INTERVIEW: Jerry Hauppa of LIMINAL SPIRIT (US)

HAILSWEBZINE's Leja recently got the opportunity to shoot some emails with Wisconsin one-man project LIMINAL SPIRIT, and picking Jerry Hauppa's brain was both fun and fascinating!

Hauppa discussed his latest effort, Unwell, a harrowing look at the topics of mortality and aging.

The chat as follows:

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HAILSWEBZINE.NET: I’m not gonna lie – this album was SO tough for me to listen to, and to read the lyrics for, largely because I am a former caregiver with nearly a decade of experience working in and around nursing and veteran’s homes. You have history there as well, obviously. Tell me anything you feel comfortable sharing about that time in your life, and why you chose to dedicate an entire album to such a dark subject. It’s painfully clear to ME why your tenure there made such an impression on you, but maybe others might not know what it’s like… the press release stated that this kind of “fate” was a great fear of yours, ending up in a place like the one the album’s main character goes to?

JERRY HAUPPA: Firstly I want to thank you for listening and for acknowledging the difficulty of the subject matter.  As for my personal experience with nursing homes, I was a furniture mover for 12 years and at least once a week I moved someone into a nursing home. I witnessed conversations similar to what is heard on “Admittance” many times. It was never a smooth transition and all parties involved acted as if they knew it wasn’t a real solution but it was the only feasible choice. I have seen suicide threatened by a new tenant once they realized what was going on. One of my most vivid memories is of a situation where I heard a monotone wailing incoming from a room in a hallway barely being tended to by staff.  After several passes through a neighboring area of the building while nothing was being done about it, I went to investigate and found a man who had fallen off of the bed and became trapped between the bed and the wall. His moans were uniform and monotone in spacing, as if it was more a reflex than a willed action. That form of imprisonment inspired the environment of the record. I don’t know how long it would’ve taken for someone to have tended to him had I not intervened, and I wonder if those kinds of situations are ignored all over the world. That is why I fear those places as my final confines- especially if I am there with weakened faculties.

HW: This album really conveys the horror that many elderly and/or otherwise disabled folks face quite powerfully. How did you get into the head space to make this album? What is your creative process like?

JH: The goal of the record was to tell a tale about accountability, and always being on the hook for your actions regardless of if you can remember them. I knew that taking that on through the lens of a helpless person with dementia would be the perfect way to do so, and it would allow me to build sympathy for the character at the start of the record and then have that unravel as the story progresses.  Between my experience with working in nursing homes and seeing the mental decline of elderly family members, I thought I could depict that headspace well. As for the creative process, I come up with the full story for each record before moving forward with any music. The story guides the mood of each song and everything falls into place from there.

HW: What’s the main thing you’re hoping to say with Unwell? What would you like the listener to come away with, ideally?

JH: I want the listener ideally to feel the emotions through the music without necessarily needing the lyric sheet as I know the vocals are a bit tough to discern. If they choose to follow along with the story, I would hope the audience can recognize the gravity in what I view as our dirtiest current cultural secret, while also understanding the themes of accountability, ownership and rejection of offered paths towards salvation.

HW: The album was released Halloween of this year, and it is your third opus as LIMINAL SPIRIT. How does it stand alone from your previous two releases - Pathways (which landed earlier this year in May), and the self-titled debut from December of 2024 - thematically and otherwise?

JH: Each release is meant to conjure the imagery of passing through spiritual planes, which ties to the moniker of the project.  The first release was built on carrying the listener through a portal where opposing sides of it showcase a shift in dimension, as each song is composed as “first movement->portal->second movement.” The second release, Pathways, was written entirely through-composed (aside from the final repeating passage at the very end) which means there are no repeating phrases of any kind, which was done to develop an idea of being trapped in a purgatorial maze. The most recent release is the most intimate and focuses on a single subject that you get to know over the course of a full record. It is probably the easiest to relate to and some of the music is deliberately more carefully composed to provide familiar grounds to depict that human experience, as bizarre as some of the phrases tend to be.

HW: These 3 albums are all fairly close together in release dates; it would seem you’ve been very active lately! What keeps you propelling forward when you encounter a rut or a quieter period, creatively?

JH: I have endless stories to tell and the only thing holding me back is really my work schedule. I am blessed in that once I sit down to compose something, I rarely hit a wall. I already have the next two, potentially three releases planned. Given that the project has no other people currently involved and does not yet play live, as soon as I write something I can record it, which also allows a quicker turnaround for records.

HW: You are a composer and a multi-instrumentalist, and have been a member of NORTHLESS, ARA, and DEORBIT, which are all very different projects from one another in many ways. What has LIMINAL SPIRIT allowed you to do creatively that maybe these other projects did not, and what sets LS apart from these other bands?

JH: The goal was to create more ritualistic, simpler music because I often make fairly complex records in the other projects I’ve done. In ways I have betrayed the initial concept as the music has gotten more complex, but I want the LS material to be more approachable as the subject matter will always be spiritual as opposed to say the sci-fi slant of DEORBIT or the oppressive bewilderment of something like ARA.  This is the first project I’ve attempted “vocals” on as well, although I run them through a synthesizer and vocoder, so I am able to control all elements of the storytelling which makes the end product cohesive.  

HW: Tell me about the album’s cover art. It’s pretty spooky. It was created by James Becker... Are the two children depicted there the same as the ones who are speaking over the unresponsive figure of their father, whom they are placing in a nursing home? Madeline and Jonathon? Or… are they someone else entirely?

JH: The event depicted on the cover is showing what happens during the song “Visiting Day,” where Phillip does long for the return of his children Madeline and Jonathon but is instead visited by the ghosts of two children who accuse him of being responsible for their murders decades ago. The remainder of the record showcases Phillip grappling with their claims and his own capabilities, as his illness prevents him from remembering what they are accusing him of. The children are not fully named- I [call] the girl E. and the boy C., as a way to riff on the idea that in cases of murder, the public often remembers the name of the killer and immortalizes him/her, while the victims are routinely forgotten. I told James, who I have played in all the aforementioned bands with, what I was looking for for the cover and he created the image as he has done with all three LS releases and I couldn’t be happier.

HW: On Unwell, Madeline, the daughter of an ailing elderly man named Phillip, in speaking of her “demented” father, seems much more compassionate about his situation whereas the son, Jonathon, is more resolved to the cold, apparent truth of the matter at hand: we are putting “dear ol’ Dad” away. The daughter seems hesitant to leave him to his supposed fate (the nursing home), where the son apparently couldn’t care less and almost seems relieved. Yet… she leaves the home first, and the son stays to play the old man a song. Without giving away more than you wish to, what’s going on here... there might be a darker “twist” to old man Phillip’s true history?

JH: I wanted to show two very real possible reactions to the process of admitting a loved one into a nursing home. The kids both do care, but both struggle with the event and process it in their own ways, which creates an argument between the two that Phillip is barely cognizant of, as shown in how the lyrics are difficult to discern. The song at the end is meant to feel comforting but with an underlying threat behind the facade. I pitch shifted the last line “waiting just for you” to add unease and foreshadow the vengeful spirits we encounter later in the record.

HW: Was this album inspired by a particular case you experienced in your work, or is it more of an amalgam of various people’s circumstances and your own spin?

JH: I would say the latter, as I used the aforementioned  stories to set the environment and my imagination to develop the characters and actions in the story.

HW: Why did you choose to include a sample of “Welcome to My World” by Jim Reeves on the first track, “Admittance”, as opposed to any other “oldie”/classic from times bygone? Is there a reason that this is the old man’s favorite track?

JH: The song that Jonathon plays to console him, “Welcome to My World,” by Jim Reeves is described by Jonathon as Phillip’s favorite song and is the centerpiece of the album. If you were to read the lyrics of the song, the themes of the record are all present. I used this song as the foundation before I wrote any music, and you can hear the melody of that song referenced and mutated at least once on each track of the album. It is not directly stated, but strongly implied through a line of dialogue from E. during the track “EOLC,” that the Jim Reeves song was played by Phillip to his victims during his crimes as part of his own rituals.  This is an idea I may explore further in a potential prequel to the Unwell record.

HW: Unwell, in its entirety, does an eerily wonderful job of weaving together the uncertainty, fear, desolation, and otherworldliness of what it must be like to experience dementia and cognitive decline. What was your favorite part of working this release out? What challenges did you encounter, and what did you learn from the process?

JH: My favorite part was getting the master back from the amazing Jeff Wojtysiak of Spiral Sound Studios, hearing the final product and knowing it did everything I wanted it to do. Of course I am biased but I love the record, and very proud of it and can barely listen to it without having an emotional breakdown. I write everything chronologically from the first note to the last, and the main challenges I had were getting “Visiting Day” and “EOLC” right. I rewrote each song twice before being satisfied, which isn’t normally the case for me as I am blessed in rarely experiencing hurdles while writing.  I wanted to make sure the confirmations between the characters were developed as well as possible, so extra care was given to depict that.

HW: This is more of a broad question, and it’s totally fine if you’d like to skip it! But in your view, how can we treat others with more dignity in their aging and time of need? What do YOU hope to experience from others when you yourself reach the age where you become more dependent on other people for care? Is there a way we could all “be there” more for people who find themselves in the elderly man’s position, whether before they wind up in a facility or afterwards?

JH: I think people should die in what most accurately resembles their homes. Either a personal dwelling, a home of a family member or a loved one, or in the company of intimate contacts.   Environment is the most crucial element to establish comfort and I hope to see familiarity in my surroundings as I approach death, if I am lucky enough to become elderly. I don’t want to live a life containing a huge compiled history and spend my last days confined to nondescript walls in a nondescript room in a nondescript hallway of a nondescript building. People should die as individuals, and I think we can be there for the dying by reminding them of who they are as they are letting go.

HW: Who or what are some less-expected influences of yours?

JH: As seen in my past bands I am mostly influenced by extreme metal, although I really like trip hop and psychedelic indie artists like Black Moth Super Rainbow, who inspired me to use a vocoder.

HW: I’ve lived all over the country but have never been to Wisconsin – what is the music, and especially the metal, scene like out that way? Are there a good variety of supportive venues and folks out there?

JH: We have some legacy bands that are still keeping an old school approach alive and newer acts by longtime musical veterans. It doesn’t feel as cohesive as it did say 20 years ago but shows are packed and that’s what counts. All the venues here are great and I know I can be supported by them.

HW: Are you planning to tour or play live to support this release any time soon? If so, who will you recruit to the stage with you, or how do you plan to present Unwell live?

JH: I would love to, but my live vision for the band would require a lot of commitment from others and we are all getting older which makes free time less abundant. James, who did the album art, would surely be involved and I know a few friends I could potentially get on board but it would take a lot to get the project ready for the live environment. I would love to maintain the vocal harmonies through two live vocoders, the guitar harmonies through two guitars, maintain the synthesizer lines and also potentially have multiple percussionists for added power in addition to a bass player so it would wind up being quite the ensemble.

HW: What else would you like to tell the reader that maybe we haven’t touched upon? Anything else you’d like to say or announce?

JH: I just want to thank you again for listening, understanding the record and for being excited by the idea of someone approaching the subject matter. This project means a lot to me and I am hoping it reaches the ears of people seeking out adventurous and confrontation music, as I don’t have the backing of a label and am currently outsourcing all promotion. Your choice to provide exposure to the record and by granting this interview will go a long way in getting the word across, so thanks again.

LINK to Bandcamp HERE.