Abandoning the dizzying rush of production-heavy stimulation for raw, dry instrumentals and complete lyrical transparency, Hippo Campus align ambition with intention for their fourth album, ‘Flood’.
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After rediscovering the joy of being in a band and quickly setting their sights on their next offering, Hippo Campus started planning another reinvention. Refocusing on the simple, somewhat angsty writing and jamming sessions that fuelled their early output, the band saw immense potential in allowing their collective energies to once again dwarf any individual leanings – but that wasn’t going to be easily realised.
“Every record represents something different for each of us,” guitarist Nathan Stocker begins, reflecting on the journey that began after releasing Hippo Campus’ third album in 2022. “’LP3’ for me was: how do we feel good about making music again? It was about just doing it, throwing everything against the wall and going for it in a reckless, middle fingers up kind of way.”
“With this record, we had more of a desire to make something great, something that stood up to any of the influential records that shaped us. ‘LP3’ was one end of the spectrum representing take every chance, going for it and experimenting, enjoying the spontaneity and unexpected surprises. ‘Flood’ is very much the opposite, every step needed intention and we are holding ourselves to a standard that often seems unachievable.”
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While Nathan took it upon himself to make output the name of the game, vocalist Jake Luppen was facing disconnect with their longer-term objective. “The vision we had from the beginning was: let’s take our time with this record, be patient and not release it until we feel like it is good enough,” Stocker recalls. “A year and a half goes by, two years go by and we have over a hundred songs. We’re realising that anything could work, but there’s a level of commitment that we weren’t reaching which would’ve propelled the project to a conclusion.”
Finding it easy to write tunes but difficult to finalise which ones were truly good enough to be worthy of their aspirations, pressures began to build. With interpersonal issues reaching a breaking point in May 2022, Nathan admits that his own drinking and aggression issues were becoming a problem that had to be rectified. Band therapy became the logical answer.
“We did several months of weekly check-ins working on communication, and it was really beneficial for everyone. Doing therapy with your friends or family, there’s nowhere to hide. Everything had such a beautiful clarity to it that I was totally open to doing that work, and thank God everyone else was as well. I don’t think we could’ve made ‘Flood’ three or four years ago, it would’ve broken us more than we already were. I have a lot of gratitude for being able to talk to the boys now and tell each other what we think.”
Internal musings progressing deeper than ever before and directly manifesting into batches of introspective, revealing material, the juices continued to flow. Recording started at Drop of Sun studios in North Carolina, with those sessions forming the basis of the ‘Wasteland’ EP, a project which served to bide time while Hippo Campus deliberated. It was when a new producer was brought into the mix that things started to solidify.
“We brainstormed with Caleb [Hinz, producer] and he suggested bringing in Brad Cook, who is a producer based in North Carolina but from Wiscounsin. He and his brother Phil are lovely, experienced and incredible people to work with and hang around. That felt fresh to us, a new pair of ears, someone that doesn’t have the interpersonal baggage that we have with Caleb. God bless him, absolutely wouldn’t have been able to make this record much less LP3 without him, but there was a lot of background noise that was difficult to work through and we all had that on the backburner while in the studio.”
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First visiting the Cook’s studio in September 2023, it became apparent that the partnership was worth pursuing. Returning to the mutually familiar ground of Sonic Ranch, where Hippo Campus had last visited in 2016 during their ‘Landmark’ LP recording sessions, a calm, collected energy quickly fell into place.
“We didn’t look back,” Nathan says. “We went into the room, recorded a take, went into the control room and decided what was next. We really tried to nail down the songs we needed and nothing else. We stuck to that plan, it was really efficient and we tried to emphasise confidence because we didn’t have time to do what we’d been doing for the last two years; just constantly rethinking and reworking the same ideas.”
As they emphasised the strength of their songwriting, ‘Flood’s natural instrumentation arrived subconsciously as playing live in the room became an anchor. In stark contrast to their previous escapades, the band wanted an album that they could hop on stage and perform without having to first figure out how to make that possible. “The joy of being able to setup without any pedals, no effects, dry as a bone and rip that shit – that is the heart and soul of the thing,” Nathan expresses. “There were a lot of really beautiful sessions that really reignited that spark, the joy of playing together as a band.”
Just watch the music videos for ‘Flood’s singles and you can quickly get an idea of what the group’s desires were – doing the miles in behind the scenes to deliver vulnerable and honest music without any filters literal or metaphorical filters: “how do we express the most stuff we’ve tried to say with the least amount of stuff possible?”
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The resulting 13-tracker is a direct product of this attitude and journey. Opener ‘Prayer Man’ nods to their sincerity, declaring “I’m struggling but I’m not too proud to admit it”. ‘Everything At Once’ tries to normalise the experience of not meeting expectations, which was clearly a big part of this project.
“With each song on this record you have to name the thing, then let it pass over you,” Stocker offers. “It’s the same in meditation, you have a thought but you let it go and come back to that zone of balance. ‘Tooth Fairy’ takes all that stress into a moment of release which you get musically.” The stream of consciousness track highlights the need to escape your own thoughts, building up into a triumphant finale that expels any negativity before the heartfelt, almost dream-poppy closer ‘I Got Time’ soaks us in a rich soundscape that says: hey, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Released via Sylvan Esso’s label Psychic Hotline, ‘Flood’ promises to soothe the Hippo Campus fanbase in a way not seen before, and of course will fuel a new series of live shows – including a quick stop in the UK – with a diverse setlist encompassing a decade of growth.
“I’m excited to be on the road, on a bus, running and not drinking booze, living my best sober life,” Nathan smiles. “It’s been cool and super freeing to have this library to dive back into, dipping into older pools of songs and seeing how they play with newer material. It does feel like a completed circle sonically, we don’t have so much pressure on production right now, our interests are elsewhere. We’re being as vulnerable and honest as possible, just no gimmicks and no bullshit.”
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‘Flood’ is out now.
Words: Finlay Holden
Photo Credit: Brit O’Brien
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