Hunter Stone Tells Captivating Stories in New Release

It's been almost three years since Boulder-based songwriter and talented instrumentalist Hunter Stone released his collection of Western-themed ditties, Portraits of the New/Old West (Vol. 1). The thoughtful balladeer is now back with the second half of his extended musical ode to the land of mountains and expansion in Portraits of the New/Old West (Vol. 2). The followup to his impressive debut continues to highlight his ability to reflect upon the land he has been calling home for almost ten years, and adds eight fresh tracks to the folky singer's rootsy body of song-craft.

Westword spoke to Stone about his latest clutch of compositions and album-release show in Boulder.

Westword: Is there a story to the time that passed between your two volumes?

Hunter Stone: Well, I wanted to get the first set of tunes out earlier because I've always been picking away at this project financially. The first release was during COVID, so I worked from home, and the players who joined me for it added their contributions remotely. After that, I kinda took my time. There was a lot going on in my life. I got married and a few other things happened, but I've always had the project moving forward at the pace that I could manage. I'm really excited to have it done.

Are you playing music full-time?

Yeah. I also teach music at a private high school in Boulder.

Do you still enjoy living in Colorado?

Oh, yeah. I like where I live and I enjoy my job. I mean, I'll probably never be able to buy a house here. But for renting, it's nice to be able to live so close to the mountains and get outside in a place that I really enjoy. I lived in Asheville for a year before moving out here, which was also nice. But you can do some real skiing here.

Is this second volume of songs in the same vein as your first release?

It's a collection of vignettes with a Western backdrop.

Who are some of the songwriters who have inspired your work over the years?

I've always enjoyed storyteller songwriters like Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I admire their songwriting abilities. I also like that they aren't afraid to get outside the song box and rock out a bit, too. Nowadays, people who do that include artists like Jason Isbell and people in that vein. I always look at a band's songs first, but when I see them play live, I want to see what they do that's different than their albums. I grew up listening to jam bands, and I love the Grateful Dead. I love the Dead's country-flavored albums like Workingman's Dead. The songs on the album are great, but it's also cool that they would do something different with them when they played live. We're not a jam band, but we do jam. I also play in a Bob Dylan-Neil Young tribute band called Rolling Harvest.

Will you be playing as part of a full band at your upcoming release event?

It's mostly going to be the band performing, but I'll play a couple songs solo. I'll also be rotating in musicians from the group of people I've worked with over the years here. It'll be a jam of sorts. The keyboardist, Scott Coulter from the Gasoline Lollipops, will be playing, as well as a couple of the people from River Mann. I've picked up a few new players along the way, though I still work with many of the same people I've come up with, like the drummer Forrest Raup and bassist Kevin Johnson. I've also got Jonah Wisneski on guitar with me. Jonah also plays in King Cardinal. It's always fun to mix it up.

Can you tell me about some of the tunes on the new album?

They all have a different flair. The first song, "Mars," is an outlaw country-meets-"Rocky Raccoon" kind of thing. Some of them are autobiographical, and others are me trying on a different hat and seeing the world through other characters. "Santa Fe" and "Never Look Back" are songs that I started writing when I was driving across the country ten years ago. They were just sketches, and I finished them. The last song, "Never Look Back," is about me leaving North Carolina. It's about leaving and being okay with trying to find something new. The song "Drink Dance Pray" is about water rights in the West, which is a theme that I'm charged up about. Some of the songs I had to work for a lot, like "Ballad of a Man With No Name." I wrote fifteen verses and then cut it back to get to the heart of it. I just let the pen go. That song was sitting on the shelf for five years before I dug in and wrote the shit out of it. I had a ten-minute version of it at one point. It was turning into a Bob Dylan-type thing.

How about the song "Green Little Aliens?" It's a great title and cool song...

There are a lot of themes in the album, such as history repeating itself or looking at the past as well as looking forward. The song "Mars" has that looking-forward thing, and so does "Green Little Aliens." Back in the ’80s, there was a guy that started selling land deeds on the moon. He sold an acre of the moon for like, twenty bucks. He made tons of money doing this. It's similar to what happened in the West, when people sold off land in Colorado and other places in newspaper ads and so on. They didn't really have rights to those lands, but people weren't living in these places permanently early on, and so what was to stop them? No one can stop people from selling deeds to land that no one has a claim to yet. So if you have a piece of paper that says you own an acre on the moon, I guess that's better than someone who doesn't. It ties into that same idea of "What the heck is going on here?"

How about "Rabbit and the Hawk?"

Those are kind of my spirit animals. The song's theme is predator and prey. It recalls a personal experience I had on a trip I took with my now-wife to the area near Sturgis, South Dakota. We climbed a mountain in Bear Butte State Park there, where I had a spiritual run-in with a bunny. The bunny was just this silhouette in the sun that was poking up at the top of the mountain, but it stopped me in my tracks. I've always resonated with hawks and other birds of prey, but I had this moment. It was a beautiful mountain where Native Americans, including Crazy Horse and the Lakota tribe, had gone to commune spiritually. The view was great. It was a former volcano, but the coolest thing for me was this rabbit. I felt like it was important. It was just kind of watching the mountain. My takeaway was that sometimes, we also need to be the protector who listens and senses things that are coming and knows what to run from.

What can people expect at the release show?

I've got an awesome band for the release. These guys all play in top-notch local bands and are fantastic musicians who help bring my songs to life. It can be hard to trust people with your songs, but they add great stuff to them while keeping the core of my vision. River Mann is great too. They have a poetic, indie-folk vibe. Overall, I just hope to tell some stories with this music and make some good memories while doing it.

Roots Music Project with River Mann at Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl Street V3A, Boulder, 7 p.m. Friday, April 12.