Hopper has played in bands since the eighth grade, his first band being the Round the Bend Blues Band.[citation needed] Prior to HLATN, he and frontman Huey Lewis were members of the band Clover. In 1977, Hopper backed Elvis Costello as a pianist and organist on Costello's first album, My Aim Is True. Lewis and Hopper eventually formed Huey Lewis and the News in 1979.
Hopper was in USA For Africa, and sang in the chorus for the charity single We Are the World. As of 2024, Hopper is still an active member of Huey Lewis and the News.
^Tratner, Michael (February 25, 2021). Love and Money: A Literary History of Desires. Taylor & Francis. ISBN9781000339819. The chapter reads as a review evaluating the qualities in Huey Lewis' albums— some are New Wave... some bring out his quintessential bluesiness— and these shifts in musical style of this bands are as much 'events' in the novel as anything happening in the lives of the characters.