HUNTER'S MOON
by Derrell Bradford

411: So, what's up with the 8-string guitar?
Charlie Hunter: Well, I had always been interested in and listening to guys like Robert Johnson who played a few different parts at the same time. I also was into playing some bass and the drums, too. I've always been into the rhythmic part, and integrating the bass with the guitar was a natural progression.

411: And you don't lay down separate bass tracks in the studio?
CH: No. I do it all myself.

411: On some of your tracks it sounds like there's a Hammond organ, but it's you. It's amazing.
CH: I try to study everything in-depth and really understand the sensibility and the specifics of each instrument.

411: Do you still kick it with any of the guys from Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy [Hunter's old band]?
CH: Well, it's funny. I just played a gig back in the Bay Area and I saw Rono [Tse]. We talked for a bit. But no, I don't see them that often.

411: Disposable was, like, the predecessor to a lot of the political rock we're hearing now with groups like Rage Against the Machine.
CH: I would consider myself marginally politically astute, but I was just a member of the group at the time. I was friends with those guys, but it was really Michael's [Franti] thing. Disposable was definitely ahead of its time, and probably a little too hardcore for what was going on at the time, which might be why it didn't sell very well.

411: So you're from Cali. How do you feel about living in New York?
CH: It's definitely made a man out of me. I've been here for three years. Someone told me the Bay Area is where you go to find yourself. Once you know what you want to do, at least musically, you have to come here to do it.

411: How do you feel about your almost-cult status and following?
CH: Well, my whole thing has always been that I'm going to do what I feel is an honest interpretation of what I feel while accomplishing my goals as a person and a musician. As long as I stay honest and I do what I want to do, that's O.K. As long as I don't follow some unnatural lust for money or fame or something like that, I'll be happy.

411: Who listens to your music?
CH: You know, my audience is pretty diverse and I'm proud of it. I'm pretty honest about the music I grew up with and that's what I'm into. [The fans] are young people in their 20s and 30s, other guitar players, jazz fans, and just a lot of different people in general. And I like that, at my gigs, there's usually as many women as men.

411: Other than that it's funky as shit, it's difficult to describe your music. How would you classify it?
CH: I feel like the music I'm most interested in is called "rhythm music." Whether it be funk or blues or Latin or, like, West African-1 feel like it's all tied together by the rhythm music thing. My music has the vast majority of its roots in rhythm, harmony, melody...like in the African system. Those qualities were "hybridized" by whatever and whomever they came in contact with.

411: So the new album seems like a bit of a departure from your other work. More musicians, more instruments. Was that a challenge, changing from the totally stripped down Duo to this?
CH: It's definitely a different thing. It's a culmination of everything up to this point. It's got collaborations with a lot of the other guys I've played with and there are solo tunes, tunes with brass, and tunes with just me and Leon [Parker] on the album. It's unified in its concept, but still kind of a mixed bag.

411: What are your influences?
CH: I listen to a lot of Cuban stuff, like Arsenio Rodriguez. A lot of really hip Brazilian stuff too. Then there's all the jazz stuff I really enjoy: Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus.

411: The first time I saw you I was still in college, right after Bing, Bing, Bing! was released. You guys were a pretty eclectic crew. What was it like playing with Dave [Ellis] and Jay [Lane]?
CH' It was really cool. We grew up together. Growing up in the Bay Area there's so much music around all the time. We were a pretty diverse group of people as far as our interests were concerned. But we were into just enough stuff together to play that [kind of] music.

411: Do you set out with a specific goal for every album you record?
CH: Yeah. I mean, it depends on the record. Duo was like "let me write tunes around the duo concept and make a unified record out of that." I think it's good to know what you're doing before you go in and get to it.

411: I checked out your article in Madison. You had some very poignant things to say on the state of bubblegum and pop music. I feel like there are fewer talented artists of the caliber of some of the older funk, soul, and rock groups like Led Zeppelin or Earth, Wind & Fire [EWF]. Do you think that's because there are fewer talented artists or that, because of mass media and the internet, there's just more music being heard?
CH: If you look at EWF, their first albums weren't successes. Now, if you don't have a record that's a success from the beginning, you're going nowhere. They're [record companies] throwing shit against the wall and whatever sticks they keep. If it falls to the ground, too bad. People need time to develop and they're not giving it. I mean, Monk was, like, unknown until the mid '60s.

411: I talked to some guys who were saying that all the pop icons are like, 16. And they were like, "What's a 16 year-old really know about art?"
CH: I can agree because 16 year-olds buy most of the records. They're [record companies] trying to snare that energy and they're not promoting anything else. I think what's going to happen is that live gigs will become a factor again. You'll either be able to play, or you'll have to go home.

411: I never listen to the radio anymore because it's just disappointing. I don't know how some of these guys get record deals. It just seems idiotic. And there's no connection there. It's not like old-school hip-hop where you felt the passion, or jazz, where you can hear the aesthetic of the feeling and the sentiment...
CH: I remember when that stuff came out, what the release date was, and going to the store to buy the vinyl. I feel like there's four or five records a year that excite me when then come out. Other than that, it's pretty sad.

411: I feel like a lot of new European music really has that funk-type edge that's missing in a lot of contemporary American music.
CH: I don't think so. I think they're a lot of great musicians around and they were just made obsolete by producers. With EWF's Maurice White, who used to be a drummer, you had a producer who was the guy in the classic sense of the word. He wrote the tracks, arranged them, everything. Today it's all generated through samples and computers and sequencers. It's interesting, but the musicality is lost. It's more like producing a sound track than a record.

411: So, you're a big D'Angelo fan?
CH: Oh, yeah. He just saw me playing on BET and then called up my manager and I went down and played with him.

411: Any artists you're looking forward to collaborating with?
CH: It's hard to say. I don't want to say anything in case it doesn't happen.