Currently in his second year studying Music Journalism at the University of East London, Camden O’Keefe has always wanted to be part of a band – and finally, his wishes have come true.
Camden is a bass player from Cornwall and has recently formed a new and upcoming band named Bad Blessing’s with members Jamie (Guitar), Harry (Drums) and Insia (Lead Vocals). They consider themselves to be “your local blessing and curse”.
As I sat with Camden to find out more about Bad Blessings, he let us in on how they formed, their sound and what his aspirations for the band are going forward.
Tell us a bit about your new band Bad Blessings
CO: “So, we’re like a small band. We just formed at uni, a bunch of people sort of knew each other, the guitarist is my flatmate. There’s only four of us, we kind of just play a bit of rock, a bit of metal. We’re sort of doing covers at the moment but we’re working on some original stuff.”
Where did you come up with the name?
CO: “There’s a TV show on Amazon called Good Omens and we were struggling for a band name so I was like right I like the name Good Omens but I can’t exactly steal the name, so if I sort of change it around and have Blessings instead of Omens and the opposite of Good is Bad, so that’s how I came up with it.”
How did you all come together?
CO: “For the longest time I’ve wanted to be in a band, even before I came to university and it got to the point sort of the start of this year, I was like right I’m really going to push it because I’ve got quite good at the bass so I put posters up looking for a few people to be in a metal band and the person I live with was like “I’ll play because I want to be in a band” so there was two of us and the posters were up for a while, maybe a month or so and we had no interest so I was like I’m happy to be in just a rock band – it’ll appeal to more people and more people will maybe want to apply.
“And then there’s Harry who was already in a rock band, so he was happy to play if we were a rock band so we had Harry as well. Then we were at the SU [student union] bar and I think it was one of the music nights and this girl came on, so we were just speaking to her at the end and saying “oh, we are looking for a singer for our band” and she said she was up for it, so then we just sort of told her that we’ll have a rehearsal next week and it just came together from there.”
What was your first gig like?
CO: “It was strange. I was really excited for it but then the day before, it wasn’t really anything to do with the band it was just like our friends, there was a lot going on and a lot of people saying “well I’m not going to go if they’re going” and I didn’t really see the point of playing if people were just going to make it about themselves.
“Then, the day of it I was just like “f**k everyone else” and I’m just going to enjoy this and it was really good. We had a few issues with the music and the amp. I brought my own just in case but then they were saying they had tested one and it was fine – it worked for about 90% of the time.
“But I did really enjoy it and I’m really hoping to do it again because we’ve had to cancel the last two just because of people doing coursework and stuff but hopefully we’ll be playing at the end of May.”
What type of stuff do you like to play, covers or own material?
CO: “At the moment, we have seven covers that we do as our set. We’ve got another four that we want to work on so that we have a longer set in May but between us, we have two original songs but we are lacking the lyrics.
“So, we are sort of working towards that but at the minute. It’s hard to get everyone together just with coursework and people not being her. Me and Harry have wrote the lyrics to one song but we haven’t been able to give it to the lead singer yet just with her having filming coursework going on, but I would like to focus on doing originals now.”
What got you into playing bass?
CO: “I’ve played guitar since I was like 8, maybe. I go through phases where I’d play it for like a month then wouldn’t play it for two months and I just never really enjoyed it, I sometimes forced myself to pick it up and when I was at college there was loads of guitarists and we needed to do a performance piece and we needed someone to play bass and I was like “give me the bass” I’ll do it.
“I enjoyed it but I never really picked it up again after that but during lockdown, I was thinking to myself “I really want a bass guitar” and my dad was like “No, we spend all the money on guitars and you never use them”, so when I came to London, I used my own money to buy one and I loved it.”
Who are your musical inspirations?
CO: “I’ve listened to music since I was a kid, I think for me getting into a band it was sort of the metal bands that I listen to, I really like Trivium, they’re probably my main sort of inspiration.”
Are you hoping to bring metal music into your band?
CO: “I don’t know if it’d work with our band. I always try to add that element into it. Some of the stuff we play I wouldn’t say is heavy metal but it’s sort of like Guns n Roses and AC/DC sort of sounds.
“There’s part of me that would like to do a side project, where I would write my own thing and get a couple of musicians in to record it but I don’t think I’m talented enough for that at the moment. If there was a chance a heavy metal band was looking for a bass player I’d happily join and be in both bands but at the moment I’m happy to just be in a band.”
What are your aspirations for the band moving forward?
CO: “We do have a gig on the 25th of May, which we are getting paid for in Amazon vouchers, which is not ideal but I’ll make it work.
“But because some people are going home for the summer and a few people graduating, this summer we are going to spend a lot of time working on getting some originals done and then when we get back, our guitarist does Music Production so he makes a lot of stuff, so ideally just working on the original stuff.
“Hopefully, by the winter we will have an EP, even if it is just 4 original tracks – it’s something.”
