After playing a snip of Hunter Metts’ American Idol single “20,000 Kisses,” Ellen Degeneres revealed that she was one of the folks who were telling judge Katy Perry how much they loved him. “I’m a fan,” Ellen said when the American Idol Top 7 contestant dropped by her afternoon talk show for a chat and performance. “I think you’re charming, you have a great stage presence, beautiful voice and I was sad to see you go.”
Hunter told Ellen that it was “amazing” to come home after his elimination and to get time with his family. But the “dream” of Idol, he said, is having opportunities like guesting on the Ellen Degeneres Show. “To come home and get a call like this…and finally use the launchpad of American Idol has been amazing. It’s been great.”
Hunter resisted pursuing his musical dreams
The singer shared about the difficult time he had taking that leap to pursuing a music career. “Both my parents individually moved to Nashville to pursue music and long story short, from when I was early in high school, my dad was in and out of jobs a lot because this was when the streaming took off and iTunes, kind of took off.” Hunter continued, “It was really, really difficult in those adolescent developmental years for me to justify why I should pursue such a crazy dream.” Instead of following his “crazy dream” after high school, Hunter attended coding school and “did software stuff.” But his love of music and desire to be a musician ate at him all the time. “It was…if I’m going to do this, this is going to be my time to do it so I did it.”
Hunter describes why his sister had to quit her Disney job for him
As far as his audition backstory, about his sister Mattie’s Disney job killing his first chance at competing on American Idol, Hunter shared, “I originally tried to go on the show [but] my sister was a character at Disney World.” He explained further, “If you don’t know, Disney owns ABC, ABC runs Idol. And so I was unable to participate because it was a conflict of interest…they don’t run into it often, but since she was actively working, someone could take it as a competitive advantage.” Sadly, it was a no go for Hunter at that time.
“They called me. I had the ticket, and my number and everything, ready to go and they are like, sorry, man, we can’t have you come on. And so that was a bummer.” But all that matters to Hunter is that he’s here now. “It all happened for a reason,” he said. Eventually, his sister quit Disney, and he was free to audition again.” Ellen joked, “When you make it, you owe her big time.”
Hunter describes the moment he broke down on live television as “intense”
Of course, Ellen brought up Hunter’s big dramatic moment, when he broke down on live television after messing up the lyrics of “Falling Slowly.” Hunter said, “In that moment, it was intense for me, but after coming off the show, the support has been amazing. ” As the judges did at the time, Ellen offered another reassuring voice. “I’m sure when you’re exhausted and there’s so much energy and so much hype, it adds to the emotion. But I hope you know, that was a beautiful moment when you broke down. There’s nothing wrong with messing up…and there’s nothing wrong with with being emotional.”
Next, Hunter sang his Top 16 round performance, Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love.”
