Grief, Loss, And An Abundance Of Country Pop: Hippo Campus Interviewed
It’s been a year since their third full-length release and a lot has changed for Hippo Campus. Even just on the surface, the first reaction to hearing their ‘Wasteland’ EP is one of complete astonishment – from personal turmoil penned to glitch pop, we’re now switching to a natural country twang? What happened here?
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A product of catharsis, LP3 spiralled into yet another internal journey for the drop when the mother of producer and close friend Caleb Hinz passed away unexpectedly on the evening of the album’s release, overshadowing a celebratory event but also kick-starting a new emotional journey in process.
“Was that only a year ago?” bassist Zach Sutton ponders. “We constantly refer to that year as the longest year of our lives. There was a lot of fun but it was coloured by that sad event which sent everyone into a crazy headspace around that record.”
“It was a tough time for everybody,” guitarist Nathan Stocker adds. “There were a lot of questions floating around our camp – do we like this still? Is this serving us? We had to be there for each other as friends as well as professional bandmates to keeping the train going. We were able to band together and come out the other side with a stronger bond than we had previously; we’re oddly grateful and in disbelief that we pulled that off.”
Piecing together another project from the ashes of their own spirits was not on the collective mind of Hippo Campus with the group already in the process of formulating their next album, but a push from management had them recognising the interconnectedness of material already realized.
“We had been writing at the time anyway so we already had a batch of songs,” Nathan shares: ‘Kick in the Teeth’ was written and produced pretty organically without any project in mind, ‘Moonshine’ was lying around, ‘Probably’, ‘Honeysuckle’… the pieces started to align and we realized there might be something there. All we cared about was the unity in our trajectory which really came with ‘Yippie Ki Yay’; the western, ‘Wasteland’ world was extracted from the energy of that track.”
Pertinent to what they were going through, Hippo Campus were already “flying by the seat of our pants, riding our horses into a tornado. We didn’t belong where we were, it felt super silly and weird.”
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So, despite not wanting to share anything in what was clearly a difficult time for the group, these ragtag Minnesotans came out with a five-tracker that stays true to the complicated journey they’ve shared over the last year – navigating grief and loss, trusting yourself enough to accept love from others… it’s a complicated world, and one that has given the quintet a whiplash of self-acceptance and leaves a looming sense of self-doubt instilled in their bones.
Faux-cowboy imagery became a metaphor for the imposter syndrome the band were collectively experiencing as they were once again put in a position to share music while feeling like broken people: “we strapped up and buckled in to dive headfirst into a potential catastrophe, taking a leap of faith despite not knowing what the fuck we were doing – that’s almost the essence of this band, and that song encapsulates the narrative of our experiences in the industry as of late.”
Hippo Campus didn’t expect the results of what would soon form as a surprisingly cohesive product under the circumstances, and the response from the fans mirrored a similar level of shock.
“Our poor fans,” Zach sympathises. “Genuinely, a fan base has never been so resilient. We throw curve balls every single time but we’re just being honest to ourselves at each step. We might not always have a clear idea of what exactly we’re gonna make, but we know we’re always unified in the creative process. We know why ‘Wasteland’ makes sense to us, so we stand by it and hopefully people can see that. It’s always fun to watch chaos unfold, though.”
Getting comfortable in one space has hardly been a trademark of the Hippo Campus journey to date, with frontman Jake Luppen previously sharing that an overarching sense of discomfort is actually what tells the artists they’re doing something right.
“We’ve brought that to every single iteration of our music,” Sutton agrees. “I felt uncomfortable with this whole project for a long time but it’s about interrogating the reasons why and assessing the pure quality of your output; that completely removed the fear for me. The fear which was there as a necessity has been forged through in a crucible. There’s a reason you have to feel that way and it’s a rewarding process.”
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Although country tones are certainly new ground for the band, the way in which ‘Wasteland’ was recorded turned out to be unusually nostalgic. Nathan explains: “It was uncomfortable genre-wise but the live recordings were raw and harkened back to the origins of us being a live band first, interacting with each other on a level that you can’t do when plugged into an interface to record digitally. There’s a real analogue dustiness to these records that’s really special.”
For a record that initially seems goofy with its balls to the wall country leanings, there sure is a lot of depth found under what Hippo Campus were convinced was a manufactured surface. As per past efforts, jovial and candid impressions mask a cavern of emotion.
“Our seriousness is juxtaposed with humour because that’s how we get by, but we never want to be flippant,” Stocker explains of their constant contradictions. “We’ve never been casual, we take all this shit really seriously but our expression through language and songs themselves has changed over the years, just as we all have and all will continue to do. We have an honest desire to be clear in a way that we haven’t before. That shift requires a level of honesty and vulnerability. Having gone through the dark even traumatic experiences together, we don’t have time to not be real about this shit anymore.”
An emotional standout here is ‘Probably’ – potentially the first true break-up song these veterans have penned – which speaks on the gutting fantasies of imagining an old flame in the arms of another. Despite not being an entirely true reflection of the band members’ relationship status, an undeniably compelling story is conjured to support the emotion that Nathan was hoping to convey to a transatlantic audience.
“There’s always drama, you’re always dressing things up in a way,” he admits. “There are few examples that detail musicians lives every step of the way with accurate historic outlining. It straddles that line between fiction and non-fiction in a lot of ways, also fitting into the meta narrative. It is all contrived, it is all faux pas, but it’s also all so genuine amongst all that.”
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If all of this art was devised for promotion in the first place, the amount of shows the guys have to show off warrant some form of self-indulgence – a ridiculous slate of US tour dates are approaching quickly, with the very first show held at none other than Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
“It’s the quintessential cliché of a dream come true for a band,” Zach acknowledges. “Nathan and I drove out there in 2014 to see one of our favourite artists and super jovially joked about how it’d feel to play there someday. To actually be here now….”
“It’s a dream come true,” Nathan confirms. “We’ve played there three times opening up for some incredible bands and it’s always a magical experience. To be able to put our own stamp on it will be pretty special. I’m expected an overwhelming slew of emotions and part of this job is being willing to embrace those and let them show on stage because that’s what everyone wants to see – nudity, emotional or otherwise.”
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Underneath all the success we can see, the motivation behind Hippo Campus’ creative process and daily activities has greatly shifted; long gone are the indulgent days of ‘Bambi’ where a need to prove themselves to the world ruled all. Instead, proving themselves to each other is the first and only priority.
Zach considers this: “It’s a lot less outward nowadays. I don’t think of Hippo Campus as this experiment that is yet to yield an effective result, I see it as friends making music for each more than anything else. That’s the driving force behind us getting up to work every day and it typically yields songs I’m more proud of.”
“The need to prove ourselves is only reflecting inwards rather than manifesting as a gaping wound,” Nathan adds. “There’s a focus on doing what we do the best we can do it, come what may. All you can do is get up in the morning and try to write a better song than yesterday. We only have a certain amount of time to do what we want to do, and we’re savouring all the time that we have.”
To prove the triumph of that internal mission, both musicians express their utter awe at each other’s output before Nathan concludes: “It’s such a cool feeling to be in a normal as fuck place, driving a normal as fuck minivan with our normal as fuck friends, but the music is always so not normal. It blows my mind every time.”
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Words: Finlay Holden
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
