Interview with Jamie Cameron – The Last Dinosaur
by Killian Laher

No More Workhorse caught up with Jamie Cameron, of The Last Dinosaur, ahead of the release of the third Last Dinosaur album.

It’s been a couple of years since your last album, The Nothing.  What have you been up to?

Apart from photography, I’ve been learning how to record again after a long gap between 2012-2017.  The Nothing was a long process but I pretty much stopped home recording when the ideas became too complicated for the multitrack equipment I was using.  I mentioned this before in A Year in Music – 2019 but I resisted moving to computers for a long time.  Now I spend most of my week in the studio, chipping away at ideas, collaborating, experimenting.

The new album Wholeness is very different from its predecessor.  What prompted the change in direction?

It’s interesting to hear that. To me it’s not a huge departure, just focusing on different shades within the same palette.  This one feels more like a spiritual successor to the first album.  I have a few albums of songs that I still need to work on so perhaps they will end up sharing more colours with The Nothing.

Did it take long to come together?  What was the recording process like?

Wholeness was started early 2018, before I had the studio space.  I was putting a mic in my housemate’s boot as a makeshift mic stand in order to record the guitar for Shower Song.  Slowly getting to grips with Ableton by trial and error.  I moved into the studio space in Spring 2018 and finally finished the album early this summer.  It’s been a long, slow process with a lot of time spent alone.  I care a lot about the thing I’m making.  Too much, I imagine.  I’m not very good at letting things go and when I’m forced to I prefer not to think too much about them afterwards.

Any important influences this time around?

Probably but nothing is springing to mind.  They aren’t a new influence but I’ll say Rachel’s simply because they are still so criminally underrated. Systems/Layers is the one to start with.

It’s a brave and challenging album.  What are your hopes for it?

Thank you for saying that.  A few things have impacted my hopes for the reach of this album but I guess the hope is always that some people end up finding it and caring about it.

How has 2020 been for you?  Really has been a year where the world has turned upside down.

It’s not been a great one, the only highlight is the fact my sister is expecting a baby.

Presume there are no plans to do live concerts any time soon?

Lila (Tristram) and I were planning on playing stripped down sets together around Europe before the virus hit, so I really look forward to that being possible again.

Any plans next year?

I’m going to predict that there’ll be at least two side-project/collaboration releases and a new Last Dinosaur EP, if not an album.