Campfire OK: Interview, Ticket Giveaway Contest!

Campfire OK, Prism Tats (Garett Vandercrimp formerly from Koko and the Sweetmeats), DJ Jacob James @ The Crocodile | 7/13 | 8pm | $12 (Get Tickets) | All Ages

Photo Credit: Ben Blood

Campfire OK, which once started out as the project of singer songwriter Mychal Cohen, are comprised of wildly talented individuals including Melodie Knight, Andrew Hanigan Eckes, Aaron Huffman, and Brandon Milner. The band has defined their signature recorded sound with precise harmonies along with the warm acoustics of piano, guitar, banjo, bass and an array of percussion. Live, they pack as much action as they can on the stage, and their fans eat it up.

Campfire OK are playing a show this coming Friday at the Crocodile. They haven’t played a Seattle show since December, but it’s been for good reason; they’ve been touring and hard at work on a new album entitle When You Have Arrived, the followup to their February 2011 debut, Strange Like We Are.

SSG Music has been advocating for this band since Cohen sent Campfire OK’s first recordings to us in February of 2010. Their close attention to the nuance of what makes a song dynamic and the talent this band has fostered have garnered this group of musicians a loyal fanbase in the Pacific Northwest. Campfire OK is poised to expand their national footprint with the release of the new record they have up their collective sleeve.

Mychal Cohen was kind enough to answer some questions for us about the evolution of the band and what’s next including details about When You Have Arrived. Check it out, and be sure to look for the ticket giveaway contest for their July 13th show below:

How long have you been making music as Campfire OK?

Mychal Cohen: I have been writing under the Campfire Ok name for about 3 years now. But we didn’t start playing shows as CFOK until about november of 2010.

Do you do all the composing?

MC: On “Strange Like We Are” I did about 95% of the composing. While writing the record, I was pretty much the only person in the band. I was working with a drummer for the songs, but I always did the writing. As the songs came together I needed more instrumentation, and with some of those instruments, I needed other people to play them. So instead of writing the parts out for everyone, we would get together at my studio (which was just in my bedroom at the time) and I would just direct them on how a parts should feel, or develop, or influence the song. From there I would let them write the part. With that came conversations of if a note should be changed, or an accent should be added, all the music mumbo jumbo.

Do you have a new record in the works?

MC: Oh yes. We sure do. It is actually one hundred percent finished. Mixed, mastered, and artwork done. We recently started working with some really amazing managers out of Florida, and Los Angeles, and we have just been working on finding the right home for it. Whether that is a major label, or a label like Sub Pop, or even releasing it on our own, is still up in the air. We have started conversations with many people, and we are just waiting till the right home resents itself.

Talk the difference between your sound on your debut record vs. your live show

MC: The main differences between our live show, and our debut are pretty drastic. Our live shows are hyper energetic, dynamic, and we have even changed the forms of some of our songs to better fit a performance. I firmly believe that having songs that translate multiple ways is a strong suit. As long as you don’t change lyrics, I think its rad.

Do you find it difficult to bring the same level of intensity to your records as you bring to your live show?

MC: That is honestly something I have never thought about. The albums we have made, and will make, are going to be how we see an album should be. It will have its own forms of intensity. that feeling may even come in many different ways. Our live shows are probably seen as being more “intense” because people can actually see our expressions we make while playing the songs. We can’t yet do that with a record, and maybe we shouldn’t ever. haha.

What are you most proud of when you think of your new music?

MC: I am most proud of my band and all of their contributions to the songs I bring to them. They are amazing people and astounding musicians. I am so unbelievable happy with our sonic development. We are growing in to what we want to be and that makes me extremely proud.

Will we get to hear some of that at your show this month?

YES!! It is going to be crazy!!!

Special thanks to Mychal Cohen for the interview.

Campfire OK Ticket Giveaway Contest:

For your chance to win a pair tickets to OK Campfire July 13th at the Crocodile, tweet a link of this post including @SSGMusic or @SSGPromo at the end of the tweet. We’ll let you know if you’re the winner and contact you for details.

Watch Campfire OK’s music video for “Brass” below,  and enjoy the beauty: