White Noise is considered the 3rd full length and final studio album with the HHFFFPE moniker. On this album, the group returns to their roots with an entirely acoustic sound. Recorded in Ryan's living room 5 feet away from where the first Herbert Hoover EP was recorded two years earlier, this album archives the band at their breaking point. In the summer of 2014 the main members of the Emporium Spenser, Kyle, Ryan, Jake, Nick, as well as Gretchen at that period, were all dealing with a vast array of personal issues and tensions were high among the group.
"The night this album was recorded, everyone went to Ryan's house to record/spend the night. Everyone was for the most doing fine that night and Gretchen/Spenser brought up the idea of making an album featuring Spenser's many vocal talents called white noise. It was all recorded live in one take onto a tascam field recorder, the same one used for many of the Emporium albums. I noticed that Ryan had been acting weird before the recording started, but when were rolling he just zoned out, it was clear he was having some sort of breakdown. He had been dealing with some serious shit the weeks leading up to that, I mean we all were but it seemed to really be taking a toll on him. We would chill all the time ever since we became a "band" and everything would be fine, but around the time of that album everyone just wasn't the same. We were all dealing with really bad depression at that time or something. So anyways, the song order is the same as the order we recorded in, and the first couple songs Ryan was in the room but he was just sitting, not saying anything. At that time it wasn't unusual for him to do something weird like that but I figured he'd come around at some point. Then he just left the house, and that specifically was the reason for the song "Moon". Nobody knew where he went and he was gone until right before we recorded "Goodbye Spenser". He was still just sitting there and not saying anything. Nick was working on some like chemistry shit or something and had a white board, and during the entire Goodbye Spenser song you can hear him explaining, chemically, how to make LSD to Ryan. But he wasn't responding or even looking at him. It was a really beautiful thing, that song was one of the best we ever made, and it was the last one we'd ever do with all of us there. We didn't know that at the time though, it was just a song about Spenser having to go home for the night. Now looking back it means so much more than that. It must've been right after we finished the album, that Ryan finally spoke, and it was to kick us out. After that was when things got really serious and the band unofficially broke up. These days we all keep in touch for the most part but we don't make music all together as Herbert Hoover, everyone has their own projects now. I resurrected the Chirples, which was my solo project in early high school before HHFFFPE, Spenser's got his Lacanian Martyr/Tea House stuff. Jake's got the vaporwave project DROME. Those two still pretty actively make music. Ryan had Citrus Hill for a while but then he dropped off the face of the Earth, none of us have heard anything from him in forever, same with Gretchen. Nick's still around, but NIGGALESS is on indefinite hiatus. At the time im typing this I'm just a head lifeguard at a pool, pursuing The Chirples, Nick is going for his PHD in chemistry, Ryan was going for his PHD in History last time I saw him, Spenser is studying Law at VCU, Gretchen is at VA Tech for something, I have literally no idea, and Jake is studying psychology at GMU. I really don't know if we'll ever be a band again, but I do know that for now the right thing to do is to just go our separate ways."
-Kyle