Hunter attended West Broward High School and graduated in 2013.[9] Hunter's love of ska was deepened by high school friends, who introduced them to the music of Asian Man Records as well as the local DIY ska and punk scenes.[8][5][10] In between high school and college, Hunter worked at the all-ages DIY punk venue The Talent Farm in Pembroke Pines, Florida, where they became involved with the local scene, forming a band, helping book shows in the area, and beginning to write their own music.[8][5] After a brief stint at Broward College, Hunter moved to Gainesville in 2015 to attend Santa Fe College, where they studied musical composition with plans of becoming a film score composer.[4][11][8]
Career
Hunter posted a number of songs to SoundCloud between 2012 and 2016.[12] They also fronted an emo side project, 11:59, that was sporadically active from 2014 to 2019.[4][10][13][14]
In 2015, Hunter joined the ska punk band We Are the Union on trombone and backing vocals, marking their return from a three-year hiatus.[5] Hunter, a fan of the band since high school, had jokingly asked on Facebook if the band needed a trombonist, and frontwoman Reade Wolcott, who had seen a video of Hunter performing one of their songs, invited them to join.[4][5] Hunter at the time had felt alienated from the ska scene due to experiences of racism, and has credited We Are the Union with reigniting their love of the genre.[8]
Hunter wrote most of the horn lines for the band's 2018 album Self Care,[5] and performed on that album as well as Ordinary Life (2021), released on Bad Time Records. Hunter and the band also performed at The Fest in 2015 and 2021.[4][5]
Skatune Network
In December 2016, Hunter, having recently purchased recording equipment, began posting ska demos to Facebook, including a joke Christmas cover of José Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" (entitled "Feliz NaviSKA"). That cover, as well as a similar rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" for New Year's Eve, were unexpectedly popular on the site, inspiring Hunter to start the Skatune Network YouTube channel.[4][5][11] An early cover of "January 10, 2014" by The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die was shared by the band on social media, and within a week of launching the channel, Hunter had acquired over 2,000 subscribers.[4] That number would expand to 100,000 by August 2019[4] and 200,000 by December 2021.[5]
After an April 2018 cover of the Mii channel theme went viral, Hunter began regarding Skatune Network as a "full-time job" rather than a side venture.[4][2] A November 2018 cover of La Dispute's "Such Small Hands and Nobody Not Even The Rain" was requested by the band themselves;[11] that same month saw Hunter begin touring Skatune Network as a full-live band with shows in St. Petersburg and Orlando, Florida.[11] In February 2019, their cover of PUP's "Free At Last", off their album Morbid Stuff, was one of 253 fan covers included in the song's official music video.[15] Later in 2019, Hunter returned to The Fest with Skatune Network, backed by members of We Are The Union and billed alongside Against Me!, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, Jawbreaker, Less Than Jake, Dag Nasty, Joyce Manor, and Screaming Females;[4][16][5] they also played the festival again in 2021, playing a back-to-back set with Hunter's band We Are The Union and joining acts like Hot Water Music, Frank Turner, and The Wonder Years.[5][17] In February 2023, Hunter collaborated with fellow YouTube musician Ali Spagnola on a ska cover of Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero".[18] They have been a musical guest at MAGFest in 2020 and 2023.[19]
Hunter's music as JER first appeared on benefitcompilation albums in mid-2020: demos of "R/Edgelord" and "A Message to My Future Self" were included on Skank for Choice's 2020 Quarantine Compilation in May, while "Breaking News! Local Punk Denies Existence of Systematic Racism" appeared on Bad Time Records, Asian Man Records, and Ska Punk Daily's Ska Against Racism compilation in early September.[22] "R/Edgelord was officially released as the project's first single on September 18, with We Are The Union's Reade Wolcott producing and tenor saxophone from Abraskadabra's Thiago "Trosso" de Sá Jorge; a debut studio album was tentatively announced for 2021.[22] This was followed by the official releases of "Breaking News! Local Punk Denies Existence of Systematic Racism" on October 30[23] and "A Message to My Future Self" on December 11.[24]
In a February 2022 interview, Hunter mentioned that the JER album was still "in the works", and that the project was "a lot more personal" than their previous work.[8] In April, it was announced that the album, titled Bothered / Unbothered would be released on May 27, 2022 via Bad Time Records; a new lead single, "Clout Chasers!", was released alongside the announcement.[6] Two more singles, "Decolonize Yr Mind" featuring Oceanator[25] and "Nobody Can Dull My Sparkle",[26] were released in advance of the album. Produced by Wolcott, the album did not feature any of the three previous singles but instead featured nine new songs as well as a cover of Jimmy Cliff's "You Can Get It If You Really Want."[6] Additionally, Hunter partnered with BrooklynVegan for a limited-edition canary yellow vinyl variant of the album.[6] The album was well-received: BrooklynVegan and Punknews.org included the album in Best of 2022 lists,[27][28]Pitchfork's Nina Corcoran called it "a modern classic in the ska-punk canon",[29] and music critic Anthony Fantano awarded the album an 8/10 score[7] and included it on his 2022 "Loved List".[30]
Hunter is prominently active on social media. They have credited Tumblr as the source of Skatune Network's first 20,000 subscribers, as Steven Universe storyboard artist (and later Craig of the Creek co-creator) Ben Levin had reblogged their cover of "Giant Woman".[33] In addition to the Skatune Network YouTube channel, they host livestreams several nights a week on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch, where they interact with viewers.[5] Twitch streams often involve Hunter recording ska covers in real time and playing video games like Animal Crossing.[5][8] Hunter also uses social media to promote smaller ska artists, including through a regularly updated Twitter thread, a Spotify playlist, and year-end YouTube videos,[36] as well as discussing the history of ska, misconceptions about the genre, and issues within the scene.[5] As of March 2023, Hunter had over 200k subscribers on YouTube[37] and over 400k followers on TikTok.[38]
Outside of music, Hunter is passionate about science, particularly environmental and nutritional science, and has said they would have gone into those fields had music not taken off.[33] They are vegan, and briefly hosted a ska-themed vegan cooking series called Up Beat Eats on their YouTube channel.[33]
