In Defense of Hobo Johnson

Why I am co-writing his memoir

I’ve known Hobo Johnson (real name Frank Lopes) for ten years. And right now, I am helping him write his memoir. I think it’s going to be a compelling and at times heavy story, which I’ll discuss from time to time right here on my Substack. But first, I want to talk about why I am doing this project.

I first met Frank Lopes in 2016 at the Sac Stay Home Festival, a two-day concert at the Red Museum in Sacramento, California. I was a regular contributor to the Sacramento News and Review. Frank was hitting open mics, trying to survive on sales of burned copies of his debut album, 1994 Toyota Corolla.

Frank approached me and said he enjoyed my articles, and said he made music under the name Hobo Johnson. Would I mind checking it out? I later learned that Frank had been keeping his eye on me as the primary music writer at the paper and saw me post on Facebook about how I’d be at the festival.

I didn’t know that at the time. But I did check out his SoundCloud a few days later, and I was blown away by his music. It was rap music unlike anything I’d ever heard. Beat-less piano loops with rhymes spit like a slam poet. He poured so much emotion into his verses; it was hard not to get pulled into his world.

I immediately pitched a Hobo Johnson article to the News and Review. It was published a few months later. The article promoted his first few shows as a full band: Hobo Johnson and the LoveMakers.

I liked his music and continued to listen to his record. It wasn’t until February 2017, when Hobo Johnson opened for my band, Gnarboots, at a small dive coffee shop venue in Sacramento called Naked Lounge, that I experienced his unique talent.

He played a solo set. Just him and backing tracks. Of the 35 people in the audience, 35 of them were completely mesmerized by his performance. Every word, every movement, was felt by every soul in the crowd. He was an amplifier that transmitted raw, unvarnished human emotion: the deepest feelings of depression, the most unsettling swells of anxiety, and mixed it with just enough hope to fill their spirit back up. Several audience members were crying as they stared at Frank during this performance.

This kid has something. Still, I was shocked when, just over a year later, his Tiny Desk submission for the song “Peach Scone” blew up. He signed a million-dollar deal with Warner, was getting booked on full US tours, and was on the receiving end of a massive amount of online attention.

Not all the attention was good. Within days, there was a very active Facebook group called “I will Destroy Hobo Johnson.” People were making mean-spirited parody videos of “Peach Scone.” And I was seeing comments online—many from friends I admired—that were tearing apart this “Hobo Johnson that everyone was talking about.” What a dork, some said. What a fucking hipster, others lamented. He’s an incel, others insisted.

Were they all talking about the same Hobo Johnson I knew? Was a kid with the ability to share the deepest emotions in his heart such a bad thing? As I saw it, his superpower was his authenticity. The only conclusion I could draw was that Frank’s ability to share such messy feelings made a lot of people’s skin crawl. People say they want emotionally honest art. But that’s only true to a point.

But Hobo Johnson’s popularity was growing. I saw him perform in front of a few thousand people at the Fillmore in San Francisco. It was like watching that Naked Lounge show, but more. Everyone in the audience hung on his every word; they sang along to him, including songs that weren’t officially released yet. I hardly saw a single cell phone out. Everyone was paying attention to every word coming out of Frank’s mouth.

When his major label record, The Fall of Hobo Johnson, came out in October 2019, I read every article that was written about him, listened to all the interviews. This person, Hobo Johnson, was a character to them. And granted, they generally liked him. Some did not, and they made bold assertions and claims about Hobo Johnson that were based not on the human being who created music from his soul, but on some idea they created to represent everything they hated in the world.

Of the many versions of him that people propped up, none of them matched the person I knew. So, I added to the conversation with a profile piece on him in Playboy Magazine. I called the article, “The Emotional Connection of Hobo Johnson,” because I felt like this was exactly what was being left out of the conversation in all the Hobo Johnson coverage.

For obvious reasons (And some that are not), fame was tough on Frank. His follow-up records didn’t do well. He had a breakdown, and eventually his band imploded. He quietly put out an awesome record, Hobo Johnson Drinks, which got very little attention. But in 2026, Frank once again went viral. This time, it had nothing to do with his latest record or any video he’d released. “Peach Scone” was a contender for the “worst song ever” that was getting discussed online—Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ “Home” (A legitimately good song) “won” this contest. But beyond that, people online were just making videos mocking Frank.

Video after video. I keep stumbling upon them in my feed. Why? My first guess was that the internet is a cruel, toxic place, and people gain the most attention by appealing to the most negative emotions. This is true, but why was so much of it aimed at Hobo Johnson, who’s been relatively quiet for a few years?

One video explained that a younger generation discovered him and didn’t like him because his music didn’t hold up, and thus, they were posting about it on TikTok. I didn’t buy this explanation. I went back to my initial thoughts when he first started gaining negative attention. His vulnerability is unsettling because it’s uncomfortably real, with all the rough edges still intact. So, they need to smash it with their fists.

If Hobo Johnson is out of step with the TikTok generation, it’s because vulnerability in music has become streamlined in the past five years. Look at Olivia Rodrigo, who I think is very talented. She has several songs on her debut record that bring me to tears. But it’s a very careful and calculated vulnerability. She’s working with producers and smart people. Her heart may be on her sleeve, but the people working with her make sure that it’s photo-ready.

Hobo Johnson was never calculated or cautious. It’s as raw as anyone can get, which is why his fans love him so much. But everyone else—they don’t trust it. They assume it’s performative, hipster bullshit. And that deep down, Frank isn’t a nice kid who struggles with depression and anxiety. No, he’s a manipulator. A phony. He’s peak cringe, he’s just a meme. And it just doesn’t look appealing anymore.

Frank and I talked about co-writing his memoir a few years ago, but he wasn’t ready. I told him back then that the best way to deal with the entire internet making a character out of him was to tell his story himself.

Earlier this year, with the uptick of anti-Hobo Johnson content, I think he saw the value in taking some ownership of his own narrative. We’ve been working on his book for a few months now. It’s scheduled to be released on CLASH Books in May 2028.

Even though we’ve just begun, I can already tell that he has an extremely compelling story. And hearing about kids picking on him in school, his divorced parents passing him off to each other, and how he feels alone in the face of a mob of people that crave blood, I’m struck with a strong feeling. All these people making content about Hobo Johnson don’t see him as a human being with feelings. I hope they pick up our book, and it changes their perspective a little bit, and they can get to know my friend Frank.

You can purchase my other book, In Defense of Ska, voted one of the 11 best music books of 2021 by Pitchfork.