HUNNY Share New Album ‘SPIRIT!’ Out Now Via Epitaph
“You know, there's not too much tortured stuff for me to write about anymore,” claims Jason Yarger, frontman and founding member of Los Angeles indie-pop outfit HUNNY. “I'm happily married with a child. I love that songs I’ve written have resonated with people, but I also loved the opportunity to just be a fucking silly guy and tell some weird stories on this album...”
Long known for shapeshifting through genres and decades with style on fan favorites like 2019’s Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. and 2023’s new planet heaven, HUNNY’s new record SPIRIT! arrives today via Epitaph Records. Listen to the album in full HERE.
The third for the band and the first centering Yarger as its sole member, he was free from compromise and external expectations which allowed the music to unfold in unexpected and unfiltered ways. A prime example is focus track “tired of u” where the singer laments his inability to smoke weed or consistently sleep over crashing, syncopated drums and saccharine synths. LISTEN HERE
Jason fills us in on how it came to be: “I had a demo of this one that was like 20 seconds long, and Kevin [Grimmet] said I should make it a song. I was like, “Really? You like that one?” It’s about me not being able to smoke weed. It's so unfortunate. I’m telling my brain, “I wish you would let me sleep just like a normal person.” I wish I could have a little pen next to my bed like everybody and just take a little puff and snooze. I have very bad insomnia; I have since I was a little kid. When I was like seven, I was getting out of bed at night and going into our front room and watching, like, Three's Company and shit in the middle of the night. I’d go into the kitchen and make myself a root beer float and watch TV until four in the morning.”
Across its 15 songs, SPIRIT! (co-produced by Yarger and former HUNNY bassist Kevin Grimmett, with drums by former HUNNY drummer Joey Anderson) leans into the sounds that have always lit the group’s fuse – hooky post-punk, gleaming synths and shout-along choruses – but now pushes HUNNY somewhere more abstract, more playful, more free.
For Yarger, the process of making SPIRIT! marks a pivotal shift, not just creatively, but in how he envisions the future of HUNNY. “There’s a lot to love about the spirit of collaboration,” he explains when discussing the decision to transition HUNNY away from a full band, “but at the same time, approaching this album without having to compromise was such a freeing feeling. I could just let whatever ideas I had run wild.”
Written and recorded almost entirely in his LA-based home studio, Jason emptied his voice memos and Notes app of in-the-moment observations and off-the-cuff inspiration. Whether he’s detailing the absurdity of spotting an iPad-toting nun at an airport bar, marveling at the simplistic beauty of nature, or firing a middle-finger salvo to telemarketers testing his sanity, it all serves to strike the perfect balance between irreverent humor and indie-rock chic.