Live at Lake Effect is our music series featuring local and nationally touring artists performing in the Lake Effect Surf Shop in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
We brought the Lake Effects together, along with Visionary Studios, to showcase musicians once a month through an interview with the band exclusively on Lake Effect, plus filmed performances.
This episode features the cosmic crooners, the experimental country/folk/rock/indie band from Portland, Oregon – Blitzen Trapper. They’ve been together for over 20 years and recently released their tenth album, 100’s of 1,000’s, Millions of Billions.
When the Trappers (Trapper Schoepp and Blitzen Trapper) met at the Lake Effect Surf Shop, naturally Schoepp asked where the band's name came from. Songwriter and lead singer Eric Earley gave this answer:
"Well it’s not entirely a lie, although it may be... In sixth grade I had a Christmas themed trapper keeper that I would keep my pens in and my writings and my crappy poems, and all my love letters from my sixth-grade girlfriend were in there," he explains. "Unfortunately, one day during class I was found slipping a note to her and the teacher took the trapper keeper and I never saw it again."
Schoepp adds, "People always ask me where does your 'Trapper' come from? And I sometimes flip a coin between trapper keeper or Trapper John MD from the show M.A.S.H."
"Trappers" aside, there's no doubt the band's extensive discography and latest album has solidified them in the Americana for decades to come. 100’s of 1,000’s, Millions of Billions contains tracks that have time traveled in a way, with some of the songs coming from a box of four track tapes that Earley and Brian Koch made when they were teenagers.
"I had a lot of these little plastic cassette tapes that I had recorded lots of songs on when I was 19,18, 20 maybe, 21 — a lot of it's me and Brian, too. And there's probably like 100 of these tapes maybe? I got them in an old cardboard box under the stairs in my house, so occasionally I'll pull them out and sort of listen through a few of them. So I was doing that and I was like ohh there's a couple here that I like, I wanna rework. So yeah there's probably 3 or 4 on there there that are from that old group of strange spinning plastic cassettes."
When revisiting work they did as teenagers, Earley's takeaway was that "younger Eric was a little bit more in flow state than older Eric has been and lately, I've been sort of trying to enter that flow state once again and sort of relearn some things,"
"[There's] only one of the songs that I recognize as being an old an older demo," adds Koch. "The other ones that were old I didn't realize, so I think that they fit in perfectly."
Cosmic, spiritual, and Buddhist themes are always present in Earley's work and writing, and is especially present in the song "Planetarium."
"Over the past six years I've kind of gone deep down into that rabbit hole of practice and it's been really good for me," he notes. "Saved my marriage, really, and allowed me to sort of keep doing the work that I do without burning out and I think it's been a through line in my life."
Blitzen Trapper has been playing and touring since 2000, and the band members have done their best to find balance and other outlets to avoid burnout, especially since touring was impacted by the pandemic. Earley works at a houseless services agency in Portland called Greater Good Northwest, and while he admits the learning curve was steep, the job was a gateway for him to figure out ways to be happier and filled with less anxiety.
"I spent so many years just touring on the road, so for me it kind of all goes together - the job I do and my practice and kind of the way I see my music now," says Earley.
While the band's material is often intricate they also enjoy opportunities where they can be less serious — such as The Blitzen Trapper Massacre, a short "documentary" featuring actor Rainn Wilson.
"Rainn Wilson was a fan of ours and he reached out... and just started the dialogue, and it slowly turned into the notion of making something together while we were in LA," explains Koch. "He came down to the venue, the El Rey, and spent the whole afternoon with us just filming this silly thing that we wrote together. And the idea is just that he is so obsessed that he thinks that he's going to be on stage with us and we reject him, and then he kills us all in anger... It was really fun. I was I was a starstruck to hang out with him and his generosity was vast to spend the whole day with us and create this thing just for fun."
SET LIST
- So Divine (0:10)
- Planetarium (2:23)
- Furr (6:06)
MUSICIANS
- Eric Earley: lead vocals, guitar & harmonica
- Brian Koch: backup vocals, percussion
- Michael Elson: melodica
- Nathan Vanderpool: guitar, backup vocals
Live at Lake Effect Team:
- Executive Producers: Audrey Nowakowski & Trapper Schoepp
- Audio Engineering: Jason Rieve
- Location: Lake Effect Surf Shop in Milwaukee
- Production Company: Visionary Studios
- Camera Op: Kieran Walter Sundaram, Kelly Pudroski & Jessica Wolff
