Rising Stars: Meet Hunter Wolfe

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hunter Wolfe.

Hi Hunter, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My sister and I grew up on a farm in Central Virginia. We had a handicapped brother, Christian. His handicap were completely debilitating which left him 100% reliant on the whole family to take care of his every need. Christian loved animals and music. I (Hunter) got a guitar for my 14th birthday. When I started playing music and Christian absolutely loved it.

A few months later, my sister saw Meg White playing in the White Stripes. She didn’t know women could play drums and immediately decided that’s what she wanted to do. Our birthdays are 5 years and 5 days apart, so we pooled our birthday money and bought her a used drum kit. Christian LOVED the loud, blues infused rock n roll we started creating.

It didn’t take long for us to get serious about music and the business surrounding it. Our parents taught us to be entrepreneurs from an early age. At 11 years old, after Hurricane Katrina came through and devastated New Orleans and knocked trees down all over the southern and eastern US, I created a business cleaning up neighbors’ yards and woods.

My sister and I both have always loved the “go getter” mindset. We not only love creating music, but the business that goes right along with it.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
If it were a smooth ride, we wouldn’t be having any fun! We have faced many struggles and failures along the way. Will Smith said, “Fail forward and often”. I take that to heart. Our biggest achievements have come from the ashes of our failures. A great example is: Some years ago we released a few singles. We hired a PR Company to handle the release. We had preliminary phone calls with them but nothing of any detail about us or the release. It was just “Send us your Bio and Track Name.”

This was odd to us, but since we had never worked with a PR Company before, we didn’t know any better. Release comes out, PR company sends a series of email blasts to some underground web publications. Two months later we get our Metrics from our Distributor. 2. Streams. It was a spectacular failure to say the least. We spent a lot of money on the Producers, Studio, Production and Mixing/Mastering. But we didn’t spend anywhere close to that budget on the PR company.

We learned you always spend, at the very least, twice your production budget on Marketing. We also learned to interview potential PR companies to make sure they are a great fit. We also learned that, just because we thought the song may have been “Single Worthy” doesn’t necessarily mean that it is what your fans, (both new ones yet to know they like your music as well as your established fans) will resonate with it.

We then started learning more about our fans and what new potential fans will want to see from us as an introduction. Both in our own organic social media posts as well as what a PR company gets put in front of them.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I (Hunter) play guitar and sing in the Nashville based brother-sister duo, Born Crooked. My sister plays drums. We started as a 2-piece. Drums, loud, old guitars through old amps and me singing whatever lyrics we could come up with as young teenagers.

Something we both love right down to our core(s) is the 20’s & 30’s Mississippi Delta Blues. Robert Johnson, Son House, Honeyboy Edwards, Blind Willie McTell. You put those on and we’re in church. So, everything we do, the thing that people connect with the most in us, is our raw, blues driven sound. We have had some commercial success with “stadium rock” sounding songs as well as borderline Country crossover Acoustic Pop, but at the heart of all of that is the Blues.

We are known for our slide work… well I should say I am known best for my slide playing, I suppose. I tend to always say “we” even when talking about me. Magic happens when I play music with my sister, more than I’ve ever felt playing music with anyone else. So I always refer to us as “we”.

We have been blessed on this journey. To work with and be produced by GRAMMY nominated producers. Tour the US and UK and open for incredible artists like Daughtry, KANSAS, The Record Company, to name a few. To have our music featured by the NHL and the Nashville Predators. But the thing I feel I am most proud of, is the little moments when the music the we created from thin air resonates with someone in a powerful way.

People have cried at shows. People have said they were suicidal but the night they were going to kill themselves they decided to come to a show first and we happened to be playing. They heard our story and fell in love with the music we are lucky to create and it changed their lives. To meet beautiful people who have similar handicaps as our brother did and to get to know them and hear their story.

What sets us apart? We each have our own story to tell. My sister and I are telling ours unlike anybody else. That’s what’s different, our interpretation of life, love and loss through the way we manipulate vibrations to hopefully affect you, the listener in a positive and impactful way.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
ALWAYS trust your gut. Your intuition will not lead you astray. It might feel like your gut is telling you to make the wrong choice, but it’s always right. Might take a while, might take years, but you’ll eventually see that whether you followed your gut or not, it was right.

Contact Info:

• Email: info@borncrooked.com
• Website: www.BornCrooked.com
• Instagram: @Born_Crooked
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/BornCrooked
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnNRsH94adgqLIVPH3IdGpQ
• Other: https://linktr.ee/BornCrooked

Image Credits:
R. Taber
Logen Christopher
Payton Dale