How has being in an indie-rock band changed?
VK: You know, I don’t want to sound like the bitter old grandfather—I’m proud of what we did. It’s just it was then, and what it is now, there’s no comparison. What we were dealing with then was a smaller scene, but also firmly localized. Bands like R.E.M. and that whole general college-rock circuit, they’d gone around and they’d established clubs to play at and places to stay, radio stations to work. We didn’t even have cell phones, you know? We were mailing records, like physical records. But also, remember that Telephone Free Landslide Victory sold something in the neighborhood of I think it was 60,000 units in the first year and a half! My God, people would kill to sell units like that right now, because it all gets downloaded now. D: Camper Van Beethoven was forming when the “indie” label was just beginning to become the sort of buzz word. DL: Yeah, I think we were the first band that was applied to. It’s a little cushier in some ways now. I mean, a lot of us old timers talk about
