“We met in the alleys once, and there was a fight. The other members died,” drummer Whistler Allen jokes about how Hippo Campus formed from two competing bands. Although they were originally two bands, Hippo Campus, a young indie band out of the Twin Cities, is a group of close friends more than anything.
Jake Luppen (vocals, lead), Nathan Stocker (guitar), Zach Sutton (bass) and Whistler Allen (drums), met at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts in Minnesota where they graduated only a few years ago. The four stuck together and started producing some music far greater than the sum of their collective experience.
Before they played at The Rave this past Friday for a Milwaukee stop of their first national tour, I got the chance to sit down and talk to the band about their wild ride from practicing scales in classrooms to playing bars and ballrooms across the country.
It all started in the Twin Cities where they played gigs to promote their first EP “Bashful Creatures.” Soon enough, The Current, a local radio station, started spinning their work.
“I remember the first time our music was on the radio, [the DJ] chuckled after he said the name of the EP,” said Allen, remembering being featured as a local artist in the Twin Cities.
All four remarked how nurturing their hometown music scene had been. Consistent airtime on The Current and several features from publications gave the band enough publicity to get bigger gigs, a management deal and national recognition as one of the best young acts on the horizon.
The band has since graduated from the underground local scene to a van and are currently in the midst of a nationwide tour.
Their music school roots have stayed with them though. Further developing upon their first EP, Hippo Campus released “South” in late October. The clean guitar melodies come from years of learning scales and a tightly rehearsed live sound comes from slowly perfected practice at their music high school.
As I sit in the dressing room with them I don’t need to ask many questions. They ramble from topic to topic, joking about their first impressions of one another and finishing each other’s sentences.
Back upstairs, The Rave bar is packed to the edge of the stage and fans cheer wildly as the band climbs the stage. A girl in the front row gives Luppen a yellow Hawaiian shirt as he crouches down to plug in his guitar. He smiles, yells “dope, thanks!” and returns a few minutes later having swapped his green sweater for the shirt she gave him.
The Minnesota boys’ refined guitar melodies, ‘danceable’ drum grooves and Vampire Weekend-esque vocals don’t fit the small stage. Luppen ditches his shoes after the first song going barefoot on stage; Stocker loses his man bun after two songs and his hair falls in his face; Sutton dances his glasses off his face half way through the set. The only band member not dancing is Allen, holding down a tight groove on the kit at the back of the stage.
Their dynamic sound comes alive through the uncompressed speakers. Loud and proud, these kids don’t hesitate rocking, moving wildly around stage to every song. An hour and a half later the band has gone through all eleven tunes from both EPs, plus two unreleased songs. Luppen hugs and thanks someone in the front row and runs off stage after his buddies.
I leave with the rest of the happy crowd into the cold streets of the Milwaukee night knowing that this young Minnesota band will continue to write and perform the kind of songs people will love dancing to. Soon enough they’ll be playing the main Eagles Ballroom stage.