Leslie Hunt Ascends to New Heights
District 97 frontwoman and former top 10 American Idol female vocalist soars with a pair of excellent 2021 EPs: Ascend and Descend.
Hello and welcome to another issue of the Michael’s Record Collection newsletter. Thank you for spending part of your day with MRC. Usually I will spotlight an album, but today I’ll be talking about a pair of 2021 solo releases from Leslie Hunt, a talented singer/songwriter who fronts the Chicago-area progressive rock band District 97 and who reached the top 10 women on Season 6 of American Idol. More on her below.
For now, I’d like to thank my newest Patreon supporter, Scott Pringle, and invite everyone to simply visit my Patreon page and see if any of the various levels appeal to you. No hard sell, just a friendly invitation, and if you feel you’d like to support the MRC efforts of independent writing and podcasting, feel free to do so at whatever level works for you.
Before we dive into the main story, I wanted to let you know what I’ve been listening to lately:
ABBA – Voyage: The new ABBA album (the band’s first in 40 years) was released on Nov. 5, and I love it. The songs sound like ABBA, first and foremost, while not being exact copies of songs they’ve released before.
Steppenwolf – Magic Carpet Ride: The Dunhill / ABC Years (1967-1971): The first six studio albums and first two live albums from the band have been remastered as a new eight-disc box set that will drop tomorrow. Fans of the band will find plenty to love here. I can’t say I’ve heard all of these albums in their original form, but to me the mixes sound good and it’s a great way to start your Steppenwolf collection.
Jefferson Starship – Mother of the Sun: This arrived on vinyl on Friday. It’s not a brand-new album, as it was released in 2020, but I won a drawing the band held on Twitter for an autographed copy. This is a terrific record and if you’ve been avoiding the band because so many members are gone, you should reconsider. Yes, Grace Slick is retired, Mickey Thomas and Craig Chaquico have moved on, and Paul Kantner and Marty Balin have passed away. Original member David Freiburg is still going strong and current vocalist Cathy Richardson is excellent. The songs on this record are strong.
OK, let’s get into this week’s story.
Leslie Hunt seems to always be busy and has been able to do what a lot of musicians can’t — make a living in music. The Season 6 (2007) American Idol top 10 female vocalist fronts the progressive rock band District 97, plays in an event band (doing weddings, large parties, corporate events, etc.), and is a gifted singer/songwriter. She has released a pair of seven-song EPs this year — Ascend, which was released on June 25, and Descend, which came out a few weeks ago on Oct. 22. The two releases are short — less than 25 minutes each — collections of songs that deal with different themes, without being conceptual.
Ascend deals with love, relationships, and “matters of the soul,” while Descend deals with freedom and the difficulty of what it means to be a person in a time of major public health, political, and social justice issues. The two records, which are on the Spirit of Unicorn Music label and distributed by Cherry Red, are Hunt’s first solo releases since her Wait for It album came out in 2021. She has two other solo albums in her catalog — Your Hair is on Fire (2009) and From the Strange to a Stranger (2006). All her work has been great, but she’s tapped into a particularly rich vein of her songwriting and vocal talent on Ascend and Descend.
The obvious question that springs to mind is why the decision was made to go with a pair of EPs spaced out only a few months apart rather than release all the songs as an LP. The simple answer is that Ascend was written and recorded mostly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Much of what ended up on Descend was written during lockdown in response to suddenly being saddled with free time and hold a mirror up to the societal issues that came to a head during the stressful uncertain period after many businesses shuttered to wait out the virus.
“I still don’t know if that was a great choice,” Hunt said of releasing the 14 songs as two EPs. “I think I just kind of wanted to prolong the process. I think it was fun to kind of create some buzz around each one individually, and also just sonically, stylistically, subject matter-wise, they are their own bodies of work. Once we got going on the sound of Descend it was clear that it was not going to be quite as Nashville-sounding. It was more soulful. There’s some funk and R&B aspect to it here and there.”
Ascend is stylistically more singer/songwriter in nature. The seven songs hold together cohesively. There’s an Americana-based connectivity that provides a stylistic consistency. Recorded in the apartment studio of Anthony Gravino, the basics of Ascend took place in one day. Hunt had those songs in the can when the pandemic hit, and it wasn’t until after she’d written the songs for Descend that she reached out to Christian Matthew Cullen about producing what turned out to be two releases.
Cullen frequently works with songwriting legend Jim Peterik (Ides of March, Survivor). Peterik, who recently co-wrote most of Dennis DeYoung’s last couple of albums, began mentoring Hunt when she was 15, after receiving a demo tape from former Eagles tour manager Bob Destocki (now deceased). At the time, Destocki managed a theater that was attached to Hunt’s high school, and he knew that Peterik was looking for young artists to mentor. Hunt was spreading her demo around and everything just clicked into place.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that Hunt met Cullen through Peterik, whom she’s known for years. She still works with Peterik, often serving as the demo voice for his songs, and she appears on two tracks on his new World Stage album, Tigress – Women Who Rock the World.
Getting back to Ascend, the record kicks off with, appropriately, “Starting Over,” a song influenced by one of Hunt’s musical heroes, Joni Mitchell. The rhyming pattern and cleverness of the lyrics remind me of Ben Folds or Todd Rundgren, although set to acoustic guitar-driven music. Hunt plays the acoustic guitar on it with texture provided by Stuart Mindeman’s Wurlitzer and Mellotron by Cullen.
“This was this was the song that broke a very long bout of writers block,” Hunt said. “The song came to me and it all came very fast.”
“There You Are” is one of the best Tom Petty songs that Petty never wrote. Cullen provides slide guitar to go with Mindeman’s organ, acoustic guitar by Lloyd Snyder, and a solid rhythm from drummer Michael Caskey and bassist Bryan Doherty. Matt Gold adds tasty electric guitar crunch. Cullen also contributes some backing vocals. It’s a very Petty song that also wouldn’t seem out of place on a Shawn Colvin record, and it’s one of the highlights of Ascend.
There’s more tasty slide guitar work in “Your Wind,” and that’s followed by one of the record’s highlights — and a very personal song to Hunt — “Wolf Cried Boy.” In addition to the obvious wonderful juxtaposition of the title from the children’s fable, it’s another song that could have come from a Shawn Colvin record. In this song, Hunt is the wolf who cried ‘boy,’ a reference to often falling in love and telling friends and family she’d met “the one,” only to have it fall apart later.
“That’s been my history,” she said. “And I was in a relationship at the time when I wrote this, that understandably my family and friends weren’t taking super seriously, because I had just gotten out of another one that was ‘the one,’ and everybody’s ‘the one.’ And I was feeling kind of frustrated that I had to miss out, because they weren’t really eager to meet this person until I had put in enough time to where this person kind of proved staying power. That's why you also don't show your kids who you're dating right away, because they might fall in love with them and then that's just unnecessary loss that everybody has to go through when the relationship matures and maybe it isn’t right after the infatuation period wears off.”
After “Right Here,” the first song on Ascend that was written, having taken shape back in the early 2010s, comes my favorite song on the album and one that is absolutely devastating. “Down the Road” is the most overtly country song on the album — after a soft, hymn-like opening — and it was written about Hunt’s sister, who passed away after battling addiction problems just before Leslie joined District 97 in 2008. It is a powerful song lyrically and vocally, and it’s an ironic twist that the song is so country (complete with steel guitar from Gold) when Hunt’s sister was more of a heavy metal fan.
“I haven’t written a ton about her with District 97, but I channeled her spirit in that band a lot,” Hunt said. “So, in that way, I almost created an alter ego on stage with the band that feels like a conglomeration of us both coming into one person. But I don’t think she was a big country fan, and so she’s probably upset that I did that (wrote a country song about her).”
Ascend closes with “The Key,” a short, soft, piano chord-driven piece about relationship chemistry. Cullen’s string arrangement adds depth and gravitas to a simple song.
The EP is just under 25 minutes long, with none of the tracks surpassing the four-minute mark. It’s over before the listener knows it and an overwhelming need to play it again immediately follows.
“I think I just wanted something that felt like really organic and very song focused, with not a whole lot of electronic production,” Hunt said of Ascend. “I wanted to keep it on the simple side and just, I don't know, I guess I was just listening to a lot of Kacey Musgraves at the time to her album, Golden Hour. I’m not a giant country music fan. That album was just so about the songs, and it had a really good kind of cozy sound to it start to finish and I guess I was kind of going for that, if I’m honest.”
Hunt accomplished that mission. The songs on Ascend are simple and extremely cozy, but they contain a depth and texture that rewards repeat listens.
Descend is a bit more of a mixed bag, stylistically. The songs are even shorter on average than on Ascend, with several at less than three minutes long. Many of the musicians are the same but Andrew Vogt replaced Doherty on bass due to availability.
“Don’t Make Me Come Back There” is not only the title of the Descend opener, but also a terrific line from a mom, which Hunt is. The song has a mid-tempo beat after an acoustic guitar intro and strays into some psychedelic vibes mid-song. Lyrically, Hunt touches on multiple social issues that boiled to the surface in 2020.
“I live in a neighborhood where from one house to the next you just don’t know who anybody voted for,” Hunt said. “And so, you’re kind of walking around, like, so we’ve got political stuff, we’ve got racial stuff, we’ve got different amounts of thinking that this virus is bogus…so I crammed just about all the subjects into this.
“Why are we so bad at being passengers? Why are we so bad at being powerless? Why are we so bad at thinking like a group right now? Why is it all about me and my rights, and I’m inconvenienced, and I’m bored? And it’s like, God, you all sound like toddlers. Don’t make me come back there, please. So, I was a little annoyed.”
“Again and Again” deals with racial injustice issues and has a very Rufus/Chaka Khan vibe. It stands the furthest apart stylistically from everything else on Descend. Hunt was concerned that it was a little too distant in style from the other tracks and Cullen questioned whether it fit on the record, but Hunt opted to keep it anyway.
“I just didn’t want it to be kicked out from the group,” she said. “I just feel like there were so many topics in that that applied, that it sums up the mood of the year, but put it to a fun, dancey vibe. If I’m honest, that’s some of my favorite stuff. I don’t often write that way, because I often write when I’m kind of sad. So, I didn’t want to kick it out. Maybe my next album is more funky and upbeat and dancey.”
“Quiet Mind” is an R&B ballad, complete with finger snaps keeping the beat, and it makes reference to staying calm during the pandemic (Everyone’s in the same storm).
“Big White Flag” sounds like a cross between Move Like This-era The Cars crossed with Taylor Swift. My favorite track on Descend, it’s got a latter-day Cars-like simple keyboard riff in the verses, a catchy chorus, and the trademark Swift attitude. Hunt cops to listening to a Swift performance while folding laundry.
“I just got this little beat in my head,” she said, referencing a time she felt the isolation of the lockdown, despite being at home with her boyfriend (who was on a Zoom call with friends in the basement). “I didn’t know what to do with myself. So, I’d find myself going into a room and turn the speaker on — I’ve got this Bluetooth speaker and it makes a big noise when it goes on and it makes another noise when it goes off. I’d turn it on and think I was going to listen to a podcast, but I would go, ‘Eh, I’ll turn it off. No, I don’t want to be in silence, I’ll turn it back on.’ I just didn't know what to do with myself because normally I'm so busy.
“So, when I wrote it, I knew that it was super poppy. I knew that I wanted it to have almost like an 80s driving feel to it. And that was the song that I wrote that made me realize I needed to rope Christian (Cullen) in. And I remember the first text I sent him was like, ‘I just wrote a song. It’s super poppy and you need to produce it.’”
An exchange of texts led to Hunt doing a Kickstarter to fund the album to secure Cullen’s production services.
The wonderful 80s vibe of “Big White Flag” gives way to “These Days,” which is the most stylistically similar track to the Ascend songs. Imagine Joni Mitchell singing over a Latin shuffle. Lyrically it speaks to the way time felt during lockdown.
These days are blending into one
Separated by some
Moments where I catch myself having some fun
Another album highlight follows with “So Many Times,” a song about Hunt’s work in her event band. The irony of working in that environment is spending so many special moments with the complete strangers who hired her and missing out on similar moments with her family and friends as a result.
People tend to celebrate on Saturdays
If I haven’t been ‘round for a while that’s why I haven’t shown face
And if you invite me to your soirée
I might show up at two in the morning, head to toe in black lace
I was in their family for the night
Dancing in the bright lights
The song has one of the most memorable and amazing vocal sections that soars up behind the title lyric in the chorus. It sets the track apart from all the others across both releases.
“I knew it needed to kind of soar back up from there,” Hunt said about the point where the pre-chorus of the song transitions into the chorus. “So, because the pre-chorus ended right before the one of the downbeat of the chorus, I knew that the first part of the chorus needed to just kind of be a nonverbal melody.”
It’s a beautiful and haunting vocal meant to evoke the event band experience and “So Many Times” even includes a guest appearance from Jerome Matthews Jr., a co-lead vocalist in Hunt’s event band.
“We do lots of weddings. We do lots of private events. And Jerome’s been in that band,” she said. “He and I are the two singers, primarily, since 2005. And this song is about being in an event band, being a part of someone’s family for the night. It’s why I haven’t seen my own family and their own celebrations, like any Saturdays since 2008. And because so many songs have those kind of ‘Put your hands up, whoa-oh’ kind of stuff, I was (thinking) I could write a song with kind of a play on that.”
The final track is the all-too-brief “Complex Heart,” with its simple chordal guitar riff, a lovely string arrangement and a sweet chorus. The string arrangement by Cullen makes the song seem so much bigger than its 2:26 run time. In fact, the song began even shorter than that until Cullen suggested expanding it.
“He's got such an ear and such a sensibility for movement,” Hunt said of her producer. “And just kind of what I like about him is that he makes sure that there's a point of interest from the beginning of the song to the end. There's not a lot of just droning nothingness. The mind has somewhere to go. Something is always kind of popping out and grabbing you for a second.”
Of the two EPs, Ascend is more consistent in style from first song to last, but both have an equal amount of quality. It’s difficult to pick a favorite release or a favorite song.
“I like them all for different reasons. And I do find myself every now and then kind of wanting to visit them,” Hunt said.
Ascend and Descend should appeal to just about any fan of melodic, hook-laden music. The former fits within the Americana genre with some forays into country rock. The latter varies more, with disparate influences such as pop, funk, R&B, and Latin music.
You can stream Ascend and Descend on the usual services and they’re available for purchase digitally or on CD at Leslie’s website, lesliehuntmusic.com.
To check out my full interview with Leslie, check out the video below. She was a funny, charming, and engaging person to chat with and we covered some topics more in depth, including her work with Jim Peterik on his new Tigress album, her American Idol experience (and what she learned from it), her musical origin story, and more.
Thanks again for your time today. I hope you check out Leslie’s two releases. Let me know what you think. You can always write to me at michaelsrecordcollection@gmail.com and I appreciate your feedback. And be sure to share this with the music lovers in your life.