Image via YouTube / Camden
At the tail end of 2021, indie rockers Camden reunited, unleashing their first album in 20 years, Skeleton Wedding, Wedding Music. Today, the band is taking their next step forward with the premiere of their new video, “Sun, Light,” from the album.
While members of Camden would go on after their initial run to form Milwaukee indie rock mainstays like Decibully, The Promise Ring and Dramatic Lovers, getting the band back together was always on the minds of frontman BJ Seidel, Ryan Weber, Eric Osterman and Biju Zimmerman. The pandemic allowed the band time to experiment with home recordings which would inevitably become Skeleton Wedding, Wedding Music. While the band members live in separate states, demos were passed around via email chains and Dropbox folders to ultimately compile the final record. Modern replicas of amplifiers were purchased, and Zimmerman played a digital replica of his old drum kit in order to maintain the sound that the band honed on their last record, Reel Time Canvas, two decades prior. A Zoom call during the pandemic reignited things musically, but plans weren’t truly hashed out.
“There wasn’t really a moment where we said ‘hey we’re gonna do this.’” said Seidel. “I sent a track over, and then we went from there.”
“Ryan Weber, who masterminded all of this, sent me a Midi drum pad, and then BJ would send over a song for me to put drums to” said Zimmerman. “Next thing you know, he just kept sending songs, and we had 18 or 19 tracks total. We had to cut for once, which is something we never had to do before.”
The video, much like the album, was recorded in isolation from one another. While the band hasn’t been able to get in the same room together, it was most convenient to compile performance clips on their own, as Dramatic Lovers had recently done for their “Slow Down” video. Zimmerman led the way for the video production.
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“Biju sent over a video of him playing drums to the song, and he was like ‘if you guys send me some clips of you playing, I’ll edit them together” recalls Seidel.
“I had everyone shoot three angles of themselves playing along to the song, and then I was able to pick and choose from there” said Zimmerman. “We weren’t sure if we wanted to do a lyric video at first, but it looked cool with what came out of it.”
While no formal plans for a reunion have been established, the buzz surrounding the band’s new material is certainly enough coaxing to make the eventual gig happen if the stars aligned. The band also has enough material for another EP, but there may be more writing involved before the next Camden project comes to life. In the meantime, it’s a treat to see one of the former staples of Milwaukee’s indie scene thrive in the new video, which you can check out for the first time here:
