Photo by Joseph Cash
Trapper Schoepp
Trapper Schoepp
Recently Trapper Schoepp was minding his own business and stopped by an estate sale. In a cupboard, his eye caught something shiny. It was a like-new 1937 Rickenbacher Hawaiian guitar, which he bought. From experience, Schoepp has learned a good story can be hiding anywhere.
Bear in mind this is the same guy who was so quick on the draw that when he saw an unfinished Bob Dylan lyric from 1961 coming up for auction he decided to finish the song. For his efforts, Schoepp ended up as co-writer with Dylan for “On Wisconsin.”
For his new album Siren Songs, Schoepp crossed paths with another legend when he recorded sessions at Johnny Cash’s Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
Trapper Schoepp’s Siren Songs album release show, The Back Room @ Colectivo, Friday 7 p.m.
"The Fool" by Trapper Schoepp, live at the Cash Cabin
During the pandemic Schoepp woodshedded and learned to play guitar in open tuning—inspired by Irish music and the likes of Paul Brady and Nick Drake. He came up with 15 new songs and contacted his old friend John Jackson who greased the wheels to make the album at the cabin. They set a recording date to begin on Schoepp’s birthday.
“I was kind of in disbelief that it would happen because in the last few years everything is subject to change,” he says. “We arrive, the fence opens up and there are two deer at the entrance. In my mind … John and June.”
Genuine Hoodoo
The hoodoo was genuine. While he doesn’t consider himself an overly spiritual person Schoepp concedes you can’t deny the DNA that is all over the place. “From the rocking chair that Johny carved JR in … to the ‘30s Martin ‘shitkicker’ guitar that he just left on the couch … to June’s Steinway piano.”
Referring to Jackson and Wilco’s Pat Sansone as “the two adults in the room,” Schoepp described the pair of co-producers as overseeing and delegating engineering duties on the album, the first he’s made in true old-school fashion. Recorded live, the songs weren’t backed into a corner, polished and overcooked, he recalls, “I wanted it to be ‘here’s a group of guys all synched up and sharing a moment in this sacred space’ especially after the isolation of the pandemic.”
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Schoepp was stationed in the “fish room” where the Cash family trophy catches are mounted—naturally, in line with the nautical theme of Siren Songs. Other musicians (Schoepp’s brother Tanner on bass, guitarist Quinn Scharber, drummer Jon Radford and Joseph Cash on Dobro) were spread out around the cabin, recording songs in a minimum of takes. As the album is essentially a collection folk tunes, the intimacy and reactions in the moment were part of the process. They recorded 14 songs in 10 days, including a song about Lawrencia Bembenek that did not make the album.
One if by Land, Two if by Sea
“Cliffs Of Dover” by Trapper Schoepp
Memories and sense of place have become Schoepp’s modus operandi. He has written about his time living at Milwaukee’s Astor Hotel, recorded an EP inspired by Green Bay’s Bay Beach amusement park and dug into “The Ballad of Olaf Johnson,” a song about his great-great-grandfather roughing it through a long South Dakota winter.
Yet Schoepp also has the depth to take other characters and personalize their story. As a songwriter this sense of empathy connects listeners to universal experiences.
If you sing every night about the trauma of your terrible breakup, you are revisiting that every night, he says, “There are so many songs about the lone ranger, so many songs about the cowboy … it is more interesting to me to sing about a woman going over Niagara Falls or a drag queen … or people living on the fringes of society.”
His “Silk and Satin” is a love story about a man who falls in love with a person only when she is in drag, “that is a beautiful love story and I’m drawing from the same well of all the love experiences I’ve had in my life,” he says. “Cliffs of Dover” deals with soldiers returning home only to face dealing with PTSD; to sing “Queen of the Mist” about Annie Edson Taylor, the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel relates to the rush he felt growing up as a BMX bike rider.
Maybe it’s the circle of nature, but for the naturalist in Schoepp it seems he is never far from water. Niagara Falls, the Strait of Dover below the white cliffs, a video he made for the cathartic “River called Disaster” (shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/trapper-schoepp-seeks-renewal-on-his-new-album-may-day).
Even “Secrets of the Breeze,” the song Schoepp wrote about ending up in the emergency room after a December paddle board wreck injured his foot. (youtube.com/watch?v=czFXZqxLKJI) How far is he willing to go for a good story that becomes a song? Only time will tell.
