Q&A: HUNNY’s Jason Yarger Goes Solo on ‘SPIRIT!’ and Has Fun with It
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY JANET HERNANDEZ ☆
BAND BREAKUPS ARE NEVER EASY—“99 percent of bands don’t get to where we are,” wrote HUNNY vocalist and guitarist Jason Yarger on social media earlier this year. "And the 1 percent that do usually end in disaster with friendships dismantled. This is not the case for HUNNY so I am blessed.”
The news from Yarger wasn’t exactly a breakup post. What happened here, as cliché as it sounds, was a “new chapter” announcement. HUNNY would no longer be a four-piece; the indie rock band would continue as Yarger’s solo project. And if there were any doubts about how HUNNY would survive as a one-piece, Yarger shut them down. New music was on the way, he shared. Some months later, HUNNY’s third record SPIRIT! arrived as promised.
The band looks different this time around, but HUNNY’s signature punky sound and tongue-in-cheek lyrics live on. Yarger began working on the record solo, and behind closed doors, the group toyed with the idea of a one-person band. Work and new projects kept everyone busy, Yarger explained, but the rest of the band encouraged him to continue with HUNNY. They even made contributions to SPIRIT!.
Former drummer Joey Anderson played on the record and former bassist Kevin Grimmett co-produced. But for the most part, the songs came together with Yarger at the helm in his LA-based home studio. It was a luxury like no other, he shares.
“It was liberating to be taking my time with sounds and ideas and chasing rabbits that way,” he tells LUNA. With no deadlines or limited studio time, no compromises or bandmates to report to, Yarger was free from constraints. An idea came to him and he could flesh it out in an instant—the studio was steps away. The random observations he saved as voice memos made it onto the record; the note on his phone to “Call an album ‘Spirit’, with a banner” became a reality.
Even Yarger’s most whimsical accounts get their moment, with songs like “Pov ur dead and i’m checking my hair in ur sunglasses,” followed by the interlude “White Boy Dance.”
“The unifying theme is fun,” he shares. Freedom and fun.
Yarger joins LUNA to talk about the new record, Ween, fatherhood, and HUNNY’s upcoming EP anniversary show at The Roxy, their final performance as a four-piece.
LUNA: You said you approached SPIRIT! “without having to compromise.” What limitations did you feel in the past, and how did your newfound freedom feel?
HUNNY: It was really just the freedom of having no one else to answer to but myself. I was the only person that had to be happy with [the album] at the end of the day and that just let these songs become whatever they wanted.
LUNA: Each song on SPIRIT! feels like a full vignette with its characters and situations. Did you go into writing the record with a unifying theme, or did each song feel like its own story?
HUNNY: I always want an overarching vibe to a whole record but I definitely feel like these songs are all pretty different for the most part. Some of these songs are demos that are years old actually, so it was kind of just marrying that old stuff with the way I was making music at the time. At the end of the day I just wanted the whole album to be fun. The unifying theme is fun lol.
LUNA: You wrote most of the album in your home studio. What did you like about that setting, that perhaps you couldn’t get at a different studio with other artists around?
HUNNY: I’ve always made demos at home but never thought about really trying to push myself to make a finished product there. It was liberating to be taking my time with sounds and ideas and chasing rabbits that way. There's a certain pressure in the studio to really get shit done because you’re on everyone else’s time and you’re spending money. That leads to great ideas but a lot of the time it leaves you wishing you came up with a better guitar part or synth sound. I was able to work at my own pace and challenge myself to produce like I haven't before.
LUNA: Tell me about the last HUNNY show as a four piece. How did it go, and do you think you’ll ever take the stage with your former bandmates, at least once more?
HUNNY: Honestly I can’t even remember which show it was, but I'm sure it was fun. Playing together was always the best part. It was the logistics of being a band and a small business and the state of our industry that really mucked everything up. We had been playing with any given combination of the four of us for the last couple years, so it’s actually hard to pinpoint the last time it was all four of us. I'm going to guess it was the little headline shows we did after [touring for] new planet heaven. We've got a gig for the 10-year anniversary of Pain / Ache / Loving coming up that we all plan on playing together for. Seems like a fitting cap to this chapter. Who knows if it will ever happen again after that. But hey, nobody ever thought we’d get an Oasis reunion.
LUNA: What new discoveries have you made since becoming a one-piece project? Anything about the job that you didn’t expect?
HUNNY: Just that I can actually pull it off because I was very skeptical, so I’ve got newfound faith in myself and my abilities as an artist.
LUNA: Congrats on becoming a father! Has fatherhood informed your writing or other aspects of your art?
HUNNY: Thank you! I haven't done the cliche of writing a song with her ultrasound heartbeat or anything, but I've got some demos of her babbling into the mic so maybe those will come out lol. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I've definitely become a lot softer, but I'm not sure it's affecting the music. Not yet at least. It's made leaving for tour a lot harder, I can tell you that.
LUNA: You shared a list of songs and films that fit into the SPIRIT! universe. Anything else you’d add to the list of things that are inspiring you right now?
HUNNY: I’ve ended up talking about Ween in a lot of interviews lately. I’ve just been inspired by their kind of “fuck it” attitude to making music. Anything that reminds me not to take myself too seriously is inspiring right now.
