Premiere: Superkick, Dumb House and Camp Edwards show why together is better on split EP

One of the best parts of establishing friendships on the music scene is collaboration. Sharing and working together. Enjoying one another’s art. 

And so it goes with the young artists of Camp Edwards, Superkick and Dumb House. 

“I’d like to think that we were pretty buddy-buddy from the beginning,” said Superkick’s Joey Mirabelli of working with Camp Edwards. “Like sometimes you just meet somebody and the vibe just kind of works out right.”

The three bands travel in the same DIY musical circles on the Chicago scene. And while they all have different sounds, they’ve meshed both at shows, in music and in life. And today, the three bands dropped the “Super Dumb Camp” split EP, featuring a song from each. 

“It was cool because, I feel like this is such a cliche thing to say, but it was a super organic sort of process,” said Mike Vaughn of Superkick. “Like we all just kind of became homies and decided to record the record, as opposed to it being this weird like, ‘Hey, our management talked to your management and they want us to do a split.’ We’re all pretty close. And we all have the same sort of ethos. DIY or die sort of.” 

Superkick kicks off the EP with “Doomburg,” a high-energy post-punk-flavored dancer. Dumb House, the newest kids on the block of the three bands, bangs on the indie middle track, “Doom Daze.” And Camp Edwards revels in its signature lo-fi emo glory with “Beer Pong @ Brad’s.” Three different sounds that sound good together. 

Since Camp Edward started pumping out releases last year, the band’s Jameson Ghalioungui has been leveling up his skills recording and producing, and he worked his magic for all three songs on the EP. The musicians spent time recording and honing the tracks together, a perk of the recent trend toward home production. 

“What we’re doing is definitely the benefit of being friends,” Vaughn said. “Like if this was a business relationship, it would have been way more like, ‘Send me the dropbox file and I’ll check with my guy.” 

“It’s different when you’re paying for it, too,” Mirabelli added. “It’s different when you have the monetary thing hanging over your head and you’re like, ‘Oh, you know, if we spend another day here, that’s another 600 bucks.”

“Yeah, if you don’t have to work with an actual producer,” Ghalioungui said. “You can make your own decisions and go back if you wanted to make a change.” 

Helping each other along and lifting each other up is a key benefit of the split EP, especially in terms of musical production. 

“We went into it absolutely not knowing how to produce anything at all,” said Mike Schumacher of Dumb House. “We had no information on that for earlier demos. So it’s pretty scuzzy. Working with Jameson was kind of the first time we had legit equipment to use.” 

All three bands are pretty prevalent on Chicago’s DIY circuit, and in normal times can be found playing in various combinations with one another. Camp Edwards and Superkick recently had an upcoming show at a bigger venue in the city postponed under social distancing restrictions. But once things open up again, fans will get to see all three on stages again soon. 

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