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Title: Van Hunt
Release date: 24 February, 2004
Record label: Capitol Records
Single: Seconds of Pleasure
Official website: Van Hunt
Wikipedia: Van Hunt
Popular Songs
New Songs
Tracklisting
1. Dust
2. Seconds of Pleasure
3. Hello, Goodbye
4. Down Here in Hell (With You)
5. What Can I Say
6. Anything (To Get Your Attention)
7. Highlights
8. Precious
9. Her December
10. Hold My Hand
11. Who Will Love Me in Winter
12. Out of the Sky
Van Hunt: Ahead of the Curve - Van Hunt
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One of the stranger paradoxes of America-the-melting-pot is that few black artists have been able to foray into the realm of pop rock with the matched success of their counterparts. But Van Hunt is positioned to break any barriers and silence all naysayers. With his self-titled album, Van Hunt has crafted an intensely melodic journey through the world of pop, rock, funk, and rhythm and blues.
He just may be one of this era's great leaps forward, at least as far as popular music goes. Van Hunt's album is a treasure trove of rich popular songs, drenched with lyrical gems.
On his debut album, the Dayton, Ohio singer/songwriter reveals to his listeners a montage of his life's passages. He speaks with varying degrees of eloquence on the problematic nature of being, and deals straight ahead with that most basic and universal emotion - love and the lack of it. Written, produced, arranged and performed by Van Hunt, these twelve amazing tracks are masterfully layered with richly textured sounds. It is a celebration of life's complexity and mystery, and Van Hunt assures the listener that we are all unique characters who can interpret his creations and adapt them to our own intricate personalities. Surely persuading by example, the existential concerns of "Out of The Sky" speaks an unflinching truth about how we live our lives, and the gushy sound of "Seconds of Pleasure" drips out of the speakers in a harmonic luxe of soul, reminding us to enjoy "the little things." The standout track, "Anything to Get Your Attention" stirs humor and maximum intensity as Hunt engages the listener in the chase of unrequited love. Cuts like "What Can I Say," "Hidden Charm" and "Her December" are examples of sheer songwriting prowess. "Dust" offers insights into self-effacement, while "Hold My Hand" unravels a purely otherworldly experience in both content and style where controversial love is lured from the shadows and then seen "out in the open." American music never sounded so good! This genius collage of work affirms that this progressive song stylist may be an emissary from some avant-garde movement.
Van Hunt belongs to the cadre of songwriters and musicians who only come around every other generation or so and affect stagnation and hackney in the way that the Harlem Renaissance did in the 1920's. And of course he's grounded in the tenets of Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Thelonius Monk and Curtis Mayfield. What makes Van Hunt a maverick in this age of ubiquitous popular culture is his commitment to push himself beyond the ornery limitation of what black music represents in today's market.
Van Hunt is an EMI songwriter and Capital recording artist. His discography includes collaborations with many artists. He penned and co-produced the chart-topping hit single, "Hopeless" for Grammy award winning artist, Dionne Farris from the 1997 Love Jones soundtrack. He has written and produced songs for Rahsaan Patterson's Love In Stereo, and co-wrote songs on Cree Summer's Street Fairie album, produced by Lenny Kravitz. Van Hunt is well-suited for the ensuing nascent stardom of his already rooted musical journey.
TRACK-BY-TRACK
1. "Dust"
I started playing drums and saxophone when I was in school, and then graduated to guitar, bass, and then keys. Later on I discovered I had a singing voice. My father was always very encouraging about my music. He came home one night with this old LP. 'You see this guy here,' he said, 'I want you to be like this guy.' I woke up the next day, thinking, 'What was Pop talking about?' I picked up the record, there was this cat sitting naked on a horse. I looked at the back and saw that this naked guy - his name was Prince - played just about every instrument. I listened to it and it knocked me out. It became my target, as to the kind of sound I was looking for. 'Dust' was born out of that.
It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek celebration of matters both good and bad. That's a theme that's prominent in all my writing - celebrating the ups and downs in life. I try to keep a certain amount of hope in my songs, even those with subject matter that people might call 'dark.'
2. "Seconds Of Pleasure"
That one started out as a lot of my songs do, as a fast garage kind of song. Listening to it one day, I thought, 'Man, I'd like to take a different twist to it.' I picked up my guitar and came up with a little blues riff and went from there. I was trying to come up with something Muddy Waters or Willie Dixon might do - I love those old Chess recordings - and then meld that with some Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. I think I came close, actually.
3. "Hello, Goodbye"
This one is probably the most traditional rhythm and blues song on the record, in the lyric and the production value. It's straight-up, just a simple lyric.
'Hello, Goodbye' is the last song I wrote for the record. All the songs on the record were written from '98 to 2000 - I went on a real writing tear and this material all comes from that era. I recorded a bunch of demos in my basement in Atlanta, which I considered an album, but Capitol Records president Andy Slater said, 'It sounds good, but why not go into the studio and see what you come up with?' That opened up a whole can of worms! I spent the next year or so trying to reshape the songs, salvaging my own ideas and trying to make myself available to new ideas.
We started in Memphis - I wanted to go there and get a taste of the blues. I had a blast, but my engineer and my band hated it. From there we went to Nashville, which everyone found a little more comfortable. We stayed there for two weeks, went to New York for a little bit, then stopped in L.A. a while - in the end, we recorded in about seven or eight different studios.
4. "Down Here In Hell (With You)"
It's a love song, about enjoying the fall and the comeback of relationships. That might be my favorite song on here.
5. "What Can I Say"
That's a lot of people's favorite. I was trying to capture that feeling of waking up at four in the morning, you're laying there in bed, twinkling your toes, remembering something special that happened to you - maybe it's great sex, maybe it's someone you loved that's passed on. It's trying to capture that moment, that hour that you're up before you back to sleep.
We had David Campbell - Beck's father - come in to arrange the strings on this track, as well as on 'Precious.' He was so professional. He came in, asked me my ideas and knocked it out in an hour. It was great. I got to work with some incredible musicians in making this record - Lenny Castro on percussion, Matt Chamberlain on drums, Patrick Warren came in and played some keys, Paul Franklin played pedal steel guitar. It's funny though - the musicians I love are mostly people who played on records in the 40s and 50s. Now those people are gone, and I don't keep up on the new cats. So when I'm told, 'We've got Lenny Castro coming in,' it doesn't mean all that much to me.
All that said, Wendy Melvoin came in and played rhythm guitar on a couple of tracks - 'Hold My Hand' and 'Precious' - and that was pretty exciting. She was a really big help to me, in terms of me getting through the process. Having played with Prince, she definitely understood the music I was trying to make. Plus she's an incredible rhythm guitarist and I absolutely love rhythm guitar! It's so important and nobody ever talks about it. But from Fela to James Brown, it's all about the rhythm guitar!
6. "Anything (To Get Your Attention)"
That song started out as a punk song, but we decided to rework it into a more of a funk kind of thing. This track was recorded and mixed by Melissa Mattey, who was an assistant at the studio in Nashville. She was slick - she knew I was coming in by myself one morning and when I got there, she was playing some of her shit, some demos she had been working on. I liked it, and said, 'Man, I've got a song you've got to work with me on.' It was actually her first time recording and mixing on her own. She's a fantastic engineer.
7. "Highlights"
It's probably the most personal song on here. It's about an intimate relationship with a friend. One day she decided it was time for a change - without consulting me first. The song was born out of that, first to tell her to kiss my ass, then, as I was writing the lyric, it became 'please kiss my ass one more time.'
8. "Precious"
It's a true story, about a woman who supported me and lifted me up, made me feel better about myself. It's my way of saying, 'You're precious for making me feel precious.'
9. "Her December"
I was raised by my mother, and sometimes she have very violent reactions to some of my stupider behavior. I remember being in my room and hearing my mother stomping down the hall, and the fear would set in, that fear of her wrath. I took that same thing into my relationships with other women - I'd do something stupid and just know that the wrath was coming down eventually. That's what 'Her December' is about.
10. "Hold My Hand"
This song is a fantastical love story starring David Bowie and Britney Spears. No joke.
11. "Who Will Love Me In Winter"
I see this one as a clever, face-saving way for a caveman to reveal that he's vulnerable. Maybe he hit her over the head with his club and now she's gone and he's afraid of being left alone through the cold, cold winter season.
12. "Out Of The Sky"
That's another of my favorites - it's about somebody's uncle who was successful at one time, but then his fortunes turn and he falls to earth. The only time he can return to those heights is when he gets high. When I was writing the song I was imagining him going to his mother and asking her to empty out her sewing room so he could move back in.
I'm definitely inspired by real experiences and relationships, but I like to think of the songs I write as more like movie scripts. Situation music, I call it.
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