Boulder Fields is singer-songwriter Cam Fraser, formerly of Borrowed Books and 80s punk legends The Cateran, who came to reach a wider audience by touring with Nirvana on the 1989 UK tour that led to the American grunge legends’ big break. Between his two bands, Cam Fraser has toured or performed with The Proclaimers, Tad and Grant Hart (Husker Du).
Boulder Fields has given Joyzine readers the pleasure of a first listen of their new album With All The Other Ghosts, officially released on 14 June (full stream below the Q&A). Cam has also answered questions about his life as an artist, the creation of this album, his inspirations, and much more.
1) Please tell us about yourself as an artist, including your current project and your backstory with other groups.
First up, I want to say thanks for asking me about Boulder Fields and my music. That in itself means a lot to me.
I’ve been writing songs since I was in a school punk band as a teenager. Looking back, I now realise it was a way of me working through some issues that were around how I grew up and a kind of unfocused anger and unhappiness that I carried around. Once I started playing in bands, I quickly realised this was where I belonged. Nearly fifty years later, I still feel that way. During lockdown, it was hard to be in a band so, for the first time, I found I was having to play music on my own. In that setting, playing acoustic guitar made more sense, so I fell down an acoustic-music rabbit hole. That’s how Boulder Fields came to be. It was a loose collection of musicians who graciously agree to join in playing my songs. It helps that they’re mainly also very old friends. My first kind of serious and kind of marginally successful band was The Cateran. We spent a few chaotic years releasing badly-selling albums and playing hundreds of wild punk/pre-grunge gigs around the UK and Europe. I kept messing around playing music with friends and writing but didn’t get my act together to release music until just before lockdown when my then band, Borrowed Books, along with Mr Ray, guitarist with US college rocker Miracle Legion, released an album. Lockdown kind of led to that album getting lost, but it’s still worth a listen, I think.
2) Tell us about your current album including its contact, creation, timeline and the folks involved.
The Boulder Fields album was kind of an impulsive thing. I didn’t have a grand plan, but I had a batch of songs ready and I was introduced to a small local studio that had some space in their diary, and a wonderful owner and engineer who has a particular gift with acoustic instruments. He works short but intensive days, and I found that worked well for me too. It all came together pretty quickly, which is just as well as I didn’t have much of a budget. This album was cheaper to make than some of my punk rock albums back in the 1980s. I just liked how the songs sounded when Suzy, Aly and I play together, so all I wanted was to capture that as closely as we could. I think we did that.
3) What inspires you to make music? Did something, someone or some events inspire the creation of your debut solo album?
The music I like and the songs I write seem to have a common thread that runs through: that sense of longing for something, a slightly melancholic ache and then mix that up with shades of general existential angst. Haha! I’m really not a miserable person — if you meet me you’d probably think I was the opposite — but I’ve had that darker side as long as I can remember. As I grow older, I’ve become more at ease with it but it doesn’t go away.
4) What is the best description of your music that you’ve read in a review or heard in person?
The best description of my music? I don’t know. Should I listen more to what people say about it? My description? Well I love darker, more thoughtful Americana music but I’m indie to my bones, so I’ve pretty much settled on my music being Indie-Americana.
5) If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be and why?
Change one thing? I’m aware of the hypocrisy of having my own music available on all the digital platforms but I’d still genuinely like to see an uprising amongst musicians and fans that would see all the loathsome techbro millionaires booted out. I’d love to see music in the hands of musicians and fans, music writers, individual venue owners, small-scale promoters and label owners and all the other people who genuinely care about music. The rest of them, all the various layers of money-making parasites that pollute the music scene, well they should be kicked fiercely to the kerb forever.
6) If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and what would you work on together?
Getting to spend some time in the studio with Steve Albini and Jason Molina would have been pretty memorable. Or with Bob Dylan on the Blood on the Tracks sessions. Not sure what I could offer up musically in either setting, but I’d have just been happy to have been there.
7) Can you mention some new bands or artists that we should be checking out and what do you like about them?
I remain a big fan of Edinburgh’s Withered Hand. Kassi Valazza is pretty magical (and we both play the same big Gibson guitar), and my friend Eiko, aka ‘Other Dog‘ released a lovely single last year that you can track down through all the usual places.
8) If you could give any aspiring musicians one piece of advice, what would it be?
Advice? Care so much about your music that it hurts. Keep doing that and you probably can’t go too far wrong.
9) How has your approach to making music changed since you started out?
I don’t think my approach to music has ever really changed much. Ha! That might not be a good thing, I don’t know. See what I said above… I keep caring about my music and I’ve just learned to live with the hurt.
10) How have you managed to stay active in the music scene all these years and continue to create new music and evolve as a songwriter? I’ve been so lucky to be able to keep working with other creative and very talented people. They keep me going, keep me feeling like I’m moving forward, stop me getting old. Haha.
Boulder Fields socials: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | X | YouTube
Introduction by Paul F Cook
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