Vegas Primer: Happy Campers – Episode I 1996 – 1998 (‘Hooked on Ebonix’ and ‘Crappy Pampers and other Tasty Treats’)

Click here to download Hooked on Ebonix and here to download Crappy Pampers and other Tasty Treats

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[/wpcol_1third] [wpcol_2third_end id=”” class=”” style=””]Happy Campers have spent almost 18 years playing fast and fun punk rock in the Vegas Valley. Their 6th release, ‘Dancing With Demons,’ will be available February 8th, 2014 at a free release show at the Hard Rock Café on Paradise. In an effort to get everyone properly stoked for the release, we have Happy Campers’ frontman Isaac “Campa” Irvine here to give us a run down on his band’s history as well as provide us with free downloads of long-hidden demo tracks.

Here’s “Episode 1,” complete with the ‘Hooked on Ebonix’ and ‘Crappy Pampers and other Tasty Treats’ demos.

My dad got me an acoustic guitar for graduation and I started writing a bunch of songs and poems. I taught myself how to play as most beginners do, by playing songs from my favorite bands such as Nirvana, Green Day, and the Beatles. I moved from the Bay Area down to San Luis Obispo in 1995 to go to community college. It was there that I was first introduced to punk music. Bands like Pennywise, Bad Religion, NOFX and No Use for a Name quickly became the soundtrack to my life.

During this time I continued to write my own songs as well. I would record guitar riffs on a handheld tape recorder and sing to them in the car wherever I went. A few of these songs would end up on our first demos and CD. When I wasn’t accepted into Cal Poly and my parents had moved away, I had no home and nowhere to go. My best friend Lindy Pennington had moved to Vegas with his family so I figured I’d hang out there for a while. Lindy started beating on pots, pans and half filled ice cream buckets along to my songs and singing harmonies. I had honestly never thought to be in a band at that time. Then one day while getting some strings for my new electric guitar, I saw an ad that a bass player and guitarist were looking for a singer and drummer to start a punk band. That was the only ad I ever answered. With all the talented musicians, professionals and people in Vegas, what would my life have been like if it were any other ad?

I could barely play guitar and sing, not to mention Lindy was playing ice cream buckets for Christ sake. 99 musicians out of 100 would have laughed at us and I would have probably never tried again. But the guys whose ad it was, were as green as we were. We jammed with Irk (Eric Tomao) and Ben Montoya at a friend’s house who had full drums, mics and tons of guitar pedals. We had no idea what we were doing but we all had fun and hit it off. It was the summer of ‘96. We bought Lindy a drum set and would practice at our friend, Dave’s house. His mom let a bunch of loud ass kids practice in her garage and her kid wasn’t even in the band, this still amazes me. We had a ton of fun playing the songs I had written, writing some goofy songs and practices usually ended up with everyone switching instruments and Lindy rapping. We didn’t have a band name yet and each practice we would make up a new name for our band like Bothan Spies or Rage Against the Monkey. It was always something stupid and usually had monkey in the title for some reason.

We were all itching to play a show, so one night we set all our stuff up at this little outside amphitheater at Winchester Park. We rocked out 5 or 6 of our monster jams to a couple girlfriends, Dave, the guys from Organic, and maybe a few homeless people. Our epic performance of course caught the attention of the local authorities who advised us that it’s probably not a good idea to have impromptu punk shows in a park next to a residential neighborhood. Our next show was in Dave’s garage with a band called Plain Grey (the bass player from The Killers was in the band). All I remember of the show was that Ben played the whole show with his back to the crowd and that an epic freestyle rap session broke out afterwards. Our skater friend Sara hooked us up with some people that were putting on an outside skate show.

Since we had a real show coming up it was time to decide on a band name. Lindy’s little brother said we should be Happy Campers because no matter how much bad stuff happened to us, we just laughed it off and kept on going. That sounded good to me and has kind of been the theme to my life so we kept it. Probably not the best name for a punk band but we’ve had it this long, so what the hell. That was our first taste of playing real shows and our introduction to the Vegas music scene. We played with Attaboy Skip, Boba Fett Youth, Nonoxynol 9 and a band called Milkhouse who did a NOFX cover so we instantly thought they were amazing. That show was when I decided, man this is what I want to do with my life. Nothing was more fun than playing shows and meeting people who loved doing the same thing as us.

Eventually we moved into a house with Milkhouse’s bass player Ernie Castaneda and the first Happy House was born! It was here that we really started focusing on the band by practicing every day and hanging out every night. Lindy started concentrating on other things and we ended up practicing with Ben on drums most of the time. We realized we sounded better with that line up and became a 3 piece. Things moved very quickly after that. We started playing shows every weekend and recorded a demo Hooked on Ebonix with Ernie’s recording equipment. By the end of 1997 we recorded our first CD Campfire Songs, which was released by Nicole Sligar on Shoestring Records, and had a manager Steve DeZarn (currently of The People’s Whiskey). For our CD release we opened for the Vandals at the Huntridge and our first out of town show was up in Reno opening for AFI. After that we started doing a little touring while still playing some great local shows with lots of great Vegas bands. We also recorded our second demo Crappy Pampers and other Tasty Treats.

By 1998 the other guys were starting to get ready for new adventures. Ben left to concentrate on school and was replaced by Ernie on Drums. This worked out great since we were all living together in the second Happy House. Ernie had a very ‘colorful’ personality. Once we were eating dinner at a restaurant when he ripped out his own leg hair and put it in Irk’s soup while laughing and blowing his soup all over my face. Things like this happened pretty much every day with Ernie around. We toured up and down California as well as El Paso, Texas where our van broke down; this would happen a lot in our future. We recorded a new demo Sumpin’ New. We got to open for the Offspring at the Joint and played the first Extreme Thing. We also played a lot of shows up in Reno, which eventually led to Irk deciding to move there for college. It was at that point I realized the band was in my hands and whatever was going to happen was on my shoulders…

-Isaac Campa

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