When UNM sophomore Paul Hunton was a kid, he wanted to be a metal singer under the inspiring guidance of Soundgarden and Metallica. Now he's a vocal major taking opera studio, voice studio and music theory. He will perform with his opera class April 24 and 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Keller Hall. The performance costs $3 for students.
Daily Lobo: You took some time off from school.
Paul Hunton: Yeah, many years. They all sort of blend together. I was in and out, so I don't know. It's all a haze.
DL: What were you doing?
PH: Trying to write songs, trying to find my singer-songwriter groove. Also drifting, being lazy. Trying to put the pieces back together.
DL: Sounds tough.
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PH: There were deaths. People died. Well, it's all true. What do you want from me?
I got good at kung fu. That was part of it. I did kung fu and wrote songs.
DL: Why are you going back to school now? Have you finally found your vocal calling?
PH: It's what I should have done originally. I had a scholarship to play guitar and was sort of forced into it. I didn't really want to do it.
DL: How were you forced?
PH: My parents wanted me to go to the fancy school. Oberlin - the fancy school.
DL: So you went there.
PH: For a year. And my heart wasn't in it. I think I wanted to go to UNM and sing, but that wasn't prestigious enough.
DL: You had a performance and a solo at Keller Hall.
PH: It's true. I soloed. It was about a sad bird, a turtledove.
DL: Why was he sad?
PH: His love had gone away. Or, he had to leave his love. It's true.
DL: Have you ever had to leave your love?
PH: Uh, I did. I did one time.
DL: How'd that go?
PH: I wrote a song about it. It was an instrumental piece. (Laughter) It's called "Porch Monkey." It's a racial slur, but it's also not. It's just a person that hangs out on the porch. I was in Portland sort of just not knowing what I was doing and spent a lot of time doing nothing and just kind of absorbing thoughts and what have you. Spent a lot of time on the porch writing songs. And missing a girl. She sort of inspired the song.
DL: What do you do musically outside of school?
PH: Play in a couple bands. Play guitar in sort of a grungy sort of band. Played bass in a punk-country-bluegrass band. And then the other one is a psychedelic-grunge-country band. I'm writing my own songs and I have my own dreams of a gypsy street orchestra with operatic elements. Kind of like Tom Waits meets Puccini.
DL: That sounds great. Tell me more about that.
PH: Kind of various world folk genres with a real dramatic bent.
DL: Where would you perform?
PH: I'd do some busking, but then maybe bars, too. Sort of maybe like an unplugged thing.
DL: Unplugged bar opera?
PH: Yeah. Well, I mean all opera would be unplugged anyways, but it would be real atmospheric in a bar.
DL: That's what bars are good for: opera.
PH: It is. I think it could work.
DL: What do you like to sing?
PH: I like folk music. It's just more raw, and it's more plainly emotional. And accessible. But opera's great too. It's so grand. It's such a grand scope - and dramatic.
DL: Do any folk operas exist?
PH: Actually, there's a Benjamin Britten opera - it takes Paul Bunyan as its subject. It's really quite silly. The whole thing is to be taken in jest. But it's still fully operatic with the opera delivery.
DL: How hard is the opera delivery?
PH: I'm just figuring it out. It's really athletic. Singing opera's like long-distance running. Or sprinting or something. Running. I don't know.
DL: So, you're building muscle mass and getting thinner?
PH: Yeah, you could say that if you want. A lot of abs - it takes a lot of muscle strength to push out all those sustained notes.
DL: Do you think opera singers live longer because of that?
PH: I don't know if they live longer, but they seem to age better. I think that's something that's attractive about classical music, in general, is that you don't look washed up when you're 40. You start to come into your own around that age. The life of the voice is a lot longer than it would be if you were a rock singer, because there's so much more attention to healthy technique and everything.
DL: You've thought a lot about this. Or are you just coming up with this now?
PH: I have thought about that. I'm sort of conflicted between pursuing more of a pop career versus a classical one. The classical one - it does seem to have more longevity and in some ways it's more respectable, but then it seems that there's more of a chance to be original in a pop sense or in that genre. And that might be more important. I don't know.
DL: Why can't you do both?
PH: I feel that when I try to sing in the popular styles, it seems to be injurious to my opera voice.
DL: Have you been in any plays?
PH: No. Yeah, I was offered an understudy for "Hedwig and the
Angry Inch." As Hedwig. But I turned it down.
DL: You lost your chance.
PH: Maybe I did. I was busy with the band.
DL: Well, you were an understudy. Do you know if you would have even had a chance to go on?
PH: Not unless someone was sick or incapacitated.
DL: Or drunk. "You are too drunk to play this role."
PH: "You are too drunk. Too drunk to go on!"
DL: Is there any major project you want to do?
PH: It would be cool to . arrange the music for a musical. Like a scary something. Arrange music for a Tom Waits-ish musical. Play Tom Waits in a biopic some day.
DL: I went to Chicago to this hot dog place where Tom Waits was known to go. He loved it because the ladies working there were mean to him and made fun of him. He went back one day and they were nice to him, so he left and never went back. It would be funny if there was a restaurant that had mean servers and that was the whole point.
PH: There's some places like that, actually. People, for some reason, like to be treated badly. I don't know. It's, like, fun for them. Actually, there's a study that the nicer servers were, the less tips they made. There's some sort of lower threshold for if they totally ignore you. They're not going to tip. But if you're too nice, the tip goes down.
