aaamusic | On 27, Oct 2010

AAAMusic: In your music people can find classic and dance blended together in an unique genre. What did urge into combining these two different kinds of music?

Huunter: I had been into classical music for a while. I guess the album that got me into classical music, or a form of it, was Rob Dougan’s Furious Angels. I was totally blown away how he combined classical string orchestrations, trip-hop beats and his bluesy vocals. Up until that point classical music was kind of an elitist music genre to me. The atmosphere, or my perception of it, turned me off. But Rob Dougan’s use of classical orchestrations made me realize the potential that the genre had in pop songs. Since then pretty much all of my compositions have featured strings or pianos or anything you would find in a orchestra. The electronic aspect of my album came about in a much different way. To be honest I’m not a huge electronic fan. There are only a couple of electronic artists that I like and listen to on a regular basis. I’m much more of an experimental rock fan. The reason I write electronic music came from a necessity more than anything else. I played guitar in a band in high school and I figured out pretty quickly that I don’t work well with other people mainly because I like to control the whole process. So I went into electronic music because it was the one genre that I could do everything by myself, from composition all the way to mixing. The actual dance aspect of my album came from a Booka Shade concert I attended at Lollapalooza ’08. As I said I’m much more of an experimental rock fan so the Booka Shade show was the first dance show I had ever been to. I was completely blown away by how everyone was dancing. I decided right then and there that I wanted to write an album combining orchestral music and dance music.  Another reason it enticed me was from my experience of rock shows. Rock concerts are only kind of a collective experience in the way the audience enjoys the show. Dance concerts, on the other hand, are very communal and that was another reason I was interested in exploring the genre.

AAAMusic: Do you prefer Beethoven or David Guetta?
Huunter: To be honest I had to look up who David Guetta was but I see what you are getting at. That is kind of a tough question. I don’t really like straight up classical music. Some contemporary stuff is cool but generally I find the older stuff boring. Maybe it’s because it’s so intellectual, every note means something and is thought about. I think the best music is written without thought. I’ve experienced it in my own music and I think my best songs are the ones that I can’t really remember writing. Generally I like pop music a lot more. And by pop music I mean things like Dredg, U2, Mew, Trentemoller, and Rob Dougan, things like that. While I was writing the album I listened to a lot of Tiesto and a bit of Dash Berlin just to get more of an understanding of the dance genre.

AAAMusic: What do you think of the current dance and house music?
Huunter: As I mentioned before I’m not a huge electronic or dance music fan but from what I gather from the genre I am pretty bored. Although I listened to Tiesto and Dash Berlin while I was writing by the time I got to the mixing stage my inspiration was much more reactionary. I got tired of how perfectly digital the albums sounded. Everything was so over produced it didn’t really have much humanity left in it. So I mixed my album with a lot of emulated analogue compressors and EQs and I got it mastered on some vintage equipment. I wanted to put as much humanity and imperfection as I could into the songs I had written. Perfection is boring!

AAAMusic: What is, in your opinion, the best dance era?
Huunter: I’m really not sure. I like some trance music. Which is what Tiesto is, I think. All of the designations of dance songs are really confusing, progressive house, minimal progressive house, psy-trance…I’m not sure what they all are haha.

AAAMusic: What are your inspirations?
Huunter: As I mentioned, definitely Rob Dougan. Venetian Snare’s Rossz csillag alatt született is awesome and is another record that combines classical music and another genre (drum-n-bass). Also for the first time I really got into U2. My dad is a huge fan and was always listening to them in the car. He also has taken me to a couple of their concerts. But I was never a huge fan until about a year ago I started listening to them on my own and they were a big influence on the record. But generally my influences are pretty spread out over rock and roll. For example, an odd influence on “The Entanglement” was Snow Patrol. The bridge of my song was kind of based off of the bass line in their song called “Engines”.

AAAMusic: Your music is inspired by cinema as well, do you like a soundtrack composer in particular?
Huunter: I love Hans Zimmer’s soundtracks to all of the Christopher Nolan films. They are amazing. But my favorite, by far, is Clint Mansell. He scores all of Darren Aronofsky’s films. His scores are just as good as the films, which is saying a lot.

AAAMusic: Do you think your music could be better appreciated if played in discos or in clubs?
Huunter: Being a rock fan I’d rather be playing bars. Playing with experimental rock bands would be cool. What has also been interesting is my album has generally been received better by fans of rock than fans of dance or electronic music which is something I’m kind of proud of.

AAAMusic: How do you set up your live shows?
Huunter: I just moved to New York City and a violinist and a cellist are going to be performing with me. I wanted to add more of a human factor to my live performance and they will be playing some of the orchestrations I have written but they will also be improvising. I remix my songs live with Ableton using the APC 40 controller.

AAAMusic: Any tour plans?
Huunter: I wish! I would love to tour! I am hoping to play as many shows as I can in and around NYC and see where that takes me.

Watch the video for The Entanglement below (directed, animated and edited by Huunter himself):

The Entanglement (Single) from Huunter on Vimeo.