The Minnesota indie giants as you know it are “dead”. The new album ‘LP3’ marks an exciting new age as Hippo Campus explore who and what they are.
Jake Luppen, Nathan Stocker, Whistler Allen, Zach Sutton, and DeCarlo Jackson have all been friends since middle school and have spent a huge amount of their life thinking all about Hippo Campus and what journey their band will take. But what we hear in the band’s third album ‘LP3’ is the individuality, self-expression and honesty.
It’s been a long three and a half years since 2018’s Bambi and in that time we’ve seen each member explore pastures new as vocalists and guitarists Luppen and Stocker both release solo records, and trumpeter Jackson founded and collaborated with a number of bands in the State.
Navigating solo projects and new dynamics can be a challenging feat, bringing up new spotlights, insecurities and defence mechanisms. To branch outside of the comfort zone that is Hippo Campus must have been an enormous task, but it is one the band managed to overcome as they made the eventual return to the project.
“With ‘LP3,’ Hippo felt like a very safe space to express those things because you have your best friends around you, rallying behind you,” Luppen says. “And each person could chime in with their own experience. I felt like it was a very safe space to be earnest.”
Photos by Press / Tonje Thilesen
The album comes to terms with mortality, the confusing journey of sexuality, bottoming out, seeing decisions from the night before in the harsh morning light; finding your identity as a person and as an artist. It’s a deep study into teenage life where we all begin to learn a whirlwind of different emotions; particularly shame, pain and joy.
Having started Hippo Campus straight out of school, the band probably hasn’t had much time as the rest of us take all of these emotions in and it’s only now thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, that they have let things sink in. ‘LP3’ marks a sort of ego death and ultimately feeling okay with that. So much of ‘LP3’ is written about the end of relationships, of careers, and the chance of meeting yourself as a brand new person.
So why are the giants as we know it “dead”? Well, for the first time for Hippo Campus there was no tour lined up, no plans and well, essentially dead without anything to focus on. Instead there was the perfect opportunity to make an open timeline and create breathing room to experiment and explore. Using the experience of the past eight years to guide themselves through the hoops necessary to pull it all off, death, in all its metaphorical and lyrical forms, looms across the record…
To read the interview in full, click here to read it inside abridged. magazine issue 2!
