Brian Christinzio Reflects on Manchester Move and Creative Transformation

Transmission 220: Interview with BC Camplight

BC Camplight is the stage name of American songwriter and pianist Brian Christinzio, whose career spans over two decades. Originally from New Jersey, Christinzio began playing piano at a very young age and saw music as his primary means of communication. After releasing his debut album Hide, Run Away in 2005—recorded with musicians who later joined The War on Drugs—he relocated to Manchester, England, where he continued recording under the BC Camplight name.

Title: A Sober Conversation
Artist: BC Camplight
Genres: Alternative Rock, Art Rock, Indie Rock
Label: Bella Union
Description: BC Camplight discusses two years sober, A Sober Conversation album, Manchester life, and collaboration with The Last Dinner Party on June 27 release

Since then, Christinzio has released several records through Bella Union, including Deportation Blues (2018) and Shortly After Takeoff (2020). His forthcoming album, A Sober Conversation, will be released on June 27, 2025, via Bella Union. The album’s lead single, “Two Legged Dog,” features Abigail Morris of The Last Dinner Party.

Featured image © Marieke Macklon

When did you first feel like music was something you had to do?

Well, I was a bit of a weird child. I’m a weird man now, but I was a weird kid. I remember quite early on—three or four years old—feeling like music was the way I could communicate with my family.

Apparently, I don’t remember this, but when I was about four, I walked over to the family piano and started playing, for some reason, the United Kingdom’s national anthem. I wasn’t even from there. Luckily, I had a family that realized really early on that music was my thing, so they let me be around it, they let me experiment with what I liked.

I took to the piano quite young. For better or worse, it’s been a huge part of my identity my whole life. I literally don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t a musician because I started so young.

So it’s just me.

How did the atmosphere around you in New Jersey shape your early relationship with songwriting?

Well, I’ve never been a part of the music scene, no matter where I was. In Philadelphia, even here in Manchester, I’ve always felt quite separate from other musicians. I was never really heavily influenced by things going on around me.

I think that’s because I’ve always been a bit of a loner. My upbringing in New Jersey was quite rural and secluded. There weren’t a lot of people around me listening to interesting things.

I wasn’t exposed to the city until later in life, in my 20s. So my upbringing was really about going through my mom’s old record collection and trying to find the stuff that made me feel something. I was the kid listening to things no one else around me was.

Because again, I just never—still to this day—feel like other people. That might sound quite sad, but it’s really hard for me to relate to a lot of people. I spent a lot of time on my own growing up in New Jersey.

And that kind of isolation was the starting point to my current songwriting.

Do you feel like your writing has changed since moving to Manchester?

Yeah, absolutely. Since being in Manchester, my whole life has changed. When I was in Philadelphia, I had a really weird relationship with music. It felt like I had to do it, but I wasn’t really enjoying it, and I wasn’t using it to benefit my life. Since I’ve been here in Manchester, I’ve been using music to explore myself more, to make sense of my world.

I’m less interested now in showing off or saying, “Hey, look how good I am.” It’s become more of a self-exploratory mission. And certainly on this last record I’ve done, I’m using the skill I have—which is one of my only skills, music—to make sense of a pretty dark time in my life.

I’d say that’s the main difference. Before, I was more focused on making pop hooks, things that were fun and silly. There’s still an element of humor in my music now, but I’m more interested in getting to the truth.

How did Deportation Blues come together, and how did it feel to release something so directly tied to your immigration issues?

Yeah, that was a tough record for a lot of reasons. My first record after I moved to Manchester was How to Die in the North, and it kind of put me back on the scene as someone doing something interesting.

The label had a lot of faith in me at that point, and everyone was really excited. Then, kind of without warning, I was deported from the United Kingdom and banned from returning—well, from returning for quite a while at least. The long and short of it is I became an Italian citizen in order to get back into the UK. In that time, my career lost a lot of momentum. It took a toll on me emotionally and in my relationships. So it was a bitter record to make.

When I listen to it now, it’s not as inward-looking as I am now. It’s pretty scathing. And I think that’s what I had to do at the time. I had to let that frustration out, get things off my chest, and really point my finger at some people. It wasn’t a very pleasant feeling.

And it’s not a very pleasant record. But it’s something I had to do.

Has your setup in the studio changed since Shortly After Takeoff?

I use the same studio in Liverpool that I’ve used for my past four records. I don’t think I’m going to go anywhere else. I have a very chaotic way of working in the studio.

It requires a pretty unique set of circumstances for me to be successful. One of those is having my engineer, Danny Woodward, with me. He’s kind of like my right-hand man in the studio.

He’s really patient with me. Some days I want to work for 14 hours. Sometimes I need to take three days off if I’m feeling overwhelmed.

Like I said, it’s a bit of a manic experience—me in the studio. His studio, called Whitewood, really caters to all of my quirks. And it’s a partnership I think will keep going.

You’ve said your last album finally confronts something that had been shut away for decades. What made now the time to open that door?

Well, as an artist—someone who’s been creating albums—this is the first time I’ve ever made an album not on drugs. For the past two years, I’ve been off drugs, specifically cocaine. Before that, I was quite a heavy user.

I had moments of clarity, but they weren’t sustained. My life experience was generally behind this veil of being high all the time or recovering from being high. May 31st, 2023 was the last time I did drugs.

My girlfriend at the time, Jessica, has been with me since then. I’ve been open with her about my addiction, which has been huge. It’s something I probably should have done a long time ago—admit to the people around me that I had a problem.

But now I have this clarity. Not only can I function better as a human being because of it, but I can also see my past very clearly. And it’s tough.

It’s not an easy thing to do. There’s a reason why people do drugs—and one of them is to avoid confronting themselves.

Now I feel like I have the capacity to handle all the inevitable, awful feelings that come with writing about this trauma and reliving it over and over. I feel more equipped now because I’m stronger and not on drugs. Now is the time to do it.

I owe it to myself, really. If I’m going to be an artist who sings about real things and doesn’t take the easy way out, this felt like the next move for me—obviously as an artist, but also as a human being.

Where did most of the songs start—at the piano, in your head, somewhere else?

Sometimes I’m walking around in the supermarket, and I go, “Oh my God, that’s a good idea.” It just hits me. Or I’m walking the dog, and suddenly I think, “Right, that string arrangement there.”

Then I have to capture that moment. That’s something I’ve gotten better at over time—being able to filter out what’s just noise and what’s actually a good idea worth exploring. I kind of keep a mental catalog of all these ideas and concepts that hit me unexpectedly.

That’s when I take these ideas and ask, “What does this sound like? What kind of string can I put through here that would be a nice concept?” Then I bring it to the piano.

But I’m sort of at the whim of my unconscious. I guess a lot of songwriters are like that, but I’m not one of these Tin Pan Alley guys who can turn it on and off. When it wants to come, it comes in droves.

And sometimes the tap’s just turned off.

How did the collaboration with Abigail Morris come together?

She’s a fan of BC Camplight. Her band is The Last Dinner Party, and they came to see me when I performed at Glastonbury. We just had a friendly back and forth—“Hi, how are you? I like your band.” “I like your band.” That was really it.

Originally, I had lined up another singer to do the part on that song, but she backed out at the last minute. So I was in a panic. I thought, “Who do I know that can really own this, really bring it to life?” I just assumed Abigail wouldn’t do it because she’s so busy. But I sent her a message, and she got right back to me. She basically said, “I’ll have it to you by tomorrow.”

All of the ad libs, the howls, all of that great stuff from her performance—that was totally her. I didn’t tell her to do any of it.

She really brought it to life. She’s obviously a big part of that song.

Do you already have ideas for what you want to do after this album?

Well, I guess like I did after the last album, the most important thing for me is just to live and be as honest with myself as humanly possible. The more I do that—the more I’m honest about my past and my present—the more I’m writing my best stuff. And the more I’m attracting honest and awesome people into my life.

I don’t worry about the specifics—what the next record is going to sound like, what instruments will be on it. I don’t really think about that. That always works itself out.

For me, I’m just concentrating on trying to be—not even the best person I can be—but just honest about my faults, not trying to run away from things, and really running toward the uncomfortable. That’s kind of been the theme of my life this past year—dealing with things.

If something is really uncomfortable, you’ve got to find out why. And at least musically speaking, the more I do that, the more gold I’m finding.

So I’m just going to keep doing that until I run out of ideas.

Photos courtesy of BC Camplight

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others