The band picked up buzz during the summer — one that gave it tours with indie rock heavyweights, festival dates and accolades from well-known entertainment publications — and now it’s in the midst of a headlining tour taking them through college towns where they’re playing to audiences in the same age group.
“It’s always a surprise to see how many people turn out for the shows and know all the words and are super into it,” said Luppen, whose bandmates are ages 19 to 21. “We love the college shows, because it’s just a bunch of young kids throwing down and having a good time.”
The tour brings Hippo Campus to Bloomington with a 9 p.m. show today at the Bishop. Its current trek comes in advance of “South,” its second EP, which comes out Oct. 2.
“South” comes almost a year after “Bashful Creatures,” a debut EP that found the band working with Alan Sparhawk of indie rock veterans Low and garnered the Minnesotan quartet comparisons to Vampire Weekend. But Luppen said “South” shows a different side of the band than the one displayed on the bright, dance-friendly “Bashful Creatures.”
“‘Bashful’ was definitely more about youthhood,” he said. “It was about embracing that side of your life and accepting it and reflecting on it, because we all were graduating high school in that period of time ... I feel like the ‘South’ EP is more about what adulthood means.”
“South” is a change of pace musically, too. Luppen pointed to the EP’s second single, “The Halocline,” a six-minute slow-burn that builds to a cascade of cymbals and distorted guitars, as an example of the record’s “darker,” “more introspective” songwriting.
The songs on “South” actually date back to a full-length record written and recorded, then scrapped, before “Bashful Creatures.”
“I really love that we’re starting off with the two EPs, because it gives people a look at both sides of us. So when we go to make a record now it gives us room to kind of play to both those things, which I think will be good,” he said.
And while the members of Hippo Campus might be just growing into the conventions of adulthood expressed on “South,” they’re already gaining music industry hype after an eventful summer.
Hippo Campus has opened shows for Modest Mouse and My Morning Jacket, played Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre with alt-pop stars Walk the Moon — a bucket-list show for Hippo Campus, Luppen said — and played a Lollapalooza set that drew a large crowd and earned praise from Rolling Stone.
“There’s been so many crazy things,” Luppen said. “I think Lollapalooza was the craziest and the best. There were 3,000 people there to see us, so that was really insane, and people were super into it.”
After at least one more tour later this fall, Luppen said Hippo Campus will take December and January off to write new songs. A full-length record is the end goal, he said, but the band is taking it day-by-day.
For now, he said, the band is fortunate to be in the situation it’s found itself in.
“I think we just got lucky in that we’re saying the right thing with our music at the right time,” he said. “People connect with it, and it’s cool.”
