Stoop Kid releases Mount Cope

After years of playing guitar in numerous punk, hardcore and indie-bands in and around his hometown of Diest, Belgium, Jens Rubens felt it was time to share his personal story with musical project Stoop Kid. Heavily rooted in the local DIY-scene, it only felt natural to do as much as possible on his own at the start of the new project.

Stoop Kid was named after a character of the 90’s Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold. In the show Stoop Kid is an anxious teenager who’s afraid to leave the stoop in front of his house. Childhood memories of getting lost in these cartoons combined with Jens’ own struggles with social anxiety made the name seem like a perfect fit for the project.

A spare room became a basic home studio and many hours of YouTube tutorials later the first four recordings as Stoop Kid were a fact. They were released as the Uhm Yeah Sure EP (2019) and were quickly followed by four more songs for the Nothing At All EP (2020). Both got a cassette release on DIY-label Gazer Tapes. Eight songs plus a cover makes a set so by this time Jens summoned four kindred spirits to help him play the songs live.

Then of course the pandemic hit and all shows came to a crashing halt. The free time on his hands allowed Jens to dig a little deeper, both musically and lyrically. The result: Camp Careful (2021), a 10-track album that covers themes of depression, social anxiety and generally feeling out of place, released early 2021. Heavy topics that stand in heavy contrast with the jangly guitar riffs the album’s laced with.

Several lockdowns and a few awkward masked/seated shows later, Stoop Kid was noticed by the production company of the Muziekgieterij, just across the border in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Quickly after Stoop Kid became artist in residence at the live venue, allowing Jens to work on his second album in a professional studio environment for the first time.

'Mount Cope' deals with life after depression and the fear of relapsing, with the grief of losing a mother at 27 and with simply turning 30 and the existential shitshow that comes with it. With this album Stoop Kid celebrates doing a little better than the day before, not always reaching for the top, and setting simply getting by as the end goal.