Cameron Nickerson spent the better part of a decade playing with The Rockabillys. They were sharing stages with bands like The Stanfields and The Sheepdogs, and got signed to a record label. Then all that changed. Nickerson found himself back home in Yarmouth and wondering what to do next. He released his first solo album, Detours, back in January, and true to the album’s title, “Gettin’ out of Dodge” is about taking some sharp left turns when your career hits a fork in the road.
As Nickerson explains, you don’t go from record deals to a Yarmouth log cabin in one simple step. The band went through two name changes, from The Rockabillys to Blue Jean River Band to Burntlands. As Blue Jean River Band they even managed to release an ECMA-nominated album in 2015. But when the record label dissolved, so did the band.
“The year or so spent with the label I think took a toll on us as a band,” says Nickerson. “When the label/management was done and contract split, we all one-by-one moved back to Yarmouth but kept playing for probably a year, give or take.”
The band’s final iteration as Burntlands, by Nickerson’s own admission, didn’t amount to much. When the band packed it in, Nickerson found himself living in his family’s log cabin in Yarmouth and working construction.
“I was in a confusing depressed state of wondering if I was just gonna slip into living back home and doing construction for the rest of my life, because that could have easily happened.”
Nickerson hadn’t entirely given up on music, though. In fact, he’d been writing more than ever and thinking about making the move to Halifax to have a second go at it. It was a phone call with his father that settled the matter and provided the inspiration for “Gettin’ out of Dodge.”
“He said, ‘Cam, smartin’ the fuck up and get the hell out of dodge.’ So I did! That was spring and by the beginning of summer I was in Halifax looking for work but ready to hit the city hard with my music under my own name,” says Nickerson. “So its funny, the lyrics in the song are about moving away from a town into a log cabin until the end of world but in reality I moved away from the ‘log cabin end of the world’ into a city.”
The live video doesn’t exactly leave us with any concerns for his solo-career. Nickerson just rips through an existential crisis with the infectious sort of blues-rock gusto that’d give Ryan Adams a run for his money. Sometimes life just needs to take a few detours along the way to get where you’re going.