HUNTER is a breath of fresh air. The Queensland singer has been building an audience online with covers that put an unexpected spin on familiar favourites, pairing his unmistakable vocal style with an aesthetic plucked straight from the early 2000s garage band era.
With a penchant for the drama of ‘80s ballads and an instinct for making a song his own, HUNTER is making a huge impression across TikTok and Instagram. Millions of views later, he’s now ready to introduce the world to his own music with debut single The Ballad Of Zelda, out October 23rd.
For HUNTER, the journey to releasing original music began with a challenge: getting comfortable putting himself out there. The idea of it scared him, but it was a challenge that proved to be deceptively simple after all.
“I wanted to start posting to socials for years but never got around to it. The biggest challenge was actually just getting started and getting out there,” HUNTER says.
It’s a familiar hurdle for emerging artists who are now navigating the increasingly demanding world of content creation on top of writing music. There’s an uncomfortable balancing act involved in building an online presence while trying to establish yourself as a musician in your own right.
When covers are gaining so much traction, it can be tempting to pour all of your energy into what people already know you for, rather than taking the risk of sharing something entirely your own. HUNTER found a way around that initial hesitation by bringing his sister into the process, handing over the responsibility of managing his socials so he could focus on creating.
“I knew if I was in charge and I had to rewatch it and post it myself, I’d go, ‘Oh no, that’s bad.’ And I just wouldn’t do it. I just pay my sister every week to help do it for me, and that really helped getting everything moving forward,” HUNTER explains.
It’s a practical solution to a problem that could become paralysing, and one that makes a lot of sense- bringing in those closest to him means that his vision is able to be executed as intended and without overwhelm.
As a result, his audience has grown, and the relationship between making content and making music has become less of a balancing act and more of a natural extension of the same creative process.
“We found our niche,” HUNTER says, “We have a bunch of people who love what we do. If I post it and it does well- like, it makes people happy to see our covers- that makes me feel a lot better and I feel like I get to do this rather than I have to do this."
Alongside his best mate on guitar and backing vocals, HUNTER has developed a signature approach to his videos.
The performances are thoughtfully filmed, the recordings have a gritty, yet intentional quality and the song choices are just unexpected enough to make you stop scrolling. Rather than covering the biggest songs of the moment, he gravitates towards material that reflects his own tastes, giving old favourites a new life through his voice and musical style.
One recent example is his cover of “Magic Dance” from the 1986 cult fantasy film Labyrinth, which introduced a generation to David Bowie’s wonderfully weird musical world. HUNTER initially thought the reference might be a little niche, but the response proved otherwise and the video has since amassed 2.4 million views on TikTok alone.
“It was one of my favourite childhood movies, cause my mum showed me,” HUNTER recalls, saying, “I just listened to it not too long before we posted it and my sister and I thought it would be a really, really good idea.”
It was a good idea, indeed. Within hours, the video reached 70,000 likes and grew by the minute. It’s the kind of engagement that can change the trajectory of an emerging artist, but it’s hardly the only indication that HUNTER’S covers are reaching beyond his existing audience. Having Jon Bon Jovi comment on and show support for a cover of his own song is another significant moment for HUNTER.
Scroll through his catalogue and his musical influences are quite obvious. The ‘80s loom large, particularly the era’s grand, emotionally charged ballads, with HUNTER’s voice seemingly tailor-made for their dramatic vocal deliveries.
There’s a richness to his vocal performances, but it’s his ability to move between styles and make each song feel natural that really sets him apart. His influences are eclectic, and his approach isn’t about recreating the original, but more focused on finding a way to inhabit it.
That versatility, however, presents its own challenge when it comes to defining an original sound. When you can convincingly take on many different styles, finding the one that feels unmistakably yours requires a different kind of confidence.
“Obviously, my style is still changing, and you can tell by my influences that it reflects in my songwriting,” HUNTER explains. “I wrote a lot of my songs on piano. Just closed my eyes and did what felt natural. I feel like I write in a style that’s very reflective of me and it’s a style that I haven’t really heard in any other bands.”
This individuality sits at the heart of The Ballad Of Zelda. Despite its title, the song isn’t a tribute to the beloved video game franchise. Instead, its origins lie in two seemingly unrelated encounters with tragedy, both of which stayed with HUNTER long after the initial moments had passed.
The first came while busking with friends, when he witnessed a confronting scene involving a man in distress. Saddened by what he saw, HUNTER found himself unable to shake the experience.
Around the same time, he watched the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby for the first time, which sent him down a rabbit hole exploring the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, the writer and artist whose complicated relationship with her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, has long attracted fascination and debate.
“I learned about their relationship—how unhealthy it was,” he says. “There’s also speculation that Zelda wrote The Great Gatsby and he took credit for all the work, and she was eventually sent to a mental institution because they thought she was bipolar… They burned down the asylum, and that’s how she died.”
Although many of the circumstances surrounding Zelda’s life and death are unknown, the broader idea of a life marked by suffering, misunderstood circumstances, and tragedy connected these seemingly disparate experiences, and thus the idea for the song started to form.
It’s definitely an unusual foundation for a debut single, but that’s precisely what makes the track so intriguing. Rather than drawing from the familiar themes of young love or heartbreak, HUNTER found himself connecting with stories that left him questioning the circumstances people find themselves in and the lives unfolding behind them.
He wrote The Ballad Of Zelda when he was just 16, with the song coming together in roughly an hour. “It was one of those things where I just played whatever chord and sang whatever melody, and it all worked and fell into place,” HUNTER says.
While he’s spent years exploring other people’s music, HUNTER’s introduction as a songwriter comes from trusting his instincts and allowing unexpected ideas to find their place together. The result brings together his love for dramatic, ‘80s-inspired sounds with a storytelling approach that feels unique.
HUNTER has the charisma to draw people in- it’s in the way he sings, performs, and even in the way he talks. Beneath the natural presence is a musicality that deserves attention in its own right. His voice has the power and character to carry a huge ballad, and his willingness to explore unusual subject matter gives his songwriting a personality beyond the sound itself.
In a sea of emerging artists competing for attention, HUNTER’s combination of distinctive vocals, retro influences and left-of-centre storytelling is an incredibly promising place to start.
The Ballad of Zelda is out now.
