Back Cove Festival might be brand new, but when Ripe took the stage, it didn’t feel like a debut. It felt like a victory lap. Closing out their summer tour with a hometown-tinged set on Portland’s waterfront, the band’s energy was magnetic. Frontman Robbie Wulfsohn bouncing, dancing, and yes, even head-banging again.

Kind of.

“I feel 100%,” Wulfsohn says. “But everybody’s basically saying, don’t use the fact that you’re finally healthy after a thing that can lay people out for a full year to be stupid.”

Earlier this year, Wulfsohn suffered a concussion serious enough to force him to scale back the band’s famously physical live shows. “I’ve been working my way out of an injury,” he says. “I tested a little bit of head-banging the last couple shows, just to see if I could tonight.”

And while he may not be fully whipping his curls like he used to, he’s still dancing – a fitting metaphor for a band that’s embraced evolution over stagnation.

Playing with Purpose Again

Ripe has always made music built to move. It’s brass-fueled, groove-heavy, and impossible to stand still to. But this tour, Wulfsohn says, has carried extra weight.

“Losing the ability to play shows and getting it back makes every show feel like a little bit of an extra gift.”

That sense of gratitude was especially palpable at Levitate Music Festival, where the band played one of their first post-injury sets. “It was a near-blackout level of high nerves,” he says, “but we wanted to do well – and it seemed like we did what we wanted to do.”

The last few weeks of the tour, he adds, have been a reminder of everything they love about performing. “Some places felt new again. Some felt pleasantly nostalgic. We’ve been hitting venues that are litmus tests for how we’re doing, and it’s been really nice.”

A Record Without Pressure

That momentum carries into the band’s third full-length album, Play the Game, which drops September 19. And unlike previous records – which were made under financial stress or existential doubt – this one came from a place of possibility.

“It was the album that got us signed, the one that helped us survive the pandemic,” Wulfsohn says of Bright Blues. “But this time around, we weren’t fighting to survive. The only responsibility was to make something we really liked.”

For the first time, they weren’t cutting corners. They recorded the album live in the room together, then fleshed it out in some of Los Angeles’ most iconic studios with producer Joe Chiccarelli. The process was full-circle in ways they didn’t expect. At one point, Wulfsohn even met Neil Young, the artist who inspired the first song he ever wrote.

But don’t mistake the polish for predictability. “We took some of the biggest musical risks we’ve ever taken,” he says. “We’ve got our quietest and loudest songs on the record.”

Translating the live energy, or not

For a band like Ripe, whose live shows often convert skeptics into fans, capturing that electricity on tape has been a challenge.

“We treated it like two connected but distinct art forms,” Wulfsohn explains. “You can’t always bottle the live energy in a studio. So instead, we made something that fits in the bottle, and made it as good as we could.”

The result, he says, is a record that doesn’t try to replicate the stage, it builds its own world. “It’s made for headphones, for walking around the city, for your car. It’s not trying to be the show.”

Letting go (literally)

When asked which song he’s most excited to play live, Wulfsohn hesitates. “It’s like trying to pick a favorite kid,” he laughs. But he does mention the album opener, “Letting Go,” which has already made its way into the setlist.

“It’s high energy in the way some of our most fun songs are,” he says. “And as people get it under their fingernails, I’m excited to see where it goes.”

He also teases a non-album track called “Freak Out” that’s still under wraps, a sign the band isn’t slowing down creatively.

Looking ahead

With a national co-headline tour this fall with support from Allen Stone and Moon Taxi, Ripe is leveling up. Many of the rooms – MGM, The Anthem, The Tabernacle – are venues they once opened in. Now they’re returning as headliners.

“To play them again at this level… it’s surreal,” Wulfsohn says. One date, in particular, stands out: Robbie’s hometown show in Toronto, at a venue called HISTORY. “It’s the best room in the city right now,” he says. “And the first time I’ll see the inside of it is from the stage.”

For a band that once defined themselves by motion – spinning, sweating, sprinting across stages – Ripe is learning how to slow down without losing momentum. The energy is still there. But now, it’s directed. Focused. Sharpened.

Play the Game is out September 19. Pre-order your copy here.