March 2026: "#CamperLife"
Hey y’all,
Here’s the Austin B. Sweeney newsletter coming in hot for the month of March. I put these out once a month to keep you updated on upcoming shows, what I’m listening to, general musings, lyric breakdowns, and much more! I hope this newsletter will provide value for you, if for no other reason than it may introduce you to music you haven’t heard before!
Let’s quit wasting time here and jump into it, here’s what I’ve been listening to in the last month:
Song: “Saint Dominic’s Preview” – Van Morrison
Album: “Exile on Main Street” – The Rolling Stones
Artist: Van Morrison
My new EP, “WAGON” is available NOW everywhere you get your music. If you really want to support me and buy the actual albums, you can buy them here
Also, if you want to read any past newsletters, click here
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Alright, well, the last few newsletters have been a little philosophically heavy, so let’s talk about something that a lot of people have asked me about.
RV life.
Or, if you prefer: #camperlife
For those of you who don’t know, my wife and I (and our old dog and fat cat) live in a 42-foot, fifth-wheel trailer. It’s a 2016 Grand Design Reflection 357BHS. Click here if you want to check it out.
We call it The Bandwagon.
We ended up buying it after a trip to Rocky Point, Mexico for Roger Clyne’s Circus Mexicus music festival to play a few shows. This was in June of 2024. My wife Laura and I had been periodically discussing me leaving my job as a CDL truck driver in Tempe, AZ to fully dedicate myself to being a full-time musician.
Laura was also working for Luxury RV in Mesa, AZ as their social media person, so she got to tour a lot of trailers. She devised a plan.
Every time we go to Rocky Point, we do two things:
1. Stop at Lucas’ Chicken when we first get into town for chicken taco supplies to sustain us throughout our time in Mexico
2. Have a Pina Colada at El Capitan – which overlooks the Sea of Cortez
During our enjoyment of Pina Coladas overlooking the ocean, Laura set her plan in motion to convince me that we should buy and move into a camper. Here were her pitches:
1. We could travel and play shows anywhere we’re willing to drive and still have our home with us.
2. I could quit my day job – the camper would be much cheaper to live in than a condo or a house.
3. She found a camper with a bunkhouse – complete with its own bathroom and separated by a door (I told her that one of my issues with #camperlife is that I really need my own space).
4. We could travel up and stay in Oregon (where I’m from) for the summer, both to get out of the Arizona heat and to spend more time with my family. Also because that’s a whole new market of music up there, and it’s very different from the Arizona music scene.
Well… a couple of Pina Coladas later, coupled with the fresh ocean breezes of the Mexican coast, and the idea started to sound shockingly doable.
We’ve now been in The Bandwagon for a year-and-a-half. We began living in it in late October of 2024. This means that from the inception of the idea to moving in, took only four months. I tell her that she’s an excellent negotiator and she seems to always get what she wants.
We took the camper up to Oregon in May 2025 to get married. We then took it from Oregon to Arizona to get ready for our Honeymoon Tour (if it’s a tour while having a honeymoon, it makes the honeymoon a tax write-off.)
To read the full story of the Honeymoon Tour, check out my newsletter from September by clicking here.
We learned a lot on that cross-country tour. Specifically, how often things break. We’ve replaced water pumps, toilets, fans, tires, leaf springs, etc. We’ve dumped the tanks more times than I can count.
So, let’s get to the nitty-gritty: the reality of #camperlife.
We bought our camper used. Now, whether you buy a camper brand new or used, you’re going to learn things about it very quickly. One of the first things to do to break in your new home is to take it on what RVers call a “shakedown trip.”
A shakedown trip is where you drive somewhere at least a few hours away and find out what has broken in that time. It’s always something.
Maybe your TV fell off the stand (ours has). Maybe your cabinets popped open and stuff is all over the floor (yep). Maybe your toilet has unseated and now has a leak at the base (most definitely).
The shakedown trip is where all the stuff that was going to break, will. Our shakedown trip wasn’t bad. All those issues I mentioned above happened over several different trips. One of the advantages to buying a used camper is the shakedown trip has technically already happened with the first owner. By the time you buy the camper, it’s already been shaken down, repaired, reinforced, etc.
Stuff happens though, and that’s just the reality of living in a house on wheels that experiences what are, essentially, hours-long earthquakes every time you take it on the road. My friend Harrison sells RVs and one of the first things he told me when I bought it, was:
“You’re going to learn every square inch of that thing in the first year.”
How right he was.
I could go on and on about all the little mechanical intricacies of hooking up, detaching, preparing for trips, leveling, fun dump tank activities, etc. but let’s get down to the even more important details.
That would be, sharing a tiny space with someone – plus a dog and a cat.
Laura and I never lived together before the camper. When we were discussing our future, we wanted to wait until we got married before we moved in together. However, my lease at my old house was finishing up and since we had already bought the camper, it just seemed like the right move.
So, we moved in together about six months before we got married.
Into a camper.
This is an excellent way to find out how well you really get along with the person you claim to love. You will either grow deeper and more connected, or you explode. There’s no middle ground. I’m happy to say that for us, it was the former.
That doesn’t mean it’s always easy though.
Laura is an excellent cook. Someday I hope to provide a large, beautiful kitchen for her, but she figured out how to operate a kitchen the size of your closet. Granted, it has a peninsula where there’s some extra counter space and a sink, but that doesn’t mean the counters and sink are empty. We have our whole lives in the camper, which means the counters also have an air fryer, blender, toaster, water dispenser, fruit bowl, etc. on them.
She’s made us homemade sourdough and other homemade, organic delicacies (she’s getting crunchier by the day), fajitas, meatloaf, pasta, and homemade soup – and that’s just in the last two weeks!
The kitchen is her territory. I’ll do the dishes when I can, but in general, she wants me out of the kitchen. There’s not really any way to have two people operating in a camper kitchen. You’re always in each other’s way, and if you toss our dog in the mix – who is ALWAYS in the way, begging for food – then things can get a little tense.
We also choose to eat off paper plates, which really completes the “we live in a camper” aesthetic. We figure – regarding the environment – that it all evens out, cosmically, if we use paper plates. On one hand, we must dispose of many paper plates. On the other hand, we aren’t washing nearly as many dishes and therefore preserving water while living in the desert.
I work from the bunkhouse. It has a small desk and four shelves (which double as beds, or more accurately, four beds that double as shelves) where I keep all my music gear. I’ve got two amps, three guitars, one keyboard, and a tacklebox full of strings and various repair kits. The shelves also double as a second pantry. During the workday, I close the door. This becomes my office and Laura either goes into work in Mesa or works from the kitchen table where most of the real estate is taken up by a giant computer screen. We have made this work pretty well for ourselves.
I’ve recorded demos in this thing.
I’ve written songs in this thing.
Songs that I consider some of my best that I’ve written so far. The environment that a songwriter occupies has an unquantifiable, but very tangible, effect on the songs that get written.
I haven’t written my #camperlife song yet, but rest assured, I will before we move out.
We have a dual-recliner loveseat in front of the TV. When we first sat in those recliners in front of the TV on our shakedown trip (playing a music festival in Flagstaff, shoutout to Whiskey Rose Ranch!), I honestly thought to myself that we’d never need anything else. It was so comfy.
I actually believed that. Isn’t that nuts?
We’re both very excited to get an actual sofa when we move into an actual home.
We’re also very excited to someday have a washer/dryer (Laura and her sister are at the laundromat as I write this), a dishwasher, and a real kitchen where Laura can really work her culinary magic.
We’ve gotten very adept at navigating the small spaces. The dog and cat are always in our way, which can be seriously frustrating, but we make it work. We often eat on the couch as the kitchen table is Laura’s workspace.
We also get to dump the tanks every two weeks. I’ve taken it upon myself to be the designated dump-guy, as Laura cooks 99% of the meals, and let me tell you, it’s an experience. I’ve gotten pretty efficient at it, but the access to the dump station is further than I’d prefer and it requires connecting three 20-foot hoses to reach it.
For a fun demonstration of my initial concern of how it could go, click here.
Luckily it hasn’t, and we’ve both remained totally clean over the many times we’ve participated in this illuminating activity.
We each have our roles, and when living in a camper, this is crucial.
Being able to live and travel in the same space presents many challenges, but man, we’re free.
During our travels, we’ll stay in state parks, RV parks, Thousand Trails parks (which ain’t cheap), and more. When you pull into a spot and start unloading and hooking up, you’ll often get a chance to discuss RV tips and tricks with the locals and the lifers at the park. The locals are the ones whose tires are flat. They’ve been there a long time and don’t seem to have any desire to leave their well-worn spot in 32F.
Then there are the lifers. Those are the dedicated ones. You chat with them and come to find out that they’re on their way to Montana, or to catch a boat race in the Florida Keys, or maybe they’re coming back after visiting their family in the northeast. They enjoy the freedom of the road. The unencumbered life of few responsibilities and even fewer showers.
I’m kidding about the showers. Most lifers that I’ve met are really prepared, kind, and well-suited individuals.
The locals are the ones who are more eccentric. They’ll barrel out of their camper just to watch you detach and set up. They’ll walk right on up to you and let you know that you need a cover on your slideouts or you’ll get water seeping in during rainstorms. Laura and I were in a couple brutal thunderstorms in Texas and Florida during our honeymoon, where it felt like the camper might just wash away, and no water ever seeped in.
The locals are the ones that you picture when you imagine the people that live in a camper. So, take your local advice with a hefty chunk of salt.
I’ve met couples, single dudes, “homeless” folks, entire families, and more than one “cat lady” on our travels. I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world, and for the time that we’re living in The Bandwagon, we’re going to enjoy it.
Apropos of nothing, getting to say this to my dad, was a highlight of our time in Oregon preceding our wedding.
I’m sure I have more to say on this subject, and maybe I’ll revisit it in a later newsletter, but living in an RV is a life experience that can only be lived firsthand. When we first moved into it and we’d be laying in bed at night, we’d remark to each other:
“We live in a camper. Isn’t that crazy?”
It was fun. The realization that you have all you really need in that little space makes for a clearer mind. However, long-term we know that we need a house. When we first moved into it – or, rather, when we were first considering moving into it – we agreed that we would do 1-2 years in it. We knew that, eventually, we’d want to start a family and have a real home base.
We’re thankful that nothing major has broken (which my friend Harrison said is somewhat shocking, considering we have been in it for a year-and-a-half and have taken it to Oregon and back, as well as cross-country). We’re also thankful that we know how much we love each other. RVs really can test your compatibility with someone. You’re never alone. There’s nowhere really that you can retreat to if you need space. You’re constantly sliding past each other and moving stuff to make room to sit down.
We are still enjoying our time in our camper, but we’re also ready to have a real house with a real kitchen and a real sofa. We have no plans at the moment of what we’ll do, but we’re going to begin a search for a real house within the next six months or so.
Which means we totally nailed it on that 1-2 year timeline.
There’s certainly more to discuss on the issue of #camperlife, so maybe I’ll get back to it in a future newsletter.
See y’all out on the road.
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Here are the shows that are coming up in the month of March. I might book another couple in AZ, so keep your eyes peeled on my socials.
· 3/4 – Copper Blues Downtown PHX (duo w/ Cade Kitzmiller), 7-11pm (Phoenix, AZ)
· 3/6 – Old County Inn, 6-9pm (Pine, AZ)
· 3/7 – Old County Inn, 6-9pm (Pine, AZ)
· 3/8 – Bottle and Bean, 11-2pm (Chandler, AZ)
· 3/12 – Gilbert Spring Concert Series in the Park, 6:30-8:30pm (Gilbert, AZ)
· 3/13 – Local Jonny’s, 5-8pm (Cave Creek, AZ)
· 3/14 – Back Alley BBQ, 7-10 (Chandler, AZ)
· 3/15 – Horse + Hyde Arcadia, 3-6pm (Phoenix, AZ)
· 3/20 – The Rock (full band) w/ PJ Bidwell Band, 7pm (Tucson, AZ)
· 3/21 – Dynamite Beer Co., 3-6pm (Scottsdale, AZ)
· 3/27 – Valley Taproom, 7-10pm (Queen Creek, AZ)
· 3/29 – The Monastery (w/ Laura Hamlin), 3-7pm (Mesa, AZ)
Stoked to see y’all soon.
Austin
Listen now!
https://open.spotify.com/artist/433eTr5V5LEv1VtP1ejbkt?si=Jlzl5oz8RvulN-ocxrGqyg
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