Caamp: Caamp [CAAMP]

Why you'll love it

This is the band's own pressing of the debut, put out on their own label and mastered by Brian Lucey. It's where Taylor Meier and Evan Westfall's banjo-and-guitar folk first took shape, years before By and By topped the Heatseekers chart.

This edition

• Issued on the band's own label
• Mastered by Brian Lucey
• Cover photo by Taylor Meier

About the album

Before the big tours and the late-night TV spots, Caamp was two childhood friends from Upper Arlington, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. Taylor Meier and Evan Westfall met at summer camp in middle school, and Meier was playing coffee shops around Athens while studying at Ohio University when the songs on this record started piling up.

They wrote everything together and produced it with Jesse Henry, keeping it close and handmade: Meier's weathered voice, Westfall's banjo and not much else in the way. "Vagabond" and "All the Debts I Owe" have the easy pull of campfire singalongs, "Ohio" is a love letter to home, and "Iffy," "Misty" and "Mockingbird Song" show off a knack for hooks that would carry them a long way. Meier shot the cover photo himself at Strouds Run near Athens.

From here came By and By, Lavender Days, an Americana Music Association nomination and, in 2025, a No. 1 on Americana radio with "Let Things Go." Two friends who met at summer camp named their band Caamp, extra A and all, which is the kind of loyalty we look for in a regular customer.

Also at Kops: more Caamp on vinyl · browse Folk

Tracklist

Listen

On Caamp (cat# CAAMP001), a reissue of the 2016 album.