, which was really cool, and it had an effect on the record that we made and the songs that we wrote.
You’ve built The Band CAMINO off of sad songs, so when you release a song like “Roses,” it is both inspiring and surprising. What was the story behind deciding to make what is probably the happiest song of yours so far the lead single for this new era?
Jeffery Jordan: A lot of our songs are sad. They’re emotional breakup songs, stream of consciousness and “What does life mean?” songs, so “Roses” has stood out as the most positive song we’ve ever made. It felt like a pep talk for us. No one’s ever happy all the time, but “Stop and smell the roses” was something I liked to tell myself. We all felt like it was a cool first foot forward for the record because it is full of sad songs but there is a theme of hopefulness and ways you can look at life that aren’t so negative. We actually wrote “Roses” before the pandemic, and as the world went crazy, rightfully so, and humanity kept going through a hard time, it just felt like that song meant more and more.
Spencer Stewart: It ties into what we made as kind of like a “Come as you are” record. We have your sad songs, your happy songs, your existential songs, your groovy songs. We just wanna be the band that people need us to be.
“Sorry Mom” shows an acoustic, quieter side of your sound, which is different from the indie-rock energy you’ve made signature for yourselves. What made you want to release a softer track like this?
Spencer Stewart: At the core of us as a band, we just want to write the best possible song, and when we heard this song, the demo was just acoustic and it felt like if we had added anything it would have felt fake. Jeffery is also just an acoustic boy at heart.
Jeffery Jordan: It’s a big part of me to write acoustic songs with that Americana sound. In the way that we want to be a band, we also just really want to play instruments and make music so however that looks, we try to make music that we’d like to listen to.
Garrison Burgess: One of the coolest things about Jeffery writing on an acoustic guitar is that you can do anything with that. If he comes in and plays us a song, it can go a million different directions. It’s so raw that you’ll know if the song is good or not. If it can be played with an acoustic guitar and your voice, then you know it’s great.
Did your moms or your parents have any influence on you getting into music when you were growing up? Is that why it was important for you to write this song for them?
Spencer Stewart: My mom definitely had a huge musical influence on me. She worked as a counselor at the church, and she helped get kids in the choir and forced me to be in the choir — in hindsight, I’m super grateful for it. She’s the one that told me I needed to take piano lessons and encouraged me to flex my music muscle for sure.
Jeffery Jordan: Same with my mom. My parents both made me take piano lessons growing up, and I did not want to but I’m so glad that they made me do that and later let me quit when I got to high school because as soon as I stopped having to play, I realized that I actually wanted to play.
Garrison Burgess: My mom is not musical whatsoever but she is a go-getter and one of the hardest working humans I know. My goal was always to play drums but to be able to audition for the middle school percussion section, you had to have two years of private piano instruction, and in hindsight, my mom pushing me to do that was the best thing ever. When I moved to Nashville, she was the one who was like, “You need to go.”
I think The Band CAMINO has such a universal appeal and there’s a reason you guys can collaborate with All Time Low but also tour with Dan + Shay and have it still make sense. Do you think living in a city as musical as Nashville influences you at all on creating eclectic music or does that come from somewhere else?
Spencer Stewart: I think the sound itself is kind of who we’ve always been, but I would say that Nashville has kind of let us be that because there are so many types of different people here. We didn’t even meet All Time Low or knew who they were until we moved to Nashville, so it definitely has allowed us to be our best and to create unashamedly.
Your new single shows that family and connection is important to you. Having been a band for five years now, do you think your friendship or brotherhood has an impact on your band experience in any way?
Jeffery Jordan: Oh, it’s so important. We are family. We’re brothers. Spencer’s always said, “A little bit more than a brother, a little bit less than a husband.” We’re somewhere in there. We’ve lived together a lot. We’ve lived together before, and we’ve been on the road. We see each other every day. We work together. We hang out together. We have all the same friends. Our lives are so intertwined, and even though relationships take work and it’s not always easy, at the core of all of it is our friendship.
Spencer Stewart: It’s the hard work that makes it so good.
Jeffery Jordan: It keeps you honest.
Spencer Stewart: Yeah, you can’t lie to somebody that lives almost exactly the same life as you.
Jeffery Jordan: I can’t imagine doing it alone. It keeps you in check. You can call each other out, hold each other accountable, and it’s great to be with guys you can follow your passion with.