Young singer-songwriter finds her voice
Ask Hunter Rae Farnsworth how long she’s been singing and she laughs.
“Maybe since I was two?” she says. “My parents are always saying they couldn’t shut me up.”
By the time she was 11, the South Kamloops secondary student was studying with former Kamloopsian Tina Moore.
Now, five years later, performing under the name Hunter Rae, she’s working on her first EP with another veteran of the Kamloops music scene, Kris Ruston.
The young singer added the word songwriter to her description shortly after starting her studies with Moore.
“The first lesson, I was so nervous and saying things, you know, because she is just so amazing.
“And, [Moore] asked me if I write songs and I said ‘Yes, I don’t write songs.’ “Then I though ‘What am I doing? What am I saying?’
“So, I went home and wrote a song.”
Hunter describes her first attempt as “just cheesy words on a page” but, slowly, the skill developed as she drew inspiration from moments in her life, things she saw and people she met.
“I’m writing a song about you,” Hunter says to Ruston as the two take a break at Small World Studios.
It leads to plenty of laughter.
Whatever that song becomes could be interesting, given Ruston says every time Hunter brings a new work in for him to listen to “it keeps getting better.”
Ruston adds he doesn’t do much to her lyrics but, rather, works with her on the music, on chords and on the music business itself.
Moore said: “To watch her grow from a very, very shy little girl who was so uncertain of her talent to really embracing what she’s been taught, exploring her creativity and working hard at her craft is simply amazing to watch.
“She was always quiet waters running deep. She is intuitive, instinctive and she has something to say.”
Hunter draws inspiration likely from the country roots her parents Tim and Debra instilled in her, she said, listing Alan Jackson, George Strait, Dwight Yoakam and Taylor Swift as some of the singers she listens to the most.
One of her songs, Last First Kiss, was added to Feed the Soul, a recent compilation of Kamloops performers who contributed to the project as a fundraiser for the Kamloops Food Bank.
As for her EP, it will likely be self-titled, she says, a sure way to help get her name out and build an audience.
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