We interview Cameron Hawthorn about his new EP, how the pandemic has affected his songwriting and what perspectives he feels like he has to share as one of the only openly gay country artists on the scene right now.
Hello! How are you doing?
I’m good.
How have you been navigating the joys of 2020? Obviously putting out music has been a strange thing in 2020.
Yeah it is, it’s been good, I’ve actually been out in Texas a lot, just hanging out in the country and just getting a break from the city life, which is very much on lockdown. Putting out music has been nice, it’s been my goal because I’d been intending to put out music in April and then everything went down. It’s nice to get it out and end 2020 on a high.
Do you feel like your songwriting has changed at all this year, changing location and being in Texas?
Yeah, it’s been great to be out here and to find inspiration in that, I think that some of the new stuff that I’ve been working on is even more raw, in a way.
Emotionally or sonically?
Both! I think I’m trying to dig even deeper into some raw topics but then sonically as well, just because I’m not working with a producer right now, it’s just me and my guitar or keyboard.
Even in this EP you got really raw and emotional, it’ll just be an extra layer. I think ‘Break Hers’ is such an incredibly emotional song, can you talk a bit about that song and just what it meant to you? It’s just a topic that hasn’t been talked about before.
Yeah I hadn’t really before either, which is why I think I was really drawn to writing it, but also it was just this haunting in a way, this break up had stuck with me and I couldn’t get it out of my head and the hurt that I had caused her. It was just something that was just spinning in my head, something that I thought that I could say in a song. Some people have said ‘well you don’t owe her anything,’ which I see that point but she’s such a good person and she didn’t do anything wrong. It really was just something that I was waiting to write this song and tell this story.
Do you feel like you’ve got so many stories to tell? There’s so few out country artists that I can think of off the top of my head, but do you think because of that you’ve got different things to say and perspectives to break?
Yeah I do, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, I feel almost empowered in a way to get to tell these stories. I think that there are people out there and it’s their story too, I feel honoured to get to share that story and these perspectives, a lot of them haven’t been sung about by an out country artist. It’s an honour to get to do that and I’m excited to get to dive in more.
At the same time you’ve got stunning love songs like ‘Dancing in the Living Room’ – that’s such a stunning song and video. Was that a great experience to film and put out?
Yeah, I had really dreamed of that video being exactly that way but I had never thought that I’d get to do that, because before that I was writing music – just kind of generic stuff, I never sang about love and the EP that I had put out before this one, there was a song about my mom on there and a couple of fun ones, but nothing about love, nothing deep or revealing of me. So I really had dreamed of that video being exactly that way.
It’s hard to share your soul with the world, to reveal your heart – people just want more of that music and then you have to keep showing more sides of yourself.
Yeah, I guess that’s the beautiful thing about being an artist, right? You get to dig and find different parts of yourself. I think that I’m learning about myself as I’m doing it, it’s a process.
You moved from LA to Nashville relatively recently, how has that change affected your songwriting, sonically and lyrically?
Maybe a little bit, I think for me I have a blend. I used to do indie-pop, singer-songwriter stuff and my influences early on – I grew up listening to country music and the classics – in high school I was into The Fray and Gavin DeGraw and that sort of stuff. I rebelled against country music. People used to ask me, ‘hey you’re from Kansas do you like country music?’ and I’d be like no, I’m the singer-songwriter. From this EP, ‘Dancing in the Living Room’ I wrote and recorded in LA and then ‘Mustang’ and ‘Oh, Hot Damn’ were also in LA, ‘To Break Hers’ was the first song that was all done in Nashville.
You wrote that one with Lena Stone?
Yeah, that was one of my early co-writes having moved to Nashville, that is what country music is all about, digging into the truth, and that’s what we did on that song, I think. ‘Boys’ was also done in Nashville and to me that song has that upbeat thing but is also raw sonically, it has a Nashville feel to me. It’s a little bit of both.
It’s a different skill you have to learn when you move to Nashville, that co-writer thing that isn’t necessarily the same in other places.
Totally, that’s so true, and I write a lot on my own too, so it stretches me to write with other people. I love doing it, because it’s a different experience but like I said, during this time, I’ve been writing a lot on my own again, so I’m looking forward to getting back out there and co-writing again. I could do a Zoom write, but I’m more of an in-person type of person. There’s something about the energy that’s different.
So what’s next and what’s the game plan?
I think right now, I’m trying to figure out what playing these songs live would look like, especially now we’re apparently going back into lockdown as well. I don’t know what that’s going to look like, doing live performances where it’s all recorded, I just can’t do these in a bedroom, I’m really ready to connect with people in some way. I’m looking forward to these new songs, trying to figure out whether the next thing is an EP or do I want to work toward an album.
Well you’ve said raw and emotional music is what’s coming, so we can’t wait.
Well we’re all in an emotional, raw time right now.
Complete the sentence…
Music is… escape.
Country music is… truth.
Cameron Hawthorn is… real.
