lupin on the scares of a debut and relief after release
Interview by Elizabeth George, art by Christina Krysiak
Jake Luppen, vocalist and guitarist in Minnesotan indie outfit Hippo Campus, debuted his solo album Lupin on October 9. His recently released record features eight songs, all with their own sound and direction. I had the chance to talk to Jake about his new album, his songwriting process, and some of his future endeavors.
Ease Up: What have you been up to over quarantine?
Jake Luppen: Well, I’ve just been making a lot of music. I’ve been working on a couple different production projects. I’ve been writing some music with Hippo Campus as well, and we did a couple live streams which were pretty strange but kind of fun. What else have I been up to? Oh yeah! On Sunday, I recorded live streams for the Lupin stuff. I’ve been kind of trying to figure out how to interpret all that stuff live which was insane but very, very fun.
EU: Did isolation affect your creativity at all?
JL: I think it kind of boosted it honestly. I mean, I’ve been on tour pretty much non stop previous to this year for about, like 6 years? So, I was never home for more than two months. I’ve kind of used the time to get a lot better at music production, just because I’ve been able to spend so much time in the studio. It’s been beneficial in that way, but it is depressing not to play shows because that’s kind of the way to gauge your music.
EU: It’s depressing for us too.
JL: Yeah, haha.
EU: So, now that the album is out, which fan reaction has surprised you the most?
JL: I mean, I’m just surprised that people dig it, you know? It’s a pretty weird personal record, so I didn’t know how people were gonna take it.
EU: How different is it working on solo music versus things with other people?
JL: It depends on the project I think. I go through different cycles creatively where I am really into collaborating with people and then I get burnt out on it and want to work on my own music. But then I don’t want to work on my own music for too long and I want to get back to collaborating with people. Both things satisfy a part of my brain and if I just did one thing, I don’t think I would be super stoked on making music.
EU: What’s your favorite song on the album or which one are you most proud of?
JL: That’s a good question. I think “Murderer” is probably my favorite one based on kind of how it turned out, it’s really personal. I’m proud of the lyricism on that one and the sonic palette. But I don’t know — I mean, I guess “May” — it’s nice to be able to work on a banger. I feel like a lot of the time when people write music on their own, it’s a lot slower tempo. I was happy we were able to break out of that one and be like “No, this isn’t acoustic, this is a freaking banger.”
EU: How much does a song change from when you first think of it to the final product?
JL: In this project, like a bunch. BJ and I would start with an idea and then nuke it, and then assemble the pieces of that and then tear it apart again. So it changes a lot. The only one that didn’t really change that much was the last song, we didn’t change a whole lot from inception. “KO Kid” was pretty similar, it still kind of changed.
EU: Which one changed the most?
JL: “Lazy” probably changed the most. I originally wrote it around a drum machine loop and a bass guitar part that only comes in for a second but now with these live renditions of the songs, the live version is more similar to the way I wrote it. Just like hella ‘80s and there’s a cool bass line.
EU: Is it easier to write songs when you’re at a low or when you’re on a high?
JL: Well, I don’t know. I’ve never really written songs on highs before, I usually only write them on lows. But recently, I’ve started writing songs while I’m high? But not that kind of high, I mean sometimes that kind of high. But songs from a happy perspective, and it’s been refreshing! It feels good.
EU: What do you do when you have writer’s block?
JL: I usually have a mental breakdown. I try to think of ways to get out of it. I think I’ve said this in interviews before but I view creativity as a habitual kind of thing? The more I do something, the easier it gets. So, in order to get around writer’s block, I keep going. If I can stay in the zone, I don’t really get blocked. The only time I really get blocked is when I haven’t written a song for a while. But sometimes it’s nice, when you’re blocked, to get ridiculous with it and just make some weird beats or whatever. Or like scream something or I don’t know, just don’t take it all so seriously.
EU: You have a lot of visuals for the album but I wanted to ask about the “KO Kid” video specifically. Where did that idea come from?
JL: So that was actually the first video that we did for the record. At that time, we didn’t have the label, it was just BJ and I and we were going to put it out ourselves. We made “KO Kid” pretty early in the process and we were like “Oh! We should make a sick video for it,” but we didn’t really have much of a budget for it or anything. So we started looking at, there’s like a school of graphic design in Minneapolis, and we started looking at their Instagram page to see if anything jumped out, because I had wanted to do a claymation video for a while. And we found Karla’s work and we were like, “Woah, this is sick!” Then we just hit her up and we were like “Hey, you down to do this?” and she was like “Absolutely!” And then she just turned around crazy awesome imagery and we were into it and she just ran with it from there.
EU: Yeah, I love it. I was just curious because it’s a little different.
JL: Yeah, yeah. It’s like super dark, I mean that’s the whole vibe of this record. Kind of darker and creepier than I think I’ve been able to make in Hippo Campus because people might get scared.
EU: So with “Vampire”, why did you choose to relate the song to a vampire specifically?
JL: I was going through this health crisis at that time where I thought I had a brain tumor. I don’t know if you got the press release, people have asked about it, but basically doctors found this lump in my brain. They didn’t really know what it was for like 6 months. I had to go in for a bunch of tests and they were saying it could have been either MS or Lou Gehrig’s or brain cancer or just a blood vessel, they weren’t really sure what it was. So I was freaked out. All the while, I was on tour, freshly single, had gone through a really intense breakup. So I just kind of felt undead, I don’t know. So that’s kind of what that song is about: life’s sort of bleeding you dry.
EU: Do you have a favorite moment from working in the studio?
JL: There’s definitely a lot of good moments. I think finishing the album with BJ in LA was a really good moment. We took these long breaks because I would be on tour and he would be working on other projects, so there was 6 months where we were in a gray area where the album was almost done, not quite done. I came out to LA and we finished it up there, which was nice. Just that day, finishing everything and flying through all the songs and making small adjustments felt really good. I was like, “Aw man, my record’s finally done!” It felt good. I’m trying to think if there were any moments along the way. I mean, just like collaborators like playing on cool stuff, like Jim-E-Stack playing drums on “Lazy,” Buddy Ross playing keys on “KO Kid,” and Caleb [Hinz] programming some really cool sounds on “Harbor.” It was a lot of what other people would bring to the songs that I remember really fondly.
EU: It’s a bit early to ask, but do you have any other solo projects planned for the future?
JL: Yeah, I definitely wanna keep going. I’ve written more Lupin stuff in the past few months, just kind of still trying to find a direction for it. Everything I’m writing is hella early 2000s, which is fun. But yeah, there’ll be more of that stuff. There’s new Baby Boys music; that’s coming out here pretty soon. I’m really really jazzed about that record.
Lupin is out on all streaming services now!