Hunter James Releases CHASING A SOUND Single

Two finished EPs, recorded in Georgia and paid for with years of time and money, sit on a shelf in Hunter James' world. He had to walk away from both to make 'Chasing A Sound.' The Bowmanville, Ontario country and Americana artist's new single is out now, and it's the sound of a long, winding road finally leading home.

It's a highway song in every sense, blending outlaw country grit with Americana honesty, a dusty twang and a little rock and roll swagger. 'Spinning that radio dial / Making my way along,' James sings. 'Somewhere in the static / Is where I'll find my peace.'

''Chasing a Sound' captures the struggles of the last 3 years of my life—riding the highways, travelling from place to place and refusing to settle until the music coming through the speakers matched what I felt in my soul and heard in my head,' he says. 'Ironically, I was travelling the roads looking for my sound and I ended up finding it right here at home.'

That search took him from Nashville to Georgia, Kentucky and everywhere in between. You can hear it in lines like 'I heard that Texas, has got the blues / A different shade than Memphis.' He finally wrote the song with Ariana Eagleson back in Ontario, but the story behind it had been taking shape on the road for years.

After making a trip down to Georgia to record, Hunter came home to a roadblock. 'When I brought those recordings home and shared them with people I trusted, we all heard what wasn't working,' James says. 'I made the difficult decision to start again from scratch which meant walking away from the songs as they were, along with all the time and money that had gone into them, because I knew in my gut that the sound still wasn't me.'

The breakthrough came when his longtime mentor, Markus Maar, stepped into the producer's chair.

'He became the first person who was actually able to get inside my head and understand what I had been struggling to describe and hear,' James says. 'We studied my influences and experimented with old-school recording techniques, from placing tea towels over the drums to testing different microphone positions and room sounds.'

James also stuck to his guns and cut the track live off the floor with his own band, who had only played a handful of gigs together.

'For years, my dream was to make a record with my own band, the way many of my idols did. I faced pushback and pressure to use studio musicians, but I knew in my heart that these guys were capable of making the record with me,' he says. 'Somehow, it was the right fit, immediately.'

James sings and plays acoustic guitar alongside utility player Jake Lauzon. Rooster plays drums and tambourine, Jim Gorry plays bass and Parker Farris plays electric and lead guitar, with Pat Walsh on harmonica and Rob Phillips on piano. Maar produced with James as coproducer, Barry Haggarty engineered and Byron Kent Wong mixed. A 1965 Fender Princeton Blackface amp and a 1959 Gibson J-45 acoustic gave it that warm, lived-in tone.

'Every detail mattered—the volume of the amp, the strings on the guitar and even whether the amp was sitting on carpet or hardwood,' James says. When the final mix came back, 'the 3 years of struggles and searching were finally lifted off my shoulders... I cannot begin to explain the feeling of finally hearing the sound that was trapped in my head for so long.' Since being released 'Chasing A Sound' has earned James the playlist cover of 'Canada's Country' on Apple Music.

Most recently James has joined Gord Bamford for select dates on the 'As Long As There's A Bar' tour and opened for the Reklaw's at the Kee To Bala. Other notable performances include North of Nowhere, Departure Fest and winding Roads Live.

He chased it through Nashville, Georgia, Kentucky and everywhere in between. In the end, Hunter James found his sound waiting for him back home in Ontario, with his own band beside him.