Trapper Schoepp

Trapper Schoepp first drew notice through his band the Shades by channeling the alt-country sound of Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and the Jayhawks while adopting the narrative style of American troubadours Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan; their breakthrough came with the 2011 album Run, Engine, Run.

Raised in Minnesota, Schoepp began playing guitar at age 15 following a back injury sustained in a BMX crash. His father’s steady rotation of R.E.M., John Cougar Mellencamp, Tom Petty, and Fleetwood Mac recordings proved formative, leading Schoepp and his brother Tanner to form a group that served as the resident act at a neighborhood coffeehouse. After Tanner departed for Milwaukee, Schoepp followed, enrolling at UWM where he completed a degree in mass communication.

The first two albums he cut with the band—A Change in the Weather in 2007 and Lived and Moved in 2009—appeared as self-released efforts, yet wider recognition arrived only with the third album, Run, Engine, Run, in 2011. SideOneDummy acquired the record and reissued it the next year, after which Schoepp and the Shades toured alongside Frank Turner, the Jayhawks, and Social Distortion. By 2016 Schoepp had removed “and the Shades” from his billing and moved to Xtra Mile Recordings. That same year his fourth album, Rangers & Valentines, produced by Brendan Benson, introduced a brass section to his sound, while the EP Bay Beach Amusement Park offered a concept set built around Elvis Presley’s favorite roller coasters and amusement-park attractions.

In 2018 Schoepp returned to the studio with producer Pat Sansone of Wilco and Robyn Hitchcock to record his fifth album. Retaining the character-driven approach that recalled the American troubadours of the 1950s and ’60s, the sessions yielded co-writing credit on “Oh, Wisconsin,” drawn from lyrics Bob Dylan had written in 1961. Xtra Mile released the finished album, Primetime Illusion, at the start of 2019.