It’s hard to say what Hunter King ’08 is best known for on campus. Is it his winning personality? His involvement in New Orleans relief work? His radio show? Odds are, for some of you, that it’s due in large part to his laugh. Regardless, for the ultimate in collisions of worlds and vocal tones, next Thursday night, Doug Bennet will be making a guest appearance on Hunter King’s surf music radio show. So tune in. It’s unclear whether or not blood will be involved.
Janie: So, first of all, let’s talk about your offer at WESU during last week’s pledge drive with your blood.
Hunter: You can still donate! There’s forms online. One person had a special premium for everyone, and I wanted a special premium. I didn’t get anything together so I thought “I’ll do something gruesome and terrible.” I offered, at first, just to give them my blood. But, I needed to think through it a little bit more. So I decided to give them an amount of blood proportional to how much they donate. [Although] I didn’t see why anyone would particularly want my blood.
Justin: Me neither. No offense.
Janie: I’m sure it’s really good blood.
Hunter: I just didn’t think that my blood was anything special. It’s just the shock jock value of having blood for them.
Janie: What kind of callers do you get?
Hunter: I got a lot of calls in the beginning, but not a lot lately. The other night, one guy called and asked, “Hey, can you play some ‘Suf-jan’ Stevens?” I’m like, “It ain’t ‘Surf-jan’ Stevens!”
Janie: How do you fill a show with surf music every week?
Hunter: I don’t think people realize how much surf there is. There was a lot back in the ’50s and ’60s, and it just died out.
Janie: I just imagine “Wipe Out” on loop.
Hunter: I haven’t played that one yet!
Janie: What was your inspiration for a surf music show?
Hunter: I wanted to challenge myself musically and really push myself to learn more about a genre. I had heard some modern surf, but I decided to take it to the next level for the year. I want to do a show next semester that’s entirely versions of “Miserlou” by Dick Dale. That song in “Pulp Fiction” revived the genre.
Justin: Do you surf?
Hunter: I’m from New Orleans. There’s nowhere to surf. [However], There’s a surf store by my house and my little brother did some recon. He went in and was like, “Where do you guys surf?” And the guy was like, “I don’t know.” I’ve never surfed in my life or been to a surf concert, which is a shame.
Justin: So what does the future hold for your show?
Hunter: I just secured a new event for my show. I got an e-mail back from Doug Bennet willing to do a guest spot on my show.
Janie: He’s coming to the studio at midnight?
Hunter: No. In an e-mail, he said that that’s three hours past his bedtime. In my e-mail, I told him no slander, since they’re instrumental songs. He’s gonna come in and read the names of the artists and comment. It’ll be next Thursday.
Janie: You will get a million listeners! That’s so cool.
Justin: What about his tendency to mumble?
Hunter: He’s been in radio. I heard him when he came to Hi-Rise and he has this really deep, cool voice. I want to ask him if he’ll do a John Wayne impression.
Justin: What are you doing over Winter Break?
Hunter: I’m going home and bringing down a few people to do volunteer work.
Janie: Why do you keep going back to Common Ground?
Hunter: It’s where I’ve worked and Wesleyan students seem to like it. I’m thankful that I went there. I lived in, not a predominately white, because really rich white people live next to a ghetto in New Orleans, but I was in a white world. When I went to Common Ground, it opened up a lot of the racism in the city to me and gave me a much greater idea of the city as a whole. I felt like there was something to do with it now. It’s a big place but it feels like such a small town. I pretty much didn’t know that the Ninth Ward existed. I was raised to believe that everyone in the Ninth Ward was a drug dealer. And that’s, as you know, completely false.
Justin: How’s the effort going?
Hunter: On the large scale, the government is fucking up left and right. I don’t know when the last time I heard good news was.
Janie: How does it feel to be the New Orleans’s spokesperson at Wesleyan?
Hunter: Lately I’ve just been making an effort to not dwell on what happened. So if someone starts to talk about [it], I’ll say, “No, you don’t want to get into that. Let’s talk about something else.” If they really want to sit down and talk about it, I’ll talk their ear[s] off.
Janie: Zombies vs. Humans?
Hunter: I’m not playing. All of these bad things that happen, we can chalk it up to what’s been going on with Zombies vs. Humans. There’s violence, so we can blame this game. But I shouldn’t even talk. I offered to cut myself for a radio show.
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