Artist Profile: Bummer Camp

Photo by Madelyn Barkocy

NYC-based guitarist and singer-songwriter Eli Frank has found creative release through Bummer Camp, his solo endeavour turned full-band project, in the years since the dissolution of his DIY punk venture Top Nachos. But now, as the release of the newest Bummer Camp record Fake My Death indicates a turn in a more pop-leaning direction, it’s become evident that Frank is operating at a level of artistic freedom that has, at times throughout his career, been difficult to keep near the forefront of his creative atmosphere.

While Fake My Death is, in a way, simply a fleshed-out sampling of the large trove of ideas that Frank has stuffed away in voice memos and short recordings, it is also a testament to his ongoing efforts to remain true to himself artistically— to follow the bug that once bit him during his days playing Modest Mouse covers in his friend’s basements wherever it might take him

As natural as the link might be between Frank, Bummer Camp and the ‘90s brand of fuzzed-out, shoe-gazing rock, Frank’s love for music was actually the direct product of his parents’ passion for classic rock (and their disdain for much of what was happening in the ‘90s). His parents met at a party after a Grateful Dead show, and his father preached Zeppelin, The Beatles, and The Who as gospel throughout Frank's childhood. 

It wasn’t until high school that he began to weigh music from a perspective other than his father’s, and he quickly felt himself gravitating towards some of the grimier and heavier tones available from the grunge and nu-metal acts of the mid 2000s. Something about the unique energies of these tracks drew him away from the music he had been immersed in throughout his childhood.

“It just was different… Obviously [these genres have their] influences in classic rock, but I think grunge has a little bit of a dirtier sense to it, not just in the tone and lyrics, but it kind of comes from a bit of a folk music vibe. A lot of the acoustic songs, like Nirvana or Alice in Chains or Candlebox or sh*t like… there's some ‘of the people’ kind of sound to it. It was just very different.”

His interest in guitar led him into a series of high school and college bands, where he earned his first experiences playing live shows and began to test out his chops as a songwriter and vocalist. What was always truly most important to Frank, however, was the composition and melody— things he felt he had a complete harness on as a guitarist. 

This mindset carried him into Top Nachos, which was formed as a duo with a close friend of his, going on multiple tours around the East Coast and amassing a sizable regional following. But when his creative partner abruptly put an end to the project, Frank was left in a sort of creative void. 

Who did he want to be artistically now that Top Nachos, which towards the end had felt more like an entertainment venture than a musical one, had come to a conclusion?

This first manifested as a series of instrumental, Strokes-esque electric guitar loops. But he soon returned to his acoustic, hammering out ideas in his room and recording virtually all of them to his phone via voice notes. He quickly amassed an impressive archive. As he began to identify ones he particularly liked, he commenced the process of attempting to flesh them out.

“[Bummer Camp’s creative process] is very much me alone with my acoustic guitar, and I just f*ck around and very  spur of the moment, not thinking too hard about it. Sing gibberish over it, and then I'll come back to those recordings on my phone… when I find a moment and just listen back to the ideas, and I'll put a star next to the ones I like, and then don't do anything with the other ones. I'll have hundreds of ideas in a month's time, so [I] gotta pick through the ones I like and I think have a chance, and then after that point, I'll write lyrics to them.”

His first full release as Bummer Camp, 2023’s Big Deal EP, was primarily a demo tape— one that, in a way, proved to Frank that his newfound creative process was capable of bearing fruit. It was entirely self-recorded, with Teenage Halloween bandmate Peter Gargano joining in to help nurture the seedlings of tracks that sprung from Frank’s improvisational process.

2025’s Stuck In A Dream, meanwhile, was also recorded in an entirely DIY fashion. But with the project now having fully found its legs, Frank was more intentional and more meticulous with the process itself. He knew, moving into Fake My Death, that he wanted to find a way to ground some of the spacier, shoegaze-leaning sounds he had gravitated toward in the early days of Bummer Camp. Across the churning rhythms of “Better Now” and the rawer, distorted energies of tracks like “Pass Out”, Stuck In A Dream takes another major step toward accomplishing that goal.

But what’s vital for Frank throughout his work on Bummer Camp has never been a distinctly crystallized vision, nor has it been adherence to a certain sound. Frank has taken the opportunity to work, at least in the creative and the recording process, largely as a solo artist, and it’s allowed him the leeway to go wherever his whims take him.

Fake My Death, Frank’s third record as Bummer Camp, exhibits this throughline wholeheartedly. While he moves further away from the shoegaze-y foundations of the project and into a more direct sound, it’s clear that each track is written with deep intentionality and thought. Yet, from the searing riffs of tracks like “One Bullet” to the rolling melodic waves of tracks like “Money and Salt”, it’s also clear that the project as a whole was undertaken with a certain sense of lightheartedness— a desire for fun.

Since the end of his time in Top Nachos, it’s something Frank’s come to understand deeply about his own artistry. If he’s not actively finding joy in the sounds he’s creating, the act is not truly worth it.

“I think it's important for bands to make music they want to play and music that they listen to. I don't think I always align myself with that mindset— ‘What do people want to hear? What do I think people want?’ That is, I think, a great way to kill your spirit, because it's not exactly a great landscape for musicians right now. So all you really have left is enjoyment of what you're doing. Some days I still feel that tension… So I’ve got to at least find some solace in the writing and playing of the thing. And if I wasn't making music I just like, then f*ck it.”

Fake My Death was delayed in its release process, but Frank has long since immersed himself back into his creative workflow. He’s already created demos for his next project, and in the wake of the release of his newest project, it will be that free-flowing approach that allows him to continue to evolve and pursue his creative whims in the context of Bummer Camp.

“I always think there's room for improvement with anything we do. So, you know, I'm always thinking ahead and what's next. I already have demos made for the next album. I had like three albums worth of stuff just sitting on my lap at one point. I recorded this album like two years ago, forever, just sitting around. The waiting game was really the most difficult part.”