I recently had a little chat with this gentleman by the name of Hunter Metts, the pride of Franklin, Tennessee. A couple seasons ago, he was on the TV sereis American Idol — he was even a top-10 finalist.

What’s important is that Hunter Metts makes some pretty good music as well, and he writes his own songs. So to get to know Hunter Metts a little better, I had this little chat with him. You can listen to it using the audio player above, and read along with the full transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Bill DeVille: Hey there. I'm Bill DeVille. I'm here with Hunter Metts. Welcome to the Twin Cities, Hunter. How's it going?

Hunter Metts: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's going great.

Bill DeVille: Have you been here before, to the Twin Cities?

Hunter Metts: I think we might have played a show passing through, maybe like a bar or something like that, but never had the chance to go downtown or anything like that.

Bill DeVille: How does it feel to be playing the legendary club, First Avenue? You know, where Purple Rain was done, Prince played. I mean, it's been there for more than 50 years now.

Hunter Metts: No, it's unbelievable. And this whole experience is just a dream come true, really.

Bill DeVille: So tell me about yourself. I actually saw you on a number of episodes of American Idol.

Hunter Metts: Yes, sir.

Bill DeVille: What was that experience like?

Hunter Metts: Oh, man, it was, it was interesting, to say the least. I think you're still finding out your voice, and you're finding out what you want to say and how you want to say it. And I think in a lot of ways, it expedited that process for me, almost like a boot camp or something.

Bill DeVille: So you kind of learned the tools of the trade a little bit, kind of, then, huh?

Hunter Metts: Yes, sir, yeah. And I think the takeaways were interesting, too. Like, you kind of do what works on the show. And I think a lot of people fall into that. But then on the other side of it, you almost have to re-navigate and, like, look at it again and say, "OK, was that me, or was it the version of the show, the narrative of the show?" or things like that. So it's a loaded — it's a mixed bag for sure.

Bill DeVille: How does the picking of the song work? Are you given options? Or can you pick anything you want? Or how does that work?

Hunter Metts: Yeah, it depends week to week. But they do have, like, kind of a master list of songs that are cleared or available, and you can kind of pick from that list. Or then they might have a themed week, then it's like a list of songs to choose from.

Bill DeVille: And I've heard your version of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love." Tell us about your love of Bon Iver. You're a fan, huh?

Hunter Metts: Definitely. Yeah. I think artists like him or Ben Howard or Fleet Foxes. It was kind of like the soundtrack to my life. And I think they just do such a good job of having a true musical integrity, but also conveying emotion and a narrative in such a beautiful way.

Bill DeVille: Have you heard the new Bon Iver album [sABLE, fABLE] yet?

Hunter Metts: Yes, I have. I have.

Bill DeVille: Are you digging it?

Hunter Metts: I do. I do. I think he's a once-in-a-lifetime creator.

Bill DeVille: And I've got to ask you this question: Were you watching Jimmy Fallon the night that Justin [Vernon of Bon Iver] was on the show?

Hunter Metts: No, I might have seen a clip.

Bill DeVille: Did you hear about it?

Hunter Metts: I might have seen a clip. No.

Bill DeVille: He was sitting down with Jimmy Fallon, and he played this tape from his voice mail of his next-door neighbor, and his next-door neighbor says, "Yeah, I heard your song, 'Skinny Girl,' [sic] on the show last night," but that must have been you!

Hunter Metts: Yeah, no, I totally saw that clip from the show. And yeah, it's incredible. It's so great.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. And you also covered Bonnie Raitt.

Hunter Metts: Mm-hmm.

Bill DeVille: What is it about that song that you liked? "I Can't Make You Love Me."

Hunter Metts: Oh, man. I mean, that's an iconic song.

Bill DeVille: Yeah, Justin's also a big Bonnie Raitt fan.

Hunter Metts: Yeah. I think there's this pocket of artists, and they just have this ability to convey a message in a way that feels extremely timeless. And I think that's what draws me to artists like that, or songs like that, things that just will stand the test of time.

Bill DeVille: Now, what inspired you to to be a musician?

Hunter Metts: Yeah, well, both my parents, they're from different parts of the South, so my mom's from South Texas, and my dad's from Mississippi, and they both moved to Nashville to —

Bill DeVille: To try their hand in the music biz?

Hunter Metts: Yes, and it didn't pan out for either of them. They never, you know, like, saw any fruit from it, if you will. But it was always around growing up.

Bill DeVille: So there was instruments laying around. Did you start on piano and then pick up guitar? Is that how it worked for you?

Hunter Metts: Yeah, yes, sir. We had an upright [piano] that was my grandmother's that is now in my house, and I started playing on that. And I feel like from a young age, I always wanted to write songs, not necessarily learn songs, you know, on YouTube or through videos. It was never "how to play this song." It was more, what are the chords or melodies keys, the different notes that would fit in the keys? Yeah, and it just kind of snowballed from there. I mean, after high school, watching what my parents went through, I went to a coding school, and I did software development in Nashville in a city called Hendersonville. It's just north of Nashville.

Bill DeVille: That's where they make the whiskey, right? I've heard of that one!

Hunter Metts: And I worked there for about a year-and-a-half, before the show. And then, yeah, I've just been fortunate enough to slowly transition into something that's full time.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. You know, a lot of the artists that have been on American Idol aren't really, you know, songwriters. That's how you're kind of different from many of the others, isn't it?

Hunter Metts: Yeah, I think that's another one of the huge hurdles with that show: It kind of sets you up as a karaoke singer, almost, and I'm totally a part of that, too, when I say that. And you have to be very mindful of that, because you can get stuck in that perception as a cover person, or like, it's a two-minute first impression a lot of times with that show.

Bill DeVille: Yeah, tell me about — speaking of songs you've written — I listened to your song, "Abilene," and I just love the feel of that song, and your song, "Weathervane," as well. You know, it's kind of a mixture of folk and Americana, and I hear this hint of spaghetti Western in your music as well. And it's produced so nicely. Do you have an album coming ultimately? Is that the goal here? 

Hunter Metts: Yeah, yes, sir. So those two songs are the first two out of a lot more to come. And I'm really excited. It feels like a very honest representation of this point in my life.

Bill DeVille: Who is your songwriting inspiration besides Justin? 

Hunter Metts: Honestly, Tom Waits is a huge, huge inspiration of mine.

Bill DeVille: You don't seem quite like Tom Waits, especially in his later years.

Hunter Metts: I need a few more cigarettes and—

Bill DeVille: Cigarettes and a little more whiskey! Actually, he gave all that stuff up, but I think that's what put his voice in that certain place. 

Hunter Metts: Yeah, but he's a huge inspiration of mine. His songs were—

Bill DeVille: Do you have a favorite Tom Waits tune?

Hunter Metts: Yes, sir. "Take It With Me."

Bill DeVille: "Take It With Me."

Hunter Metts: Yes, sir. The end is like, "In a land, there's a town. In the town, there's a house. In that house, there's a woman, and in that woman, there's a heart I love. I'm gonna take it with me when I go."

Bill DeVille: "Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night" is my favorite.

Hunter Metts: OK.

Bill DeVille: I'm a huge fan as well. Lyrics! I read some of [your] lyrics. It's really caught my eye. "We were dancing by the front room. You were my Juilliard antique angel. Even the birds were watching from cables, holding on to you like something stable." That's very poetic.

Hunter Metts: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Bill DeVille: What inspired lines like that?

Hunter Metts: That song as a whole is about my grandfather, and he was from Texas, but he was adopted in Texas, and so he never knew the love you might inherit, you know, naturally from your parents or, relationships growing up, I think it was very hard. And I didn't really know him that well, and so I really tried to, with what I did know, put myself in his shoes. And, you know, it just seems so fleeting in love a lot of times, where it's like you can plant the roots really deep, but then it seems like that tree can just get pulled up at any time. And I think just, like, sitting in front of, you know, a pen and paper and trying to write something that feels tangible with that idea in a unique way.

Bill DeVille: A couple more questions. One I wanted to ask you: What's it like being from Nashville? I mean, everybody knows it as being a tourist and Lower Broadway or, you know, going to the Opry or the Ryman. What's something that isn't any of those that you love about Nashville and the Nashville area? 

Hunter Metts: Yeah, I think there's a lot of, like, glitter and those things. And I think that's a lot of like, something that's very understandable or palatable from this, like bird's-eye view of Nashville, but I think, like in all those pockets, there are some, like, extremely talented people who are doing things that have nothing to do with country or the Grand Old Opry, right? But they still have that musical integrity, and they still almost carry the history, or they approach it in the same way, with the same like seriousness, as a lot of those musicians, yeah.

Bill DeVille: What was the last album that you listened to, start to finish?

Hunter Metts: Oh, gosh. Let me look.

Bill DeVille: Oh, look at that! He's ready for that question!

Hunter Metts: Honestly, it's probably like a Fleetwood Mac album, or jazz. I like a lot of jazz. Let's see. The last one on the drive was a Gregory Alan Isakov.

Bill DeVille: Oh, nice!

Hunter Metts: Yeah.

Bill DeVille: His music's kind of in the same sort of, you know, maybe genre, it's the same sort of sound.

Hunter Metts: It does have a lot of similarities.

Bill DeVille: Stylistically, you have a lot in common. Maybe that's a better way of putting it.

Hunter Metts: Yes, sir.

Bill DeVille: Well, Hunter Metts, so nice chatting with you, sir.

Hunter Metts: Thank you.

Bill DeVille: I'm excited for you.

Hunter Metts: Thank you so much, man.

Bill DeVille: My pleasure.

And we're going to listen to a little Hunter Metts right now. This is his new single, a lovely song called "Weathervane."

External Link

Hunter Metts – official site