Cameron Winter

about the artist
About Cameron Winter:
While on a grueling, year-long tour with his band Geese, Cameron Winter recorded the bulk of his debut solo album in a succession of hotel room closets, singing into the built-in microphone on his MacBook. Staying awake for several days at a time to keep up with his band's non-stop schedule, Winter's newest work recalls creative mania in the depths of night. Often so exhausted that he would fall asleep in the middle of a take, the disparate tracks were sent to New York and organized painstakingly by producer Loren Humphrey into a mystical, imaginative piece…
About Cameron Winter:
While on a grueling, year-long tour with his band Geese, Cameron Winter recorded the bulk of his debut solo album in a succession of hotel room closets, singing into the built-in microphone on his MacBook. Staying awake for several days at a time to keep up with his band's non-stop schedule, Winter's newest work recalls creative mania in the depths of night. Often so exhausted that he would fall asleep in the middle of a take, the disparate tracks were sent to New York and organized painstakingly by producer Loren Humphrey into a mystical, imaginative piece of work.
More about Cameron Winter:
Cameron Winter, singer of New York rock band Geese, is forging a strange new path; his new solo album assembles early morning, amphetamine-fueled improvisations into searching, lyrical pop songs. Over the course of two sleepless weeks with producer Loren Humphrey, Cameron lost his voice from ceaseless recording, lost fifteen pounds after going hungry for several days in the mixing chair, and now emerges with a soul-baring, must-listen debut album.
Even more about Cameron Winter:
Born in the backseat of a taxi in uptown New York, Cameron Winter spent his boyhood working as a pool cleaner by day and busking on the street at night, until his unique, caterwauling voice was one day discovered by Tom Patton of Partisan Records. Finding success as the lead singer and songwriter of the band Geese, he now offers his first solo album, a distinct piece of work infused with the spirit of New York's greatest songwriters.
Even more about Cameron Winter:
Cameron Winter's debut solo album has been years in the making. On Heavy Metal, the precocious Geese frontman assembles a variety of guest musicians — primarily sourced over Craigslist — to interpret his earliest songs, mostly written before the age of 15. Whether he's joined by a disinherited cousin of John Denver, a five-year-old bassist, or a Boston steel worker-cum-cellist, Winter's unique charms shine through, made even brighter by passionate, untempered amateur accompaniment.
Even more about Cameron Winter:
New York songwriter Cameron Winter's intricate, emotional new material seems to draw its power from pulling together opposite elements — Winter marries classic sounds to digital production, the absurd to the profound, the true to the false. Taking inspiration from the complete spectrum of experience, the Geese frontman's debut album is as much about his first loves as it is about his harrowing experiences in a Bavarian prison; as much about his battles with an addiction to blood-thinners as his oft-overlooked successes in the field of competitive wakeboarding. Heavy Metal is a bold first statement from a new, young voice who has many stories to tell — and seems intent on telling them all at once.
Even more about Cameron Winter:
If you hear an unadorned, urgent sensibility pervading Cameron Winter's debut solo album, that's no accident; Heavy Metal was recorded primarily in a series of Guitar Centers across the New York tri-state area, its ten songs an assemblage of hastily performed improvisations on in-store equipment. "It was actually a great way to work," says the young singer-songwriter. "I had no time to overthink anything, I just played straight from the heart and recorded everything. After a day or two I'd inevitably get kicked out and I'd move on to the nearest franchise and keep working." Despite the unorthodox production process, Winter has managed to emerge with a debut that is vital, lyrical, and as unique as the circumstances of its creation would suggest.
Even more about Cameron Winter:
On his debut album, Cameron Winter puts forth a hallucinatory combination of dreamlike imagery and crepuscular haze — not surprising, considering that the music was created while the Geese frontman was under the near-constant influence of, in his own words, "a crazy amount of extra-strength antihistamines and crushed up wellbutrin." A far cry from his punk-rock-inspired work fronting New York rockers Geese, Winter purports that the inspiration for his first solo effort was supplied entirely by listening to 1967's Songs of Leonard Cohen "maybe over two-hundred times" while hospitalized with double-mononucleosis. Upon listening to Heavy Metal's patient arrangements, warm production and hypnagogic lyricism, it's clear that the spirit of the greats has indeed rubbed off on the young singer-songwriter.
Even more about Cameron Winter:
Cameron Winter's debut album is a long time coming. Having spent the halcyon days of his youth listening to a steady stream of top 40 radio as he worked long hours as a signmaker's apprentice, Winter was imbibed with a precocious understanding of songwriting and a deep appreciation for music at an early age. After quitting his job suddenly and striking out on his own at the age of 16, Winter stowed away in a Spirit Airlines luggage compartment and flew to New York, where he would find success as the frontman of rock band Geese, playing volcanic, irreverent punk music. On his new LP Heavy Metal, a startling other side to the young musician is revealed, lyrical and otherworldly, presenting a highly modern interpretation of classic songwriting.