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Albums Pop Singer/Songwriter

If you want to feel like someone understands, listen to Bug Hunter’s The Rough Draft

Release date: November 20th, 2018

Dan Ray November 27, 20182 Comments
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If you want to feel like someone understands, listen to Bug Hunter’s The Rough Draft November 27, 20182 Comments

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Photo courtesy of Bug Hunter

It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to an album that has made me actively yearn to see the performers live. Have I listened to great albums? Yes. Have I seen amazing bands live? Of course. But, there’s something about Bug Hunter’s The Rough Draft that sweetly calls the listener to see him stageside.

A local singer/songwriter, the easiest comparison to Bug Hunter is Bo Burnham — but, while Burnham brands himself as a comedian who also happens to be an incredible musician, Hunter is a musician who just happens to be hilarious.

The Rough Draft is filled with cheeky concepts and lyricism: the lead single, “Dear McCracken,” is a wonderfully frank tale about a woman writing a less-than-confessional email to a man she is clearly in love with while Hunter watches her from his seat next to her on a flight to Seattle from Houston; “Piano Teacher” discusses Hunter’s painfully familiar experience of never practicing for his piano lessons as a child; bonus track “Boogie Pete” is about that friend we all have who we can’t stand sober but is the life of the party; and “Point to Prove (I was an Ugly Kid),” can be explained with arguably the best lyric of the whole album — “I was a catch / as in, I was easy to catch during tag / because I was fat!”

The other tracks are not quite as tongue-in-cheek, but still offer the same relatability. “Listen to Your Mom” is a beautiful ballad about becoming your own person; the amazingly titled “Disco! In the Panic Room” is a frenetic dance groove about, well, freaking out; and “Baby Teeth” perfectly captures the disparity between a wide-eyed childhood and a jaded adulthood.

What’s beautiful about The Rough Draft and Bug Hunter in general, though, is Hunter’s unabashed ability to put his own insecurities on display. In “Be Glad I Love You (Go to Bed),” a cute little romp about finding that one person who actually enjoys putting up with all of your quirks, Hunter also slides in his own worries that he’s not good enough: “I’m certain you deserve / a macho man but all I am’s / a silly introvert.” It’s a keen mention of those worries that creep into the back of all of our heads — whether it be from society, our peers, or our own minds — and a sharp reminder not to let those thoughts overtake you.

It’s this incredible honesty that calls me to Hunter’s stage. There’s no doubt that what you’d get would be upbeat, unapologetically fun, at least slightly sardonic, and, without a doubt, 100 percent Bug Hunter. The way Hunter writes his music casually invites you into his psyche and also allows the listener to let down their own walls; listening to The Rough Draft feels like sinking into a too-soft couch at a friend’s house who you haven’t seen in years, smiling knowingly, and picking right back where you left off, almost mid-sentence, with, “life’s a bitch, man.”

With The Rough Draft, Bug Hunter proves that you don’t need crazy chord progressions, masterful production, or to be a “macho man” to create an album that truly makes people smile; you just need to be honest.

 

8.7

Instrumentation

 6.0/10

Emotional appeal

 9.8/10

Lyricism

 9.9/10

Energy

 9.0/10

Comments

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

2 comments

  1. Pingback: Ride a whimsical journey with Bug Hunter’s “Pebbles” - DAN'S TUNES

  2. Just to clear this up, Bug Hunter is the name of the band, not the singer-songwriter, who goes by the nickname Bug.

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