Ever since I was in elementary school, I’ve loved carrying a tune— as a little kid, I’d always be whistling, humming jingles from commercials and coming up with melodies. My parents had a great music collection and, riding around in the van with my mom, we always had the radio on or a few CDs rolling around. Both my mom and my dad really loved Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and that was the first show that they took my brother and I to when we were little—when I was in sixth grade. My dad was also really into The Clash, the Ramones, Elvis Costello, The Police and those types of bands and my mom had Cake’s Prolonging the Magic in the van.

When I was in middle school, I had a really good general music teacher and we had a guitar unit in that class, which was the first time I got into the guitar. She was a big Beatles fanatic and told me to go out and get The Beatles’ 1 CD, which was the first CD I bought on my own. I also loved the movie School of Rock and that was a big inspiration for me—I had dreams of being like Zack Mooneyham.

I remember my dad playing me The Clash’s London Calling and telling me that the imperfections are what makes punk-rock music so great. That really struck a chord with me. At the time, I thought that I had to be an absolute shredder. If I had to be a professional, then I had to learn my scales and become a master. When my dad brought that to my attention, it really hit home. It’s about the song and capturing a great performance— and the imperfections are these beautiful blemishes that come with it—and I still carry that punk-rock ethos with me to this day with our band. It’s about running and gunning.

When I saw Petty and the Heartbreakers live, read the books on them and then watched the documentaries, I realized that’s what Mike Campbell contributed. I never saw myself as a singer or a frontman, so I was wondering, for a long time, where I fit in. Then, after listening to the 30th anniversary box set my parents gave me and seeing the way Mike Campbell and Tom Petty played together, I realized I could be the best sidekick to the frontman. It was a huge inspiration, and I’ve tried to live my life like Mike Campbell. He’s been a huge role model for me and he’s still crushing it and getting to play with a bunch of great, like minded musicians. Yet, he’s still so sad about losing Tom.

There was a great scene where we grew up in Athens, Ohio, and it was so much fun. We were young, naive and stupid—and there were so many great bands there around that time. Every weekend, there was a house show. At first, we just started just showing up and checking things out and then, as we started to get our thing going, we’d practice every single day. We would write, record and rehearse and then we would go out and see what our buddies’ bands were up to. Pretty soon after that, we would get invited to play gigs with these 8-10 groups, and Tay and I would hit the same open mic every Wednesday—it was half o‘ margaritas and $2 PBRs.

We’d try songs out and figure out which ones resonated with people. We learned how to play house parties with really shitty equipment and thought, “If we can figure out how to sound really good and tight playing when we can’t even hear ourselves, then we’re gonna be OK when we get to a professional venue.” So we really cut our teeth in these weird environments, learning how to feed o‘ each other as a duo.

Jumping to today, we have been back on tour supporting our new album Copper Changes Color, and it’s been feeling really solid. We spent a chunk of time o‘ the road during the past year and a half or so, after hitting it every year up until late 2023. We got into this Groundhog Day feeling—we didn’t know why, and we didn’t want to disappoint our fans by giving a lackluster show, so we decided to take a break. We recorded a bunch of music and, for the first time, didn’t have a deadline or anywhere to be. We were able to take some fun trips to different studios around the country and dive headfirst into the recording, without having any tour dates on the horizon to worry about.

We had a lot of fun making the record and then jumped right back on the road in May. After a much-needed pause, we’re all feeling refreshed, which has been really nice. I’d say the recipe for avoiding Groundhog Day is new music and time o‘—and I think we’ve found our formula. We’re playing Radio City Music Hall, which everyone says is going to be the biggest gig of our lives. I love the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds live record from there and know the Rockettes, but I’m just gonna try to just roll it, not to freak myself out too much or do too much research going in.

Back in the day, we didn’t use setlists for the longest time—we’d just get up there and start calling stuff out. But as our crew got bigger and we started having a few other buddies playing with us on stage, we’ve tried to keep everything tighter for guitar change purposes and tunings and stuff.

 But we love to mix up the setlist. Going to shows like Dave Matthews as a kid, one of the things people talked about the most was the setlist—what he didn’t play last year, what he might play this year. So we try to keep it fresh.

**

Evan Westfall co-founded Caamp with his childhood friend Taylor Meier and plays both guitar and banjo in the group. Caamp released their fifth studio album, Copper Changes Color, in June and provided the theme song for the Apple TV+ show Stick.