BIOGRAPHY
If 2006 were 1920, and Holland were Ireland, Paul Hunt would be drunkenly strolling along the banks of the Liffey, taking off his hat for beautiful women and turning his Dublin encounters into brilliant, unintelligible prose. And if the early 21st century were the late 19th, and the Rhine were the Mississipi, he would be a playful boy on and off of riverboats, getting into all kinds of interesting trouble along the way.
In this life, however, Paul is a guy with a guitar who, after spending 8 years with his former band recording three cds and playing countless shows, finds inspiration in his travels to places like Istanbul and New York and his simple, broken heart to write intimate, recognisable songs. In 2005 he christened himself Wolkenvelden (after the Dutch word for overcast skies) and put out a self-produced and independently released album Apostrophes & Catastrophes on which he played all of the instruments.
Influenced by The Smiths, Wilco and Jeff Buckley, Wolkenvelden delivers material that ranges from literate, narrative singer-songwriter songs to catchy, driven indie rock. The entire album is available for download on the Wolkenvelden website.
When not standing on a stage, Paul likes to walk the streets of The Hague, study the human brain and deliver clever one-liners at parties.
FAQ
How did Wolkenvelden get started?
I started my first band in 1995, back in high school. In contrast to a lot of other musicians, who tend to spend most of their adolescence hopping from band to band, I stayed relatively musically monogamous if you will, sticking with Soundcheck (unfortunate name, I know, but trust me, we rocked) for over eight years. After that I felt we had kind of sucked the thing dry, and it was time to move on. After a brief period of distraction I started writing songs again, on my own, some of which would eventually end up on "Apostrophes & Catastrophes"- if you're interested, "Respiration"was the first song I wrote that made the record. In 2004 I decided to step it up a bit, and recorded and mixed it all from October 2004 into early 2005. And that's pretty much how "Apostrophes & Catastrophes" came to be.
So did you do it all on your own?
Pretty much, yeah. I've always liked playing different instruments, and the dissolution of my old band presented a good opportunity to bring that into practice. After recording the initial vocal/acoustic guitar demos, I recorded the drums and layered everything else on top of that: mainly bass and electric guitars and vocals, and of course piano on "Genuine Blues". There's even a melodica solo on "Statistics".
The only instrument I didn't play myself was the cello on "Birds Fly" and "An Insult", which was kindly taken care of by my friend George Ziedses des Plantes. "An Insult", by the way, was the first song to be recorded: pretty much all of the record was recorded in late 2004 and early 2005, but for "Insult" I decided to use the original demo from around Christmas 2003, and only add the cello in later.
What else do you do?
On the musical front, I organise singer-songwriter nights at a local club. Apart from that, I study cognitive science and work as a help desk monkey to pay the bills. I also maintain a blog in Dutch.
This list is laughably incomplete. I have a question and it burns.
Fine. E-mail me and I'll answer it.
