Roe Kapara - I Hope Hell Isn't Real [EP]
St. Louis born, Los Angeles based musician, Roe Kapara announces his debut EP ‘I Hope Hell Isn’t Real’ out on April 14th via Epitaph Records.
In the past year Roe has seen his fanbase grow to over 270K followers and 5.1M likes on TikTok – in part due to his endearingly unpretentious personality, but also with his irresistibly modern swirl of indie, psych, dream pop and alternative songs. Last month he announced his signing to Epitaph with the track “Better Off” and today he shares the EP’s lead single and music video, “Preacher.”
Depicting religious symbolism and a joyfully uncomfortable deadpan delivery, Roe explains: “Preacher is an homage to the cult horror genre. It also pulls from my personal experience growing up as a community member of the Catholic church in Missouri. I want the listener to step into the shoes of a young, impressionable kid that is being manipulated and molded by their religious upbringing.”
Inspired by the vivid imagery and surrealist plots of 90’s movies such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Roe Kapara’s debut EP ‘I Hope Hell Isn’t Real’ follows a similar formula. Centered around a cinematic storyline, Roe conceptualized a miserable fictional character who lives in a dystopian world full of nothing but apathy. While everything around him is crumbling he ends up dying, but in a twist of events he’s brought back to life. Post-mortem he gains a new perspective and outlook on life, realizing that there’s more meaning to it than he originally thought.
“In the 90’s there was a level of freedom to push the envelope in that era of filmmaking, and my approach to creating music is similar: ‘What’s some crazy shit we can talk about or do?’ I just want to say crazy shit, but stuff I also really care about. It’s gotta be both.”
Dwelling on the death of his own past has been a common theme through Kapara’s music, throughout a catalog of DIY singles like “Everyone’s Dying” and “Past Grow” that helped boost his Spotify listeners over 425,000 and TikTok audience over 270,000. While willing to expose vulnerable parts of himself in his songs, he’s also quick to shine the mirror outward to address the creeping dread of modern life: consumerism, corporate greed, climate change, the general feelings of the younger generation in 21st-century America. Deeply relatable yet unafraid to stand up and ask life’s big questions, Roe’s musical journey may be a little off kilter yet all the better and more interesting in the end.
