It’s an exciting time in Leslie Hunt’s life. The singer’s new CD, “Your Hair is on Fire”—nearly two years in the making—will be released Aug. 5 at a show in her hometown of St. Charles. And in about one month’s time, she and her husband Tommy will welcome their first child, a girl named Eliza Joni.

Yet, despite the promise each event conjures, Hunt remains even-keel, knowing how fortunes can change almost in the blink of an eye.

She’s had practice.

Consider this: in the span of a little over two years, Hunt faced down death on a Brazilian vacation; she successfully auditioned for American Idol Season 6, making it into the top-20 before her elimination; and she was informed of her sister’s death the day before her wedding.

She maintains her balance through music, and her new CD is evidence of that. Part dark and moody, part light and poppy, the album serves as the audio diary of a life set to sound.
Hunt’s journey began in St. Charles. Her parents Steve and Annie Hunt are both musicians; Annie holds a degree in vocal performance from DePaul University and Steve has played drums on Chicago’s free-jazz scene for more than 20 years. 

They exposed their daughter to music at an early age, recording her at age 3 singing with their band.

“She would dance and sing anything that would come to mind,” Steve Hunt said.

“She used to take naps in my electric bass case when I took her to rehearsals with me,” Annie Hunt said. “I remember her at 2 going to voice lessons with me. She’d climb up on the piano and sing.”

Growing up she took piano lessons, and by high school she had made a tape recording of six original songs, which she sold out of her locker at St. Charles High School, eventually parting with 1,000 copies.

“The tape circulated and circulated,” she said. “One day we actually had a fire at my house and the fireman was like ‘I have your tape.’ He had gotten it from his daughter and he really liked it.”

The tape circulated its way into the hands of Jim Peterik, former member of the band Ides of March and later, Survivor, known for their number-one single “Eye of the Tiger,” featured in “Rocky III.”

Peterik became Hunt’s mentor, which led Sony Records to offer her a developmental deal during her senior year of high school. She recorded a demo for the company but the deal didn’t last.

“I wasn’t into the stuff they were saying they wanted me to change,” she said. It was 2000, the bubblegum pop era. ‘N Sync, Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys ruled the airwaves and Hunt wasn’t ready to join their club.

“I thought I’d rather just play in coffee shops the rest of my life,” she said.

Her parents divorced around the same time and to escape the drama, Hunt moved to Boulder, Colo. for less than a year before returning home to attend school at Roosevelt University.

That too, did not last. She dropped out before the end of her first semester and moved into her mom’s basement, where she found work as a waitress. Hunt saved her money and tried Roosevelt again, this time finding greater success.  For two years, she earned high marks as a music composition major and piano performance minor. But by the end of her second year, she grew tired of the program and dropped out.

“I went as far as I could,” she said of her college experience. “I was there to get skills.”

Though no longer in school, her musical output increased. She frequently sang with different bands, finding steady work fronting a funk and soul cover band. She also found romance with Chris, a man 12 years her senior.

Chris worked in the film industry as a crane operator, but every January and February, when Chicago winters kept most movie productions away, Chris took elaborate vacations. In February of 2006, after a year of dating, Chris invited Hunt on a month-long trip through the Amazon Rain Forest.

Before departing, Hunt received a Yellow fever vaccination, common on trips to the jungle. Yet because she has the autoimmune disease Lupus, Hunt had an adverse reaction to the vaccine.

On the couple’s first morning in Rio de Janeiro, before leaving for the Amazon, Hunt woke up with a terrible headache.

“I felt like my head was being run over by a bus,” she said. “Apparently my brain had swelled; all my organs started to fail. I had no motor skills.”

Her boyfriend Chris took her to a travel clinic. She remembers little.

“When I finally came to, both my parents were in the room,” she said. “They had flown down to Brazil because the doctors said I wasn’t going to make it, so they should come down and say goodbye.”

Had not it been for a one-day delay in Miami due to a visa complication, she said she would have been in the jungle when her seizure occurred, and the chances of survival would have decreased dramatically.

One common reaction of people who have had near-death experiences is to do something drastic. Hunt returned from Brazil and drove to Los Angeles to audition for American Idol Season 6.

“I said, ‘I’ve got funky blood. I’ve got to do something fun,’” she said of the decision. She had not watched any of the past five seasons, but her uncles were all big fans of the show since its first season in 2002 and convinced her to try.

She went through eight “heart-pumping, this-could-be-the-end-of-the-journey auditions,” she said, before being selected as one of the show’s final 24 contestants out of the 10,000 possible candidates. 

Being in the top 24 immediately put her in the public spotlight.

“It felt strange,” she said of being on the show and having her life taped all day and night. “It made me feel sleazy. I didn’t light up for the camera.”

She survived the first round of eliminations with her rendition of Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman,” but was voted off by the viewing public after singing “Feelin’ Good” by Nina Simone.

“It was a horrible feeling,” she said. “And I’m really surprised at how much I had inadvertently bought into some of this, because the whole time that you’re on the show, there’s people in your ear saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to be so famous.’ There are so many people behind the scenes.”

She particularly didn’t enjoy having to wake up at 3 a.m. the day after being eliminated to do six hours of press interviews.

“Being eliminated,” Hunt said, “you’re the hottest story for one second and then you’re gone from the brain.”

Overall though, Hunt said she was pleased with her American Idol experience and the attention and focus it gave to her music. A few months after the show, Hunt traveled to Nashville to begin work on the album that would become “Your Hair is on Fire.”

The process began strong. She solicited the help of producer Rick Chudacoff, whose credits include work with Smokey Robinson and Patti LaBelle. Hunt came to Chudacoff through another well-traveled producer, Christian Cullen, who had known her from her time with Jim Peterik.

When recording began in January 2008, Chudacoff brought in drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bass player Vail Johnson to lend their talents to the work. Both have worked with music legends, including Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Sting and Herbie Hancock, to name a few.

“It was really cool to just be in a room with them,” Hunt said.

With her professional life on track, Hunt turned to the personal. Her long-time boyfriend Chris had asked her to be his wife, and the couple planned a June 20 wedding. On June 19, Hunt awoke to a phone call from a Chicago police officer informing her that her only sister, Lauren Elizabeth Hunt, was found dead in a home on Division Street and Rockwell Avenue in Chicago, the result of choking from a seizure caused by opiate use. She was 22.

Hunt’s sister had been in seven different rehab clinics in her life and was described by Hunt as having an addictive personality.

“She wanted whatever she could get at any time,” she said. Though her sister had shown promise in turning her life around, Hunt said her sister struggled daily with mental anguish.

“She was really suffering,” Hunt said. “She had been through more horrible things than anyone I’d ever met before … the most unspeakable things any girl could possibly go through in her life.” Hunt would elaborate no further.

Lauren Hunt’s death, as one would expect, hit the family hard.

“Death is the most devastating thing anyone will ever go through,” Annie Hunt said. “I think it took until Christmas to realize [Lauren] wasn’t coming back. Everything seemed to change when she died. I think Leslie thought a lot about what she could have done.”

“There’s no way to know if it could have been avoided,” Hunt said. “Everybody wonders if they could have done something, but I think we were all doing what we knew how to do best.”

Hunt’s life changed drastically after her sister’s death. Less than 20 days later, Hunt cancelled her wedding to Chris and ended the couple’s four-year relationship.

“If my sister did anything in her life, she gave me a new life,” Hunt said, “because I would have married him. And we would have gotten along really well, but I probably would have had a wondering eye because [their relationship] was like a friendship. I’m the kind of girl that needs some passion.”

Passion came in the form of Tommy Faulds, who at one time was the drummer in her backing band after American Idol.

“We only did two shows but I had to kick him out,” she said. She told him things just weren’t working out, but her actual motives were more complex.  “I got this really intense crush on him and it was very inconvenient because I was engaged,” she said.

The two didn’t speak for a year after Faulds’ departure from the band. They eventually met at a show in August of last year, at which time Hunt came clean on the real reason for firing him.

The two started dating later that month and were married April 17 of this year. Their first child is expected Sept. 2.

Though her personal life caused a delay in album work, Hunt continued to perform.  At a charity event to raise money for Lupus research, her path crossed with Ken Arlen, owner of Arlen Music Consultants, Inc., an Evanston-based company that provides live music for special events and conventions, including gigs at the Kentucky Derby, the New Year’s Eve celebration at Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel and the second inauguration of former president George W. Bush.

Arlen was impressed with Hunt and offered her a job singing lead female vocals in his orchestra, a job she continues today.

“We’re probably the hardest working party band in Chicago,” she said. “It’s the coolest gig in the world.”

“I’ve had a lot of great singers in the band,” Arlen said. “Leslie’s my favorite. She is a phenomenal talent.”

In between marriage, pregnancy and her work with Arlen, Hunt found time to finish “Your Hair is on Fire” and shoot a video for the album’s first track, “American Dream Man.”  She said many of the songs deal with her sister’s passing, as evident by the album’s liner notes, which read: “Thank you, Laurie-Beth. I hope that, wherever you are, you know the extent to which this album is yours. You are, and always will be, my primary muse.”

Hunt is hosting two CD-release parties. The first will take place at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5 at Chord on Blues, 106 First St., St. Charles. The show is for patrons 18 and older. Tickets are $5.

Her second release party will be at 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 6 at Subterranean, 2011 North Ave., Chicago. The show is for patrons 17 and older. Tickets are also $5.

To hear songs from Leslie Hunt, watch her music video or purchase her new album, go to www.lesliehunt.net.

—Jonathan Bullington/Triblocal.com reporter

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