PREMIERE | Hunter Hooligan, '3.0'

Beyond chain link barriers with Hunter Hooligan; photographed by Alex J. Shade.

Recently featured in the vibrant love letter to their local Baltimore scene with fellow collaborator TT the Artist’s Dark City: Beneath the Beat on Netflix, Hunter Hooligan presents a first listen to the unbridled, beautiful and brutal labor of love with the 3.0 EP. Last featured in the pages of this publication in summer of 2019 circa the Child of Venus (Act I) release, the multidisciplinary artist and activist presents their most privy and prized econo-pop cycle to date as a way to give back to Indigenous-led organizations. With all initial Bandcamp proceeds slated to be donated to Native American Lifelines, future streams and purchases made across various different platforms over the span of the year will be later donated in 2022 to an as of yet undisclosed Indigenous operated organization.

A queer non-binary icon of Indigenous heritage as a self-described detribalized Mvskoke — Hunter Hooligan’s 3.0 is ultimately an unabashed celebration and candid survey of the self as a perpetual work in progress. The EP starts of with the ode to the nostalgic pangs for a return to the restless and reckless abandon of simpler and impressionable times with the glittery ultra pop anthem “Be Young”. The track is cut for the spaces of inclusive clubs, venues new and old, humble abodes and solitary studio apartment soirees as Hunter immerses the audiences in the exhausting throes of daily ennui and the want to break out toward a paradigm of eternal newness. The rage against the daily distractions from joy continues with the cataloging of calculated routines and its corresponding lamentations on the brilliantly titled and all too real heart wrought slow jam, “Happiness is Hard Work”.

Hunter describes it like it is, how it feels, how it sounds and what it’s like with a panoramic and very personal scope of view. The pain, the tears, the breathless sweat, heartaches, traumas, deadlines, deliverables, discriminations, groupthink cultures of commoditization, schedules, systemic racial injustice, xenophobia, inherent biases, etcetera and how we deal with it all (on a variety of levels). “Happiness” walks through the treacherous skyscraping tightropes, fierce rings of fire, the three ring circus citadels and more in the limbo that is our imperfect existence whilst in the pursuit of bliss and possibly a better world. The penultimate and autobiographical reconciliation of the self “Right Here, At Last” brings the EP full circle connecting back to the carefree wants of reminiscent exuberance on an early demo version of “Be Young” from 2012. Both the rough and stripped down original to the high end production of the mastered final cut and everything in between all tell various chapters of the Hunter Hooligan story. 3.0 is a progressive artifact that extends forward with the proactive hope, wisdom and spirit(s) of the ancients.

Future fashion disruptor Hunter Hooligan; photographed by Alex J. Shade.

We had a chance to exchange thoughts and ideas with Hunter Hooligan in the following extensive interview exchange:

Tell us a bit about what 2020 revealed to you. 

I hope one of the biggest things we can all agree on is that the 2020 experience showed the world that every person has a very individual experience of life. I know so many people who, regardless of their similarities in identities or geographies, had such vastly different experiences of this last year. To me, it’s a reminder to always bring more nuance, empathy, understanding, grace, kindness, humility, and space to every conversation.

Personally, for me, this past year has been the most intensely transformative period of my life. Ever. I feel like a different person in so many ways. I can’t really talk about this last year without talking about finally getting access to therapy. It has been integral to navigating the experience of the pandemic but also the personal changes I’ve been undergoing. And my time in therapy was the biggest personal inspiration to this new project, 3.0.

What 2020 showed the Baltimore community.

With respect to how individual this experience has been, I don’t feel like anyone can speak on what it showed the entire Baltimore community, but I can share what 2020 showed me about the Baltimore community. And what I’ve observed is jaw dropping.

To begin with, right from the start of the pandemic there were virtual tip jars created by community members to support each other.  And even in the midst of the pandemic, there were several grass roots collectives organizing to advocate for the abolishing of police, Black liberation and Native sovereignty to reflect national and global conversation. I think of Native American Lifelines and how they were so affected by the federal government shut downs, and yet still managed to offer testing and vaccines for underserved urban Native communities here. I think of Ballet After Dark one of my favorite art therapy non-profits, which actually expanded their program for survivors in Baltimore and also Mexico. I think about Baltimore Safe Haven and how they have grown and expanded so much this year and how their advocacy has been nonstop.

Baltimore and her many children have accomplished incredible things this year. Jamie Alexander published works like Baltimore Queer Paper and successfully passed her bill to repeal the use of the gay panic defense in the state of Maryland. Ashley Minner shared her revolutionary and historical work of documenting Native communities here. Alanah Nichole created a huge emergency relief fund for artists and freelancers, wrote so many must-read pieces for different publications, and got a masters degree from MICA.

I think about friends of mine who are performers like Baby who has hosted virtual drag shows and created incredible content all year or Zhone who organized huge benefits for The Crown or Alex Shade and Kat Kaplan who created works of theatre from their bedrooms for the world with The Scattered Players Theatre Company. Pariah Sinclair did a cooking show and a podcastwith incredible guests like Kotic Couture. DDM has grown his platforms with videos, performances, and social commentary. I think of Amy Reid who created two installations this past year and a whole new album with experimental technologies and plants!  I think of Rahne Alexander who produced several big works this year, including a huge talk show!  And of course, I think of TT the Artist and her film Dark City: Beneath the Beat premiering on Netflix.

And all of that is literally only scratching the surface.

It’s been a hard year but it’s been awe-inspiring to see what Baltimoreans and our community can do, even under our ever-increasingly horrific circumstances.

Insights on acting locally with a globally perceptive mind.

For me, activism takes on many forms, but I think ideally it should always include financial support. It’s about collectivism, sustainability, service, wealth redistribution, and funding organizations and organizers that are doing the work you believe in. Showing up to protests, demonstrations and actions are important and should continue beyond the media coverage or trends, but financial activism is really impactful in a capitalistic world. The role of financial activism cannot be understated in a world where money is power.  Pay the Black, Brown and Indigenous queer and trans organizers who make these movements possible and maintain them whether the media is there or not. Share every resource you can with every person you can because an empowered community is the only protection we actually have. Maybe it seems overly simplistic, but I think global work begins with strengthening and healing ourselves, our people, our environments and then funneling resources out in concentrated, focused, and purposeful ways to communities everywhere.

This was the thinking behind why I committed 100% of sales and streaming across all platforms for the entire year of 2020 to be donated throughout 2021. I am going to continue this model for 2021 as well, where 100% of my sales and streaming splits for the year will be donated throughout 2022. This was why I have additionally used every Bandcamp Friday of 2021 to fundraise in partnership with specific organizations. The money generated through the streaming and sales of all my music, no matter where you listen, goes to community organizations. And that model is what the future of my work looks like, I believe.

Thoughts and reflections on the sentiments and movements that inspired the new EP.

Therapy, quarantine, activism, quotes from phone calls with friends, texts with my sister, Indigenous sovereignty, memes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, protest signs, going inward, somatic healing, slowing down, instant Polaroid cameras, Twin Peaks, being a plant parent, the beach, tik tok, Joy Harjo, the album Sludgefest by Chipmunks On 16 Speed, queer domesticity, radical healing, old home movies, swinging pendulation between nihilism & absurdism, connecting with other Natives online & IRL, journaling on my phone, postcolonial thought, my first full MCU watch through, chopped and screwed songs, the slowed and reverbed trend, virality (both in a biological and internet sense), trauma, Paramore, incense, depression, Indigenous resilience, irony, youtubers, social media fasting, Charli XCX, self care, emo/scene aesthetics, trans beauty, angst, Funko pops, panic, putting my phone on silent, Doja Cat, suicidal ideation, insomnia, hiking, Beach House, the show Euphoria on HBO, chronic pain, redemptionarcs, being Native non-binary, anesthesia, memories of parties, comic book shops, skate parks, Instagram, the show Pose on FX, intergenerational trauma, detribalization, psychological integration, revisiting the stuff I liked in middle school (music, movies, video games, TV shows, books, stories, images, artists, etc), real life.

Walk us through the inception of "Be Young".

So, “Be Young” happened more or less as like…an accident of intuition. I first started working on the instrumental at the end of February 2020. Initially it was more of experiment and exercise for me as a producer playing with guitar samples and I was just following my gut with it. As I started developing it and playing with it and having fun with it more and more, I just started falling in love with the sound I was teasing out of it. And suddenly one day toward the end of March when lock down really got underway, I realized that this instrumental I’d created was a spiritual remix/evolution of an older song from my past.

I wrote the first version of “Be Young” in 2012. It was how I felt about life at the time— in that original version there’s so much earnest yearning, so much wide-eyed wonder, so much sentimental excitement. The song was definitely sonically inspired by singer-songwriters like Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, Leonard Cohen. It’s always meant a lot to me and it’s always stayed with me, so I felt like I had to include the old demo just at the end of this EP in a way to honor my younger self and the perspective I had at that time and how it’s changed over the years.

The version that begins 3.0 is bratty, sarcastic, dismissive, dissatisfied, frustrated, jaded and defensively listless. It’s also honest, but much more cavalier, offhand, irreverent, casually blunt. It’s inspired by the doom I feel now and wondering what it even means to be young anymore. It’s a cry for all of us kids who had to grow up too early because of trauma, for the outcast kids navigating this cruel world and for all those times we all want to indulge in a moment and say fuck it. The drop into the chorus feels like speeding in slow motion to me.

Walk us through the inception of "Happiness Is Hard Work".

“Happiness is Hard Work” is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. It’s very grounded in my real life experience, especially these days. It’s more like a journal entry than a song in a lot of ways. It’s voicing a lot of my anxieties, existential dread and the exhaustion that leads to depression in those of us who struggle for our moments of happiness.

After I had nailed down this emo-hyperpop sound with “Be Young,” I wanted to explore it further. And it lead to me creating a bunch of instrumentals over the last year with this sound. When I was looking at songs to record for this EP, this song was just everything I felt like I wanted to share personally for the last year.

I’m really proud of how it turned out. The main guitar part is from a producer called Idly Blare in Ohio. I had stumbled across some of their stuff on YouTube and just really vibed with it and they were kind enough to be part of this song. Then Will Lederer did some additional production and played acoustic guitar, which really elevated the song to a whole new place.

Scrapyard styles and beyond with Hunter Hooligan; photographed by Alex J. Shade.

Walk us through the inception of "Right Here, At Last”.

This song is probably the most personal and terrifying song I’ve ever released. I still kind of can’t believe it’s out for anyone to listen to. I just haven’t fully processed this song and even some of what it’s talking about.

Lyrically, this song feels like a suicide letter from a part of me that died this year. Or a eulogy of sorts. For a part of me that could never stop, could never sit in feelings, could never slow down, could never just relax. This song is actually a collage of 4 different songs that I wrote pieces of during quarantine. Each verse is from a different song and then I wrote the chorus once I’d assembled the verses. The fragmentary nature of the song feels so honest to who I am as a person fragmented by trauma.

Sonically it was really inspired by old Beach House, Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor, and Youth Lagoon songs. Songs I would put on while I drove around the empty highway late on a summer night and just stared into the Big Sad in me.

Originally, I’d recorded a very simple version of the Rhodes at home. There was rawness and an elementary simplicity to it, almost like my old piano lesson tapes from when I was a kid. But when I started finalizing this project with Nate Lanzino at Wrightway, we really honed in on this song and just focused on it for a long time.

This song probably took the longest—and it’s so absurd because it’s literally just vocal and piano. But everything had to be felt. Nate is playing the Rhodes in the final version and he just took it to a place I would never be able to. I cried when I first put all the pieces of this song together, but I cried harder in the studio when he recorded his parts. There’s this overwhelming emotional quality to his playing that’s also extremely understated, detached, and withdrawn. And it just made me feel like he really got the song. It made me feel seen, made me feel known, made me feel understood in a way that just meant a lot to me. I’m so honored to have him playing this song on this recording. 

The movements, activism and action that you have found lately that give hope and promises of healing and the potential for prosperity here in the present and for the future.

I think for me these days everything always comes back to healing. On my best days, I believe in every single person’s inherent right to radical, transformative healing. Of course, it might be purely theoretical, and maybe isn’t practical, but it informs the perspective I have for my own activism and the activism that inspires me.

The grasp of capitalism is unceasing and everything is industrialized: harm, suffering, gratification, soothing, happiness, fulfillment, ambitions, learning, needs, coping, healing, destruction, being born, dying, etc. We live in a world profiting on land ownership, medicine, education, prison systems, slavery, international exploitation, imperialism, ongoing colonization and the consistent commodification of human beings as capital.

I think a lot about how to disrupt this constant industrialization. I think the clearest opportunity we all have is to be of service in whatever ways we can.

I try to constantly move from a foundation that no human life is expendable or disposable. I have to believe that most people have the ability to change because it’s one of the few things that keeps me going in the face of the overwhelming doom I feel.

I am so inspired by movements, activism and actions that prioritize healing and provide service that helps people to transition out of just simply living in survival mode.  I’ve mentioned some organizations already, but everyone should be keeping up with Baltimore Safe Haven, Ballet After Dark, We Keep Us Safe Collective, Say Her Name Coalition, Bmore Than Dance, Navajo & Hopi Covid-19 Relief Fund, Red Canary Song, Wide Angle Youth Media, the Center for Native American Youth.

There are simply just too many great organizations to list and name, but I urge every person to look into the issues they really feel strongly about and to find who is doing work in that field. There are so many ways to get involved directly with organizations through volunteering or become a financial supporter.

I hope that as we continue to recover from the pandemic in the future, more artists will join in using our works to advance our communities. I think it’s a really powerful model of fundraising and I’m excited to explore more ways of doing it as I learn, heal, and grow.

Hunter Hooligan’s 3.0 EP is available now with all immediate funds being donated immediately to Native American Lifelines with further proceeds to be donated to Indigenous-led organizations annually in perpetuity.

EP cover art for 3.0 courtesy of Alex J. Shade.