From time to time during his decade-plus career, Trapper Schoepp has found himself struck by inspiration, filled with songs that need to be written. But never as intensely as last year.
“The songs came like falling rain,” says Schoepp, who has garnered fans locally and abroad, opened for the likes of The Wallflowers, and gained a co-writing credit with Bob Dylan on his song “On, Wisconsin.” “It comes more naturally when you have something that you’ve needed to say for so long. You’re liberating yourself.”
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That deluge of songs led to his album, Osborne, which was released last month. When he recorded it, the 35-year-old singer-songwriter was months removed from receiving treatment at the Hazelden Betty Ford Hospital in Minnesota for his substance use. Those issues had plagued him since his early 20s, when he received medications to cope with pain from spinal decompression surgery.
It started a vicious cycle in which Schoepp became fixated on treating pain with addictive substances. He tried white-knuckling his dependency for years before realizing he needed help and checking into the hospital’s Osborne unit in spring 2024 – the name serves as an accidental nod to Ozzy Osbourne, the late rocker once treated at Hazelden. It was the start of a journey to better himself. “Getting sober isn’t a country song in reverse,” he says. “The pieces don’t just automatically fall back into place. It’s an ongoing process and something I’m working on every day.”
Writing songs is a major part of Schoepp’s healing process. For example, writing the diary-like lyrics to his acoustically sweeping song “The Osbournes” during his first night at the hospital gave him a way to take off his “armor and tell the truth and be really vulnerable.” He hopes the songs “atone for his sins” and help destigmatize issues such as addiction and mental health.
Schoepp recorded the album in a California church with the help of musicians Mike Viola and Tyler Chester. He says capturing the intensity of each song live to tape felt like a “do-or-die moment.”
“If rehab was the place to get sober, the church was the place to tell the truth,” he says. “It was like standing stark naked with your truth. That’s not easy.”
He found inspiration in how Osbourne approached vulnerability, especially on the hard rocking, Black Sabbath-esque “Satan is Real (Satan is a Sackler).” In the song, Schoepp rages at the Sackler family – which owned the company that developed and marketed OxyContin – for their role in the U.S. opioid epidemic.
“Ozzy and Black Sabbath wore those cross necklaces as a way to cast off the demons,” Schoepp says. “I was trying to do that same thing when I recorded in that church. It was this safe space to say what I needed to say.”
