A couple years ago, The Happy Campers managed to have one the few true success stories at the occasional Las Vegas music conference Emerging Artists and Technology in Music. Not that the Vegas-based band played in any of the showcases. According to singer Issac Campa: "We don't like to pay to play. We actually tried to get in one year and couldn't. So, I was doing stage managing for some of the bands that were playing there."
But that was enough for the leader of the stalwart local band to meet the founder of the legendary, traveling, annual punk Vans Warped Tour. "I asked him what he was looking for in a band. He basically said that we are looking for a band that has already established themselves, showed that they can tour, and do everything on their own. Then we just want to get them to the next step." By that point, the Happy Campers had been touring for four years and released three discs—all DIY style. After a few trial shows at last year's Warped tour, this summer the band gets to hook up for a week playing with the festival in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
The Happy Campers have been together since 1996, and anything like rock stardom still seems a distant dream. Campa continues to work a day job and asthma-related problems have left him with so many medical bills that he is considering filing for bankruptcy. So what keeps him going after all of this time?
"Yeah, it's been almost eight years now. We've been through a lot of stuff. We started out not knowing what we were doing, being just a little garage band. And we slowly learned the ropes: learned how to play our instruments and learned how to book shows," says Campa. "But we don't have a reason not to keep doing it. There was never anything like, 'If we don't make it big in two years, we are going to quit.' Of course, we want to be as successful as we can, and we'd love to quit our day jobs. But this is what we love doing. And there is no reason to quit if that is the main goal."
Of course, the Happy Campers aren't sitting around awaiting the start of Vans Warped. After headlining the XFest, the band is off again on another self-booked tour before joining up with Vans Warped. That means this free concert will be the last chance to see these local favorites for awhile.
"Please come on out and support us for the show and wish us luck," Campa says, "because pretty much after the show we are going to leave for New Mexico."