In summer of 2015, a smoky, mournful ballad called “Burning House” sparked its way up the country charts, carrying the debut female country artist who sang it into territory that women rarely see on the radio. The songwriter, Camaron Ochs, who performs simply as Cam, had released her initial EP Welcome To Cam Country that March, and bolstered by support from radio personality Bobby Bones, her unlikely, heartbreaking song hit No. 2 on the Country Billboard chart, and No. 29 on Billboard‘s overall hot 100. Later on, the track went platinum and even picked up a Grammy nomination.
For those who have not been following the recent struggle that women in country have faced when it comes to radio and award shows, those numbers are nothing short of momentous. When Ochs’ full-length debut, Untamed, was released at the tail-end of 2015, it was more of the same. I picked it as the number one country record of the year, and along with the rest of the world, have been eagerly awaiting Cam’s follow-up.
Nearly three years later, anyone who follows contemporary country is more than familiar with this three letter sensation, the California girl who is remaking country music in her own image, along with a host of other spitfires like Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves, and Carly Pearce. In October of last year, she finally did return with the fiery country swinger “Diane,” a self-styled response to Dolly Parton’s iconic cheating song “Jolene,” this one giving us the perspective of the other woman with stark, unflinching honesty. Following up the new track with a mini west coast tour and a throwback ’70s video a couple weeks ago, Ochs is clearly getting back in gear and nearing the release of her sophomore album.
Though she hasn’t yet shared the release date or title, I recently spoke with Cam by phone about what we can expect from her upcoming record, the emotional ramifications of grappling with the positive success of such a heart-rending song in “Burning House,” and what she’s learned being a part of Nashville over the course of the last few years. Read our conversation below.
So, the first new music we’ve heard from you since Untamed is “Diane,” a song that issues a direct response to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” What inspired you to write that response? I mean, it actually seems like someone would have done it before. Once I heard it, I was like, ‘wow, I can’t believe no one thought of this yet,’ because it’s just so genius.
The first space that I wrote it from was actually like a personal space. I have people in my life that have gone through really heavy situations around infidelity, through their parents, finding out that their parents are splitting up. Basically knowing that those stories, like with a really good friend of mine, knowing her mom never got an apology or a straightforward moment of truth. Even the other woman saying something like, ‘I wish it hadn’t happened how it happened.” It’s such a dark topic, everybody hides it and it’s a burden everybody keeps carrying instead of bringing it to light and letting it go.
Exactly, and I love that it’s a song that is seeking to make women the center and uplift both of them, instead of making a man the center.
I know! It’s such a difficult situation already, but being a songwriter, I was just like, ‘You know what I get to do? Create a world where the right thing happens.’ And maybe that can be the story now. As soon as is started coming out of my mouth, those lyrics for the chorus, I thought what was so amazing is to hear it as the opposite side of what Jolene was telling. But what Dolly Parton does so well, and what I wanted to keep in the essence of this song, too, is you don’t hear her being angry, you don’t hear her slut-shaming or being competitive. These two women are put in this situation, and it’s neither of their faults, and they’re trying to figure out how to handle an unwanted situation between two human beings. Instead of it being so focused on the anger of this. It’s more just about woman-to-woman.
When you started writing new songs again after the success of Untamed, did you fee more pressure to write because of the way album was received and the hit singles, or did you feel more freedom, since you had already had achieved this new level of success?
Oh, you totally nailed it — freedom. For a song like “Burning House” to have such a crazy response, be nominated for a Grammy and all that stuff, really just meant that I got to succeed on something that was really original, creative, and different. So it’s completely freeing because now I have this confidence to go even deeper into whatever I want. Like somebody might say a song about me being the other woman… maybe that’s not the best. But, no, I get to dive deep into whatever subject I want, in whatever sound that I want, because I feel so confident there are people who care about stuff that doesn’t just fit right down the middle. The music for this next album is, hands down, the best that I’ve created. I’m so ecstatic.
That’s awesome to hear! As far as “Burning House,” can you tell me a little bit about what that song means to you now, looking back?
I was embarrassed to even sing that song when I first started, for me, I was the bad guy and I did the thing wrong. I felt so guilty that I’d run into a burning house and die with this guy. This situation is like the dream, because I felt so bad about how it went down in real life. But when I sing that song I can see, it means something different to everybody. But they all have the same underlying emotion that there’s something in your life that you can’t fix, and you can’t go back and change it, and the only thing you have to do is accept it, and accept yourself.
And it’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s so wonderful to be around so many people that like in meet and greets will just come up and hug each other. At first, I started really getting overwhelmed, people would tell me they had lost everything in house fires; great loves that were addicted to something, and they lost them. Or just really heavy stuff. Or even just breakups that were really bad, or divorces that were happening. Couples that were holding hands coming up to me and saying, ‘We’re not sure our marriage is going to make it, and your song is about what we’re going through.’
And you realize that people just want to share their stories, and feel seen and validated. Music is one of those things — I have yet to find anything else in my entire life where complete strangers can connect on such a deep level, it’s just wild.
I think it must be an interesting feeling, it’s such a sad song but you must feel happy about it now, because it became such a special and valuable part of your success. I love stories where it’s like a trauma, or a tragedy was turned into something that was actually helping you in the end.
Yeah, isn’t that crazy? At the time I thought ‘I’ll never get over this, this big old gaping wound, and it’s only going to get worse.’ Then to be on the other side of it, and remember the pain, but it’s not painful anymore.” That is a really smart and beautiful perspective on it. I’m just in a really different place with it now, but I still feel sad when I sing it. It still comes out that way, but I obviously love what it means to people, and I love singing it every night.
One other thing I loved about your debut record, Untamed, is how you managed to balance so many feelings and emotions on the album. How do you approach incorporating such a broad range of emotion?
That’s really important to me. I always grew up loving soundtracks and compilation type things. So when I go into it, we actually color code songs that are possible for the album and we try not to have too much of one color. I used to do psychology research, and you can organize emotions on like a two-axis grid, so there’s positive to negative, and there’s high arousal to low arousal, and they cross each other like a cross. You can plot out where the emotions are, and that’s also something I like to do, and plot out the songs in terms of emotional value. Also, kind of like tempo, and just make sure that you have a good spread. Or, if you do really want to focus in one area, you see it.
I love that process! So, you’re from California, and your background and heritage here is, obviously, really important to you, and was a big part of your most recent West Coast tour. I got to see at The Troubador, which was awesome. But how do you find California informing your background in country which is so heavily affiliated with the south?
For me, I think it’s mostly about how Californians — and I didn’t realize this quite so much until I left — but we’re very entrepreneurial. We’re very adventurous. We kind of like … We’re not really like the blue blood families, type of thing and more like…'”how many times have your startups failed?’ Because you’re at three failures, then your next one’s going to hit it big. We have a different look on how success works. I think that kind of goes into the way I approach music, and the business, and how I run it, and how I care about my core team, and how we try to always make decisions that route back to who I am.
Californians like mission in what we’re doing, instead of just trying to get ahead. It’s a different way to play the game, I think. I’m all about games. Kind of how to express sounds and not trying to sound like anybody else. I think you can hear that. When I went to make the record, I didn’t use the same people that everybody else uses in Nashville. I used some people, which… the people in Nashville are amazing. But I purposely wanted to find my own path, and I think that’s a very Californian thing to do.
Part of finding your own path as a young artist can be looking up to older artists, too. You recently opened for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on tour, who, obviously, are legends. I grew up listening to them. Was there anything that especially stood out to you that you learned, or took from that experience, on how they operate?
Here’s what it was like: They were doing an Entertainment Tonight type piece, and I came out of the dressing room to say hi or whatever. But once we were done, Faith turned and was like, ‘Can we have the cameras and everyone just clear out?’ She’s so sweet about it, and everyone just moves away. She’s so powerful. Then they turned and were like, ‘how’s everything going?’ Just like a real, honest, genuine check-in about me, and not even just about the tour. I mean, they were both so sweet to like, ‘we love having you here,’ but also just, ‘how’s it going, being a woman in country, how’s it going beyond radio? How’s it going?”
There’s so many new things that are happening, and just like to have somebody reach out their hand to you from a little bit farther ahead, just to check in, that feels huge. Because I don’t really get to spend a lot of time with other artists. We’ll see each other at awards shows, or something. It’s a little bit of an isolated career, sometimes, so it’s really nice to have somebody that genuine, and that real. And Faith is massive, like you’re saying, she’s a huge star! She could be a diva that doesn’t talk to anybody, but she’s not.
Since you mentioned it, I wanted to bring up being a woman in country music. I love country music. I specifically love female songwriters and singers. But there’s a constant, sort of dull roar over the last several years when this talking point about women in Nashville and sexism. It hangs heavy over a lot of the conversations that I have. I’m just wondering what your perspective on the atmosphere for women in country music is right now?
It’s something that I am trying really hard to understand. I feel like looking at the present situation, it’s pretty much the hardest thing to do put into words, because it’s hard to see something for what it is. Once it’s in the past, you get it. But when it’s right now, it’s really hard to understand how an industry that has a lot of famous, powerful, successful women artists could, all of a sudden, have so few. It’s weird because I came from psychology labs that were all women, and in college, I had tons of women around me.
Then I went to Nashville, and now pretty much very point blank, regularly I get told, ‘Well, you know, we’ll have to come up with a strategy for how we’re going to get your songs played, and get you advanced in your career.’ I’m being told I have to be a little bit extra thought, and extra work, because I’m a woman. You know, ‘Oh, it will be harder because you’re a woman.’ Actually, I was so appalled the first time I heard that! And it’s so normalized in that context that everybody literally just says that.
When someone says that to you, like, ‘well, we can’t put too many women in rotation,” or like, ‘only one an hour,” or, ‘not right next to each other,’ do you tell them that they’re sexist? No, because this is the job. Try not to lose the job. Try not to lose relationships with these people. It’s a big issue, and I’m trying really hard to understand it, and the systems that go into it. It’s an entire power structure and culture. It’s not just this one moment in time, just on accident. It’s definitely a systemic thing. And when I solve the problem of capitalism and all of that, I’ll let you know.
Can you solve historical patriarchy for me real quick, Cam?
Yeah. I would love to. Seriously, I’m probably doing what everybody else is doing. I’m reading, I’m following activists, I’m trying to learn as much as possible, and then on the flip side of it, you hear a lot of people who are saying, ‘we should be grateful, this is a lot better than it was.’ And, often, I feel like I have everything I need. For women at certain levels, it is fine, and the only thing I can say in my experience is as soon as I started moving up to a specific… spot in my career, I looked around, and I noticed there were not a lot of women. And that’s real. I feel lonely, you know? There are a few women, yes, and I acknowledge that, and I appreciate them, and they’re very talented, but just because there’s like four doesn’t make it okay.
I agree with everything you’re saying. Let’s end on a note that’s more personal to you and your music. Are there any hints or teasers you can drop about your new album or what we can expect?
So far it’s the best stuff that I’ve written. It has really great vocals — I’ve come so far with those, that those sound incredible. And I think if you love “Diane” you’re going to love the rest of it.
