Hippo Campus Singer Sets Brain Surgery for November 6

Jake Luppen, the 31-year-old frontman of the St. Paul indie rock band Hippo Campus, has announced that he will undergo a six-hour awake craniotomy on November 6 to remove a brain lesion that doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota have diagnosed as a stage two glioma.

Luppen disclosed the diagnosis in an Instagram post on Wednesday, October 14, sharing an image of a CT scan of his brain. He wrote that while a procedure of this kind carries serious risks, his family could not ask for a better surgical team.

The tumor is not new. Luppen explained that seven years ago, an MRI performed because of recurring migraine headaches revealed a 9 mm lesion near his basal ganglia, the region of the brain that governs motor function and cognition. This past summer, he wrote, a routine scan indicated the lesion might have grown, which led to an EEG test. The results surprised him: what he had believed were panic symptoms turned out to be focal seizures.

At the Mayo Clinic, his neurologist and neurosurgeon concluded that the safest path to recovery is a craniotomy to remove the lesion, because its critical location makes a biopsy too dangerous. Luppen noted that the operation will last roughly six hours and that he must remain awake throughout so the surgical team can safely reach what they believe is a stage two glioma, described as a slow-growing, low-grade brain tumor.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a glioma is a mass of cells that presses on brain or spinal cord tissue, producing symptoms that can include headaches, a decline in brain function, memory loss and personality changes, among other effects.

Luppen told Celebrity News: Latest Celeb News & Pictures - Us Weekly that surgeons will remove as much of the lesion as possible and send it for testing, and that the results will determine how the condition is treated. He also acknowledged that it might be some time before he can perform again.

Before the surgery, Hippo Campus will play one more hometown show at the historic Turf Club in St. Paul on Monday, October 19. Luppen described the concert as a chance to perform one last time before he is sidelined for a few months, and promised to work as hard as he can to return to the stage as soon as possible. He added that he will keep fans updated throughout the journey, which he called a wild ride.

In the comments on his post, Luppen clarified light-heartedly that the tumor is not in his hippocampus.

Hippo Campus came together in St. Paul in 2013 and released their debut album, Landmark, four years later. Their music has since appeared in the romantic comedies To All the Boys: Always and Forever and Anyone But You, and their most recent record, Flood, arrived in September 2024. Luppen has also released solo work under the alias Lupin.