Music
September 16th 2009
In sickness and in health
Musician Todd Hunter talks about the mysterious illness that inspired his solo debut, Star
The picture of health? Todd Hunter began writing the songs on his latest CD while sick with an undiagnosed illness that landed him in the hospital. by Grajewski Photography
For Winnipeg musician Todd Hunter, life couldn’t be much better.
The 35-year-old is about to release his debut solo album Star, an impressive collection of warm, vintage sounding pop-rock gems that’s already enjoying positive reactions from college radio stations across the country.
“Things are fabulous now,” a jovial Hunter said by phone from his home last week. But things weren’t always that way.
On the heels of Life Is Good – the 2006 sophomore outing of his veteran full-band project, The Todd Hunter Band – he mysteriously fell ill.
What had been a seemingly standard-fare flu shot sent an otherwise fit and healthy Hunter into a steady decline, spiraling his health downwards until most energies abandoned him.
“I just got sicker and sicker and sicker, until eventually I was in horrible shape,” he said.
Unable to diagnose the illness – much less treat it – doctors bounced him around from specialist to specialist until Hunter became intolerant of most foods. He changed his diet to that of a restrictive raw vegan and lost over 30 pounds.
Hunter was able to keep his job as an adult education teacher, but had to take quite a few sick days off for short periods in the hospital.
“It was a scary time. When you go through something like that, you really take stock of what’s important in life,” Hunter said. “I think that makes you a little more honest. The songs are closer to the heart.”
It was during that period that most of the songs on Star were birthed, though they would not grow until later.
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“All my productivity pretty much stopped for a whole year,” Hunter said about the writing process. “But here and there I would come up with a melody line or a lyric line and document it quickly, although I wasn’t able to finish writing the songs.”
A longtime member of the Winnipeg music scene and a trained recording engineer, Hunter wasn’t going to let malady curb his musical ambitions.
Back on the mend, Hunter amassed enough strength to work on the new album in his home studio.
Channeling the lows of the previous two years, he enlisted the help of local producer Mike Petkau to churn out an album chronicling the worst and the best of times.
Although Hunter’s adversities provided fodder for most of the tracks on Star, he isn’t sure how to relate to the songs anymore.
“It’s really bizarre talking about the experience where the album came from,” he said with a laugh. “It came from a dark place, but it’s kind of funny – I’m pretty chipper and energetic now. Talking about the inspiration for the record, it’s kind of odd.”
For now, Hunter is happy to enjoy new-found strength.
“Life is full of experiences and you need to go through them to find your path,” he concluded. “For me, it’s been an interesting path.”
This article appeared in Volume 64, Number 03 of The Uniter, published September 17th 2009.
