Driving along Interstate 85 in Shorter, Alabama, musician Julian McCamman passed underneath a large highway sign reading “Victoryland.” It was an advertisement for the local casino, shining in neon primary colors with a slot machine “777” attached beneath.
McCamman was on tour with his band Blood at the time, but he had dreams of starting a country rock band of his own.
Victoryland would be a great name, he thought.
And although the country rock intent was not fulfilled, in July of 2024, Victoryland’s first album “Sprain” was released. Created in collaboration with producer Dan Howard as a withdrawal from McCamman’s ongoing work with Blood, the record’s lo-fi, raw rock sound reflected that of the Philadelphia music scene that he called home.
The project then took the backburner. That is, until McCamman ultimately decided to leave Blood. In 2025, the band formally announced its ending after eight years. At a crossroads, 27-year-old McCamman considered giving up music altogether.
He decided to give it one last shot, without a clue of the success that awaited him.
McCamman moved to New York, where Victoryland collaborator Howard was based. After months of McCamman writing, recording demos and bringing them to Howard to produce, Victoryland dropped “My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It” in January of 2026.
Days later, the album was named Stereogum’s Album of the Week. By summer, the project was touring with LCD Soundsystem. By fall, Victoryland was signed to Dead Oceans, the label housing musical powerhouses like Phoebe Bridgers, Slowdive and Wednesday.
In one year, McCamman went from a blank slate to becoming an internationally recognized name in indie music.
In between closing night of Victoryland’s time spent opening for LCD Soundsystem and leaving for various European music festivals soon after, McCamman answered the phone from a park in New York, discussing his origins, influences and advice following his year of “making it.”
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: I’m curious about when you first started playing music. How did it start for you initially?
A: When I was like 11 or 12, my brother and I started taking guitar lessons. I guess that’s when I started playing, but I didn’t really seriously attempt anything until I was like 19.
My grandfather was into music, but in more of a way of learning covers, songs with his friends and playing them at parties and while they were camping and stuff. So, no professional musicians in the family or anything, but that was kind of my first introduction to music being played around me.
Q: Did you always know that music was something you wanted to pursue long term?
A: You know, I don’t really know if I ever thought about pursuing it.
The San Diego music scene had nothing that I was enjoying growing up. So I think for me, when I saw musicians who were doing it for real, I always thought it was just a kind of a too distant thing for me to ever do seriously.
It wasn’t until I moved to Austin, [Texas] where I was like, “I’m gonna actually try this.” So, no, I don’t even know what I thought my life was gonna be like when I was in my teenagehood, but I did love music. And I tried a little bit of recording and stuff, but at the time I don’t think I even thought of it as a possibility, really.
Q: Living in, like you said, San Diego, Texas, Philadelphia and New York, do you think each of these different cities influenced your sound in a way?
A: Well, it’s interesting because I think until I lived in New York, pretty much every band I was in felt kind of in opposition to what was going on in any given city.
So, like in Austin, you know, the band I was in there was a band called Blood, and I feel like we stuck out ’cause we were quite angry sounding and pretty over the top in some ways, and I feel like a lot of stuff there was pretty mellow or easy listening stuff, I guess — or like psych rock.
And then in Philly, I almost felt like the bands were, too, uh… too weird. We just didn’t really resonate with people there. If anything, I feel like I was in pretty constant opposition. But I think Philly was a pretty inspiring place, musically, just because there were so many talented people and great bands.
Pretty much every place, I was really excited to leave when I left. So, I don’t know if that says anything about how inspired I felt.
Q: Did it feel like a risk when you left Blood and moved to New York, or did it feel like the natural next step?
A: It felt like both, probably. I think it was just a risk because I was 27 when I moved, and not that that’s old by any measure or anything, but I did feel like I put a lot of years into the music stuff.
When I quit Blood initially, I was kind of like, ‘I’m done with music completely,’ because the last couple years were pretty rough in that band.
When I decided I was gonna try again and move to New York, I think the only risk was if this period of really trying and grinding it out in a way that makes sense to me, doesn’t work out. I’ll probably try something else, you know?
But that was kind of before I understood my relationship with music, which is one that I’ll probably always make music, no matter what happens. But at the time, I think I was just desperate for some kind of career thing to happen, some sort of, at least, financial support to make it a sustainable thing in my life.
I think that’s what it felt like the risk was. I’m really giving myself this one last big push to try this stuff, which is really defeatist and I was way too young to be thinking that way. But, luckily it’s working out. I feel very blessed.
Q: The record “My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It” was the first record you put out under Victoryland after moving to New York and leaving Blood. What was the process of writing and developing it? Was that something that was ongoing before you moved?
A: There were some songs from the last stage with Blood, or one in particular: a song called “Arcades” on the record that made it. That’s the only one that was that old and carried over to the album through the EPs and the singles and stuff.
When I got here, I started working on demos on my computer. I moved up here, in part, to work with Dan Howard and he’s like the other half of the project. So, when I got here, we started meeting up and writing and recording, kind of figuring out our relationship.
Part of what makes [Dan] great is he’s so selfless. I was bringing him demos, and he wasn’t like, “we have to replace every part of this.” He was actually like, “the stuff you’re making is really cool, and we should keep a lot of it in the songs and just add around it or like, reinforce this initial idea.”
A lot of the album was sort of born out of demos. But we have a couple different styles of making songs. Sometimes, we’ll just pick up instruments when I’m at his place, and we’ll start writing something and that’ll turn into a song. Or it’ll be a demo I made.
I guess those are the two main methods. It was pretty painstaking, we worked really hard on it and I’m very proud of the record. I think it was kind of like the best of our abilities at the time. And yeah, so that was kind of the process there.
Q: Before bringing it to Dan, when writing lyrics, is there one setting where you sit down to write or do things come to you as you’re moving about your day? What’s your creative process when it comes to writing?
A: I think you kind of have to be open to it at all times. I can get pretty obsessive with the recording stuff, so when I’m working on a song, it’s kind of living in my head as I walk around. I’ll be singing melodies to myself, and stuff will come from that. But there’s usually a pretty intensive, um… Dan and I call it sort of like my “dungeon hours,” where I go into my basement and I really just crank out the lyrics.
Learning how to write lyrics has definitely been the most difficult and probably rewarding process. It comes from all angles, I guess. You gotta accept the inspiration when it’s hitting you, and sometimes all the lyrics come out really quickly, you know? I often think if lyrics, great lyrics, are easy to write or feel easy to write in a moment, it means you have the right melody. And if they’re difficult, then that’s a sign that maybe you don’t have the right melody, ’cause everything feels like it has this confluence and this ease when it’s good. But, of course, some lyrics are hard, and sometimes you feel it.
There’s still lyrics on that record where I felt like this is good enough, but it’s not really… And I hear them, and I feel like I could have gotten it better, but you know, that’s the beautiful thing about putting music out. You just kind of got to live with it, and I’ve learned to love all of it.
Q: Do you have a favorite lyric that you’ve written?
A: I’m deep in the lyrics on the next record, so I’m feeling good about that stuff. I think in general, the lyrics in “I’ll Show You Mine” I’m really proud of. I felt like it’s a really consistent theme throughout the song, and I like the imagery.
But I also like lyrics when you kind of step away from the imagery and it’s like a plain statement. So, like, “Is it just me, or did you notice it too?” That line, I really feel I love. Like lines that aren’t that rich, you know? ‘Cause the music makes them rich, in a way. But obviously, there’s more, there’s different imagery in that song that I really liked. And the stuff on ‘I Got God’ I’m really proud of too.
Q: Is there any music that you associate with the period of your life when you were writing and developing that record? Or music you were inspired by during the process?
A: Our music doesn’t sound anything like him, but I’m just a massive, massive Van Morrison fan. I remember at the time, I was just watching him constantly. When I was taking breaks from writing, I was watching live videos of him.
I think he does something that’s very different from our band, and it’s probably not a convenient “if you like Van Morrison, you’ll probably like Victoryland too,” but I’m just fully obsessed with the guy. I think he has an incredible talent in his voice.
More than anything, it’s just his heart. The heart in the song. It’s always just so present. The emotion is so close at all times. And as a performer, you can kind of see him let the song take him over. It’s like he stops trying, and it’s almost in a way he’s not there. It’s like the song is kind of passing through him in this really magical way. But yeah, that’s who I was listening to a lot. I really… I still am.
Q: Once you had all the songs, how did you ultimately piece together the album?
A: It was like a magical moment when we figured out the track list and stuff, because there’s a lot of different vibes on the album and a lot of different styles, you could call it. But I think once we put them together, we kind of felt like they flowed as one thing.
But there wasn’t a lot of intention in the theme. I think there are themes on the record, but I think for me, there’s a beautiful thing about focusing on the micro elements of the songs, like this one line or this guitar part or are these drums working? And then when you step back from the whole album, you see there’s an image that is left or a theme that arises from all that work. And I think it’s more about letting the theme show itself. Because it’s just life, like you’re just living life with the album and then the stuff that comes out of it. It just comes from letting it happen, you know?
But I think, when you’re writing a group of songs in a similar period of time, you end up writing about similar stuff in a similar way. And so, it was a special moment to put the songs together and realize there was some sort of confluence, because it was an insecurity of mine when I was working on the record, that it was inconsistent in style or something. But once I put it together, I was like, “wow, this really, I think it works as a whole thing.”
I think it’s like the art of molding the track list in the shape, as part of the musical arc of the album, comes after the fact of making the songs.
Q: How does “The Ugliest Girl On The Beach,” the deluxe song that came out in September, fit into the pre-existing album?
A: You know, it’s interesting, because it’s part of the batch of the songs we are currently working on. It was one of those songs. So it wasn’t really part of those [“My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It”] sessions.
I actually think the themes probably point more towards what the next record is like. Less the sound, I think the sound is more like the last record. It’s kind of all about the same thing. There’s a heavy element of wanting to know yourself, but can’t, or not being able to or sort of a disillusionment with the world would be a common thing on the last one. It is definitely present in that song.
Q: What’s the backstory on how your album covers came to be?
A: I feel like I probably shouldn’t say where I get them from because, I’m not like ripping off anybody or anything, but the images of the dolls, if that’s what you’re talking about… a lot of the images that I use for album covers are like product images or like photos people take to sell something, I guess is what I’ll say.
I think there’s a real beauty when I’m looking for images online for a sort of unintentional composition. So, someone taking a photo of something with an ulterior motive, right? Just to post it online and get it out of their house.
The album cover for “My Heart [Is A Room With No Cameras In It]” is really, like, there’s an incredible composition to that photo. I feel like there’s a really amazing form and there’s something about it. And then the dolls themselves, they just trigger an emotion for me. It’s kind of an uncanny thing, but it’s like the brain wants to look for a human form or a human face in something. And so I feel like dolls, it’s like you have the urge to recognize a human. I feel that come up, but then it’s sort of stilted by the fact that you’re looking at an inanimate object. I don’t know if that makes sense, but you’re kind of looking at it and then you’re looking through it at the same time.
Q: You’ve had a huge year, touring with LCD Soundsystem and getting signed to Dead Oceans. If you were to go back and tell yourself a year ago or two years ago where you were now, how do you think you would have felt?
A: I don’t know, you know? I mean, it’s funny because obviously all of that is really amazing and exciting. I have had a really crazy year. It’s been the craziest year in my life by a mile. Obviously it’s way beyond my expectations. But I don’t know, it’s interesting.
I think you dream of something like that happening for a long time. And I’m 29 now, so I think life just becomes less like… how do I say it? You kind of accept reality as it comes.
Obviously it’s amazing. Life is great right now, and I’m really excited about everything. But I think practically, you know, my life is kind of the same and I’m the same person. So, not to give you a negative answer or something, but I don’t really know what I would say to myself.
I’d be like, “you know, you’re still the same guy, by the way.” It’s not like you’re not fundamentally changed, which I think is, subconsciously, when you work on music, when you kind of hope for something to happen for a long time, even if you see other people get it and you understand the truth and all that, you still just kind of subconsciously think that something will be fundamentally different, but it’s really not. Life is the same, or it’s just reality. It’s all reality. It’s no longer a fantasy in my mind. So, yeah, maybe I would say that. Something I think about actually is, like, just enjoying the process even before other people really care, because it’s all worth it. The process is all really beautiful, and even when it’s not, being paid attention to.
Q: Do you have a favorite memory from your tour with LCD Soundsystem that stands out to you?
A: We played a show with them in Portland, Maine, where, while they were playing it started to dump buckets of rain and it was just magical. The crowd went so crazy. It was one of the only shows I stepped out into the audience or the front stage area to watch them. And it was just like, you saw everybody just let go of everything and just be like, “we’re gonna be soaking wet, it doesn’t f**king matter.” And then there was kind of all this chaos with having to cover up the gear with all these clear plastic sheets, and just watching that all go down.
The last few songs they play are like “New York, I Love You [but You’re Bringing Me Down]” and then they play “All My Friends,” and it’s just, it’s unbelievable. An unbelievable show. I mean, that and then the last show, I think watching them play I got really emotional because I was like, “I never thought I would do anything like this.” It was just really special.
Q: If you could give a piece of advice to a band that’s kind of just starting out or an aspiring musician, what do you think that piece of advice would be?
A: Ultimately, I think advice is a funny thing, because nobody really listens to it until they have their experience of the thing. And I’d say, just always try to enjoy what you’re doing at the moment, because there’s nothing outside of what’s happening to you right now.
Maybe I’m projecting onto everybody my personal experience, but I had a hard time playing shows to empty rooms. As I got older, it felt really bad and I really beat myself up a lot. I think just enjoy it. Try to enjoy it because no matter what happens, that’s a time you’re having and your creativity is totally as valuable if it’s just you and a group of people, or if the world catches on, if that ever happens.
Obviously success finds people at all different stages, but I feel really blessed that I had some years where I got to know myself before this sort of happened, ’cause I think if it happened to me at a really early age, it would be kind of scary. I wouldn’t really know where to draw the line between what other people are telling me and stuff. So I think it’s just like, listen to your intuition, but is it good? is it good thing, I would say, probably.
I probably wouldn’t give any advice to anybody because I’m a mess.
Q: For listeners, what’s coming next? What’s in the works?
A: We’re working on an album. We’re dropping some music videos from “My Heart [Is A Room With No Cameras In It” soon. At some point next year, we’ll be putting out a record, so keep your eyes peeled. I’m really, I’m really excited about it. I think it’s good. Definitely.
Q: When you wake up every day, what makes you excited to do this thing that you love and create music with Victoryland? What keeps you doing it?
A: To be honest, it’s the people I do it with. If it was just me sort of in my world… because working on music can be a bit isolating and I go to my own private corner of my brain to try to work on stuff a lot. I think if you get stuck there, it can be a bit of a negative thing — so, playing in a band with a big group of people I’m lucky to consider my friends.
And I have another project with my brother. I think that’s really it, you know, feeling excited about sharing a new idea with Dan or learning a new song with a group of people and honestly, just getting to hang out with awesome people. I think music has always sort of been my lens for my social life. So I think that’s a really big driving force.
Other than that, there’s definitely always the great obsession about getting it right every time or trying to make something you’re personally impressed by. You know, it’s a real carrot on the stick situation. I guess every time I wake up, I chase a carrot on a stick.
But yeah, I’d say the other people in my life.
