7 minute read
Hippo Campus
Words and photography by Emma Sophia Valles Graphic design by David Kramer
Indie-rock outfit Hippo Campus hails from St. Paul, Minnesota, and consists of vocalist Jake Luppen, guitarist Nathan Stocker, bassist Zach Sutton, drummer Whistler Allen, and trumpeter DeCarlo Jackson. Since their formation in 2013, the band has released a plethora of singles, EPs, and albums, each more contagiously catchy than the next. With hard work and persistence, Hippo Campus has enjoyed multitudes of success, performing at legendary festivals like Lollapalooza, critically acclaimed late-night shows like Conan, and selling out historic venues like Minneapolis’ First Avenue. Hot off their 2018 release Bambi, Hippo Campus is currently touring throughout the United States. Luckily, Emma got to sit down with them and talk about their band’s evolution, trials and tribulations when recording and touring, and most importantly, Zach’s budding career as a rapper.
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So how's the tour been? How many shows have you done so far?
Zach: About a hundred and twelve this year so far. We’re on tour with The Head and The Heart currently and that is going well.
You guys are opening for them?
Jake: Yeah. It’s our first opening slot in like, three years. It’s nice to play a shorter set to a different audience.
Zach: A lot of 30-year olds are coming to the shows, bringing their kids.
Jake: Bring your kids, bring your family!
How does it feel having to compress your setlist after headlining for so long?
Nathan: It’s a double-edged sword. I think the longer your set has to be, the harder it is to make the setlist. I know that during our headlining shows it’s just f******* backbreaking trying to please everybody. But on this run, it’s been fairly easy and free. We already have the meat of what we’re supposed to do laid out for us and then we just get to trim the fat.
When you guys headlined, you were working with two different charities. How was that?
Zach: It went well for us. We worked with Planned Parenthood and the Women’s Foundation. The fans were really great and supportive of the causes.
Whistler: [dragging chair]
Nathan: Whistler, can you just…
Zach: Don’t.
Nathan: Hi, my name’s Nathan.
Zach: This is what Nathan’s coffee sounds like [swirls coffee]. This is what DeCarlo’s coffee sounds like [swirls coffee].
Haha, is this becoming an ASMR interview?
Zach: [slurps into mic] That’s actually quieter than I was expecting. I think the guys like you. So we had Planned Parenthood, HeadCount, Women’s Foundation, and The Humane Society as well.
DeCarlo: That was the one with the Dogs.
Zach: So, we just had partnerships for the tour, where representatives from those organizations would come out in the cities we were in and set up a little booth and talk about their causes. It just seemed like a really easy and important thing to do with the platform and demographics we have.
For the one with the dogs, were they part of the VIP experience or was it just separate?
Jake: At some of the venues, they would allow dogs in while we were performing.
Nathan: Sometimes they would bark.
Zach: I got a laugh every time.
Jake: There was a cat in a hotel.
DeCarlo: One time, one crawled up on Whistler when he was playing the shaker.
Nathan: Oh my god, that was the cutest.
Circling back to the music. How has your guys’ sound developed from Landmark to Bambi to Demos II?
Jake: I think it’s just production quality getting better, as far as the EPs up to Bambi.
Were the demos supposed to be part of the album or were they just something you guys had lying around?
Jake: We’d written a bunch of songs that were all contenders for the album. The demos were the ones that didn’t make the cut.
Zach: And we had to satisfy our label and the screaming gods that preside over it every day.
Jake: [pleading to the camera] Please give us back our kids. I miss them. I miss my wife. Please.
Both Bambi and Landmark had objects and symbols representing each track. Is that something like you guys had thought out before? Or did you guys let David (the artist) have creative freedom over that?
Jake: With Landmark, I feel like we zoned in on what we wanted really early. Like, “we want it to be this room, and we want items to represent each of these things”. As far as Bambi goes, we kind of let David just run with it; in the end, we absolutely loved what he did.
Nathan: We threw ourselves into a time crunch with Bambi, so there wasn’t a whole lot of back and forth for the sake of keeping things rolling. We did have input on the tone of the artwork, but when it came to the content we allowed David to have free rein and he crushed it. He always crushes it.
Are these symbols something you want to keep doing?
Zach: The symbols on Bambi weren’t so much correlated with the tracks. They were just symbols that kind of reflected the themes of the album.
Whistler: So, those symbols were all David, as opposed to symbols or the items on Landmark. Those symbols he just threw on there and we were like, “What are these?”
Zach: So, maybe. It depends on the songs.
Whistler: It depends on David, too. I feel like David might throw in some stuff.
Nathan: From talking to David, I think he’s willing to work with other artists on future Hippo stuff as well. We want to be able to keep our branches growing.
Jake: He’s also a graphic designer first and foremost, so that really plays into the symbol branding.
Whistler: That’s like, David’s forte.
Nathan: Once you start writing again we’ll see.
Jake: Who knows. Maybe we’ll never put out another album.
Zach: [to Jake] Sorry, we’re actually contractually obligated to do that.
For Landmark, you guys had a conceptual character, Mary. How was it like writing Bambi without the conceptual character?
Nathan: Easier.
Jake: Yeah probably. Well, I guess Mary is more fictional whereas the characters in Bambi were more real. So it just became like, a process that valued honesty, in terms of writing. Rather than writing a narrative, we just wrote about our lives.
Nathan: Mary was a symbol and people on Bambi are real.
What does the name Bambi mean to you guys?
Jake: Well, my aunt’s name is Bambi.
Does it have a different meaning to every one of you or is it just because of Jake's aunt?
Whistler: We spent a lot of time at her cabin, so it’s pretty literal. Couldn’t find a better name.
Nathan: It’s like a trigger word for me now. Every time I hear it, I’m like, “It’s happening”.
Whistler: It’s like, such a soft name.
Nathan: Like PTSD. Every time I hear that word “Bambi”, I need a huge cocktail.
Jake: I see colors every time.
Zach: Yeah, I see pink and blue.
Nathan: I hear gunshots... To answer your question though, Bambi does mean different things to each of us. You may be able to tell, but it was a very tumultuous process like with our producer and with each other. So when I hear Bambi, I think of the Tokyo Police Club song “Boots of Danger“. But also, I think of the traumatic experiences we had making that album.
Jake: We had a working album cover for a minute and it was like, Zach in full makeup; it was just this really soft picture. He looked beautiful. I remember seeing that all together and listening to the music and being like, “Woah, this is cool”. It’s soft but it’s also sad.
Zach: It’s soft because it’s innocent.
What made you guys drop Demos II?
Jake: We wanted to take a minute before we worked on new music because we just had toured and before that, we had spent a lot of time writing and recording. We needed a minute to really pause and reflect over the past five years. At the same time, we wanted to give fans something that would tide them over while we took some time off. Also, I just think it’s cool to let people into our process because the songs changed so much from demos to the final record.
Zach: Exactly. And we had to pay a sacrifice to Spotify so they don’t take any more money away from me.
These songs have been around for a while? Or at least some of them, right? Because I do remember seeing some of them live.
Nathan: It was probably the first two, “Chapstick” and “No Poms”. We played “No Poms” at a bunch of shows and the fans were asking to have it. So we just gave them the worst possible version. It’s like a demo that we recorded a year and a half ago. So, since late 2017, those songs have been around.
You guys have been touring forever, how's that been?
Jake: Honest answer or not honest answer?
Whatever you would feel comfortable saying.
Jake: Great. It’s been fucking great.
I'd assume it's tiring.
Zach: We’ve had some really good times—this year especially—since we dropped Bambi in September of last year. We’ve been on the road pretty much since then. We’ve had a bunch of cool tours and have seen the whole country twice since then.
Whistler: The people that we work with are really proud as well.
Zach: We went to Australia for the first time and it was sick.
Jake: We played in Korea, too.
Zach: Yeah, we played in Thailand and Korea and that was really crazy. But you know, if you don’t look at it as a collection of highlights and instead you look at it as a whole thing, it’s exhausting. Holy sh**, I’m excited to go home for more than two weeks at a time and write some music.
So what's in the future for you guys, besides another tour?
Jake: Probably therapy. Just like a lot of personal growth and therapy.
Whistler: We’ll all do that.
Jake: We’re not joking. But, I don’t know, probably just finding out what our goals are again and coming back bigger and stronger with better songs.
Zach: Hopefully some rap features for me on the low. My rapper name is Lil Spo.
Jake: Exposed by Lil Spo.
Nathan: Hopefully a Lil Nas remix, cause he’s just doing that with everyone.
But you'll feature on his track?
Zach: Yeah, hopefully. Truthfully, I have no rap experience.
Just get him on tour with you.
.Zach: He probably would do that.
Nathan: I have my cowboy hat.
Anything else you guys would like to let the people know?
Whistler: Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week with the next. With another podcast.
Zach: With another podcast. We’ll be interviewing Joe Rogan next week.
Whistler: This week on Cereal.
Jake: Did you say “This week on cereal”?
DeCarlo: You said “cereal”, not Syria?
Whistler: Yeah. Cereal on the quad.
Jake: Welcome back to on the quad. It’s always fantastic.
I could picture you guys sitting on a tour bus making a podcast after like a week on tour.
Zach: I dream about us doing that.
Jake: Whistler did have a podcast. You can check out Whistler’s podcast, Rumba Bumba.
Haha, is the name still in the works?
Zach: No, pretty much the only part that’s done is the name.
Whistler: Rumba Bumba.
