Music Monday: Middle Of Nowhere To Create An Everywhere

“Is it worth it in the end if I’m this far from home? / Is it worth it in the end if I’m still this alone?” — “Paranoid,” Hippo Campus

Hippo Campus can easily be described as alternative rock, with lyrics laced with heavy themes and the use of vibey melodies to camouflage meaning. After their second full-length album, “Landmark,” amassed a following in 2017 and their 2018 release of the third album, “Bambi,” made them Billboard headliners, the band has become a staple of American indie rock.

What makes Hippo Campus’s album “Flood” so intimate is the circumstances the album was born under. The band limited themselves, not only, to a tiny time frame for production but also to a physical space: ten days were spent together as a band, singing and writing non-stop. In an interview with Billboard, drummer and vocalist Whistler Allen shared that unless the group is recording live, they are not at their peak — stating that they are often too lax and lazy.

Take after take, song after song, Jake Luppen, lead vocalist and guitarist, saw the band was in a rut. After writing and creating years’ worth of songs in order to create their perfect album, Luppen knew something had to change.

Acknowledging this, Luppen then went to the band explaining a brash and crazy idea: scratch everything, pack up and leave. Hippo Campus did just that. Leaving their homes in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the five band members moved the crew to what can only be described as “the last of Texas.” The town is Tornillo, sitting right on the border of the United States and Mexico. Here they set a goal. 10 days. 13 songs. One album.

What they created is nothing short of their own documentary. Each song on the album tells a story of loss or depravity, followed closely by a hint of redemption and hope as it deals with specific troubles in each member’s life.

“Honestly, I’ve been meaning to thank you / Tore me down so I can build back up again” — “Brand New,'” Hippo Campus

Often, we see change as a monster. We are scared to restart, using excuses such as “Oh, I’m too old” or “I’ve already created my image; I can’t change it now.” Statements like these confine us, keeping us from discovering what could be if we only looked.

After years as a group, Hippo Campus had finally taken a look at where they were, where they had been and where they had come from. The reflection ultimately prompted the desire for change. Living life on tour and expanding as artists, the band encountered struggles with substances and their own desires for life. Life on the road is not all glitz and glam: often it is alcohol and late nights. Heavy drinking, before and after shows, brought trouble into their personal lives as well.

Using the recording and writing process, Hippo Campus worked through not only their collective creative block but also personal blocks as well, deciding it was time to move on from the angsty young adult phase of growing up and embrace adulthood. They flooded their studio with emotions, melody and words in order to work through what it meant to them to grow up.

In the same interview with Billboard, the band was asked what the album meant to them personally.

“‘Flood’ is like being naked in a lit room with a mirror held up to you, and being like, ‘Embrace this,'” Luppen said. “It’s a testament to all the things we need to be doing to take care of ourselves and live better.”

What do I hide from in my life? What am I scared to change? What is holding me back? These are the questions that Hippo Campus asked themselves and through their songs implore their audience to do the same.

The album exudes an aura of overwhelming nostalgia and loss for a time that some may have not yet experienced. The challenge of age and growing up is something that only the lucky can avoid. Jobs, responsibilities and relationships all come with new sets of challenges that — without proper guidance or maturity — tear down a person. Loss of youth comes with the loss of opportunity, and we start to believe that the only thing in life is the next paycheck, the next day — repeating a monotonous cycle. Some embrace it and find solace in a blocked-out routine, while others chase freedom and look for expressions of art to soothe the pain.

This album is just that. It is the amalgamation of one group’s journey of maturing and being ok with how life moves on.

Ripping into the flesh of its musicians, spilling their metaphorical guts with each song to those who will listen, this album is raw. Artists, hopefully, don’t do all of this for attention, but rather to express their pain and share their stories so others may learn from them.

Flooding the studio, flooding listeners with uncut emotion, “Flood” is the only way to describe the experience of sitting and listening to these songs. Song after song you are hit with waves of reflection and lament.

“Not gonna miss it when it hits just right / Gonna make it go slow” — “I Got Time,” Hippo Campus

Take the time you have now. Don’t be scared to change if you get stuck. Look to your past and acknowledge it so that your future can be a brighter reflection of where you have been.