Diane caught up with Jake Luppen of Hippo Campus, days before the band’s busy U.S. tour promoting their new record LP3. Already, the band has sold out shows in DC, Boston, Seattle and more, leading up to their first appearance at the 8,400-cap Minneapolis venue The Armory on April 23.  

The lead vocalist/music producer/multi-instrumentalist talked about how the pandemic changed the process of how they make music and how it will affect their upcoming tour life. Also, learn about why Luppen says LP3 is their most successful work yet. 

Diane: I am so excited to be here with Jake of Hippo Campus on your extremely busy schedule right now. How are you doing, by the way? 

Jake Luppen: Doing good. Yeah, just prepping for tour. So, we are trying to cram learning all the songs into a three-day period, but we're mostly succeeding. 

Thinking of your earliest LP, Landmark, which was very guitar-heavy and guitar-centric, then to Bambi where it starts to get a little bit more electronic, little bit more experimental ... to now, LP3, your strongest work yet. Can you talk to me about how you view your progression as a band? 

Yeah, we started the band when we were 18, fresh out of high school. So, we had been in other bands in high school but when we started in Hippo, we just really had no idea what we were doing. We wrote music to make our friends dance. And that was pretty much it. And then people started to enjoy it. And then all the sudden we’re making a record with BJ Burton. And he really educated us on using the studio as an instrument, which we've kind of brought to every record after that first EP is that the studio can be used to trim down arrangements. Things don't necessarily have to be guitar based. 

So, for Landmark, I feel like we did a good job blending the two. I think with Bambi we got a little bit too synth heavy. I mean, the record is obviously fun. But we really leaned on electronic stuff. And then for this record, I feel like we actually went back a bit to Landmark-era writing style with more guitars. And I think that just came from working with our producer, Caleb (Hinz), who we've known since high school. And he was in that circle of bands that we would play with back in the day. So, he really understood the root of this band, and why we started it. I think that's why this record, in my opinion, is our most successful because we made it with somebody who really understood the ethos of the band. 

Hippo Campus’ last two music videos have a little bit of this lo-fi vibe/low-budget vibe, which I think is awesome. "Boys" being all selfies, and then "Ride or Die" being the same scene the whole time but shifting with what you're doing. Can you give me a little background on your thought process behind making these videos?  

Yeah, I mean, the low-budget look isn't a thing. We actually have a low budget (laughs). I think music videos have honestly tortured us forever. Because again, we started this band, and we were musicians and there was an emphasis put on that. And then when we started making music videos, we were like, "Damn, now we have to kind of be directors and treatment writers in addition to being influencers and all this other (bleep) that comes with the territory of making music." It's not just about writing songs.  

Music videos have been an exhausting process for us.  But with this record, we elevated Whistler (Isaiah) to be more of the dude running point on videos. He made videos growing up so he's very familiar with this space. So, I think in the past, we were missing somebody who the directors could talk to who had a clear vision. I think Whistler had done a phenomenal job of running point. He directed the "Boys" video. And then he's been working with the two directors on "Semi Pro" and "Ride or Die". The "Ride or Die" director made the "Sex Tape" video for us that is really trippy -- he is phenomenal, too.  

So yeah, we're trying to experiment a bit more and make the videos crazier, because there's some in the early days I just can't watch anymore because I straight cringe watching myself at 19 years old throwing paint all over the place. It's tough.  

Your tour schedule looks busy coming up. How are you preparing for this? Give me some details on what tour life is going to be like, or how you're preparing physically and mentally. And how might this tour be different from past tours? 

We've spent most of our adult lives on tour. Before the pandemic, I was rarely home for more than three weeks at a time. We were just always on tour. We were playing over 100 shows every year, all over the world, which was great. And we got really good at playing and being tight as a band. But by the pandemic I was definitely burned out. I guess at the end of the last touring cycle I was like, "I don't want to do this for a while. I want to just take a break and relax." It's been like seven years. And so, when the pandemic hit, we were planning to take a year off anyways to just recoup and write a record.  

That's another thing about this record, too, is we actually had time to write it. Every other record we've had two months break to write a record, and this one we had a whole year to explore ... and it turned into two years off. So now my batteries are recharged and I'm ready to get out. So, I'm feeling really good about tour. Obviously, the COVID protocols are very intense. We can't go out to eat and we can't really see family unless they quarantine and get tested. So, we're taking COVID stuff incredibly seriously. So, it's not going to be the most fun, you know, going out and experiencing-cities tour. It's going to be very focused on how we perform the music and then we come back in our bubble. But I guess at the end of the day, I'm looking forward to playing music again for humans and not just looking online to see if people like it or hate it or whatever. 

I want to talk about some of the work that you do in the Minneapolis music scene with a lot of different artists like Gully Boys, Miloe, and the list goes on ... How do you end up choosing artists you want to work with? Or how do you see your role in producing some of the work of these awesome artists? 

It's more gratifying than making music for personal reasons. It's obviously great being in a band and in making music, but production allows you to see the music in a really pure way. Your job is sort of like a psychiatrist mixed with like a camp counselor, or something like that. You're trying to help somebody discover the best parts of themselves and make sure that that's pushed out into the world in that way. So yeah, through the pandemic I found a great love for production. And it's always the best when I can do it with local artists because it feels like a secret here in Minneapolis. But if I could help that artist, elevate their craft beyond just this circle and help them get to a point that we did. When we were making music, we didn't really have a roadmap on how to get out in Minneapolis and how to promote our music on other channels. We had to figure all that out. But at this point, we know that roadmap and we can help the artists here follow the same kind of trail and be like, "Do this or don't do this." So, I guess producing local artists has been really gratifying in more ways than one. It helped me fall in love with music again. 

Around October last year you put out a big event called Blossom. Tell me more about what that is. 

We intend to throw shows with Blossom in unique spaces or at venues and treat them in a unique way and bring local bands together. It's kind of this big lofty idea that we're still trying to come through and pick out. Obviously, right now, it's really difficult during COVID to throw shows, because we never know what new variant is going to crop up.  

So, for this most recent Blossom event, we were going to throw at Turf Club. We were going to pair a bunch of different artists together and have them do collaboration sets. So, they're going to be this unique show where everyone could get on stage and do the weirdest version of what they do with an artist that they admire or somebody else in the local scene.  

Blossom, at the root of it, is a means for us to promote shows and put the Hippo Campus name on something to get people to show up and then put artists and bands we like, in front of those individuals and be like, "Check this out. This is way cooler than what we're doing," or "These people are so talented" or "These are some artists that we're working with, from a production standpoint." So, it's a pretty lofty idea that we're still trying to pin down, but the first show was really successful. And I hope that we're able to do more. I hope that people get vaccinated so we can put on more Blossoms events.  

I appreciate the work that you do within the Minneapolis community because it's a team effort, for sure, to help a music scene blossom. 

Yeah, we're very isolated up here compared to a lot of cities. But there's so much love for Minneapolis music from Minneapolis residents, which is just beautiful. I mean, we hold local stuff so dearly. 

We love Raffaella here at The Current. "Bardot" is so good. Congrats to you and your beautiful relationship. Tell me about working with her?  

Yeah, she's amazing. She's done more for my artistry than anybody else has. I just think she's such a phenomenal writer. And she's actually helped co-write some songs. "Bad Dream Baby" was me and Raff writing that together. So yeah, she's one of my biggest influences in addition to being my partner, which is just amazing. I feel very lucky, and the music we've been making together has been amazing as well.  We've been working on her record for, I guess, two years now. So, we're finally finishing it up. And yeah, it's just special. I don't think I've cared about something this much in my whole life. I've really put so much work into making sure that this record is amazing. So, I'm excited for y'all to hear it eventually. 

Whistler Isaiah has his side project. You got a side project (Lupin). Are you guys going to keep up with them, and what's the intention?

Nathan will probably be the next one to put something out with his project Brother Kenzie. But yeah, we're all writers and we write so many songs. For this past record, I think we wrote like 40 songs. For the next record that we're working on right now, we already have like 80 ideas in a Dropbox. We're always kind of working. And the nice part about having four writers is that you just have a plethora of songs to choose from. So, a lot of the side projects are just outlets for those songs that didn't make the cut.  

I probably won't be making a Lupin record for a while, just because now I can focus on Hippo. I’m also working on four or five other production projects that I need to finish. So, when I get some sort of gap in there and feel some sort of tug to do it, I'll do it. But yeah, I think it'll be a minute before another one of those happens. 

Where do you find time to do all these things? 

I'm kind of addicted to working. If I don't work, I freak out. So, it's kind of my way of staying sane. But I work on a lot of different types of things. And that's kind of what makes it feel easier is like when I get bored of writing music for this, I'll produce. I try and diversify what I'm doing to keep it interesting, then it doesn't feel so much like work. It just feels like I get to play in a bunch of different spaces. 

When you were a little kid, did you know that you were going to end up being a musician? 

Not really. Music is very much in my blood. My mom was a singer. My grandpa was a piano player and my grandma played bass. So, it was around, but they were all very much like, “Don't go into music.” So, I thought I'd go into business; or in college, I studied speech pathology. I wanted to be a speech pathologist because it was kind of close. I could study voice without actually having to do it. But (music) caught me, so I could never run away from it. 

Anything else you can say about the new record? What's special about LP3?

With each record, we've tried to develop our songwriting. And this one in particular feels like there's no fat on the record. It just feels like we trimmed it down to the best songs. The record was 15 songs, and we cut it down to the best 10. So, I think with the show, there are no moments where we're phoning it in ... every song I really enjoy playing. So, I'm excited to get in front of people again and see how they take this record live.