Kiyomi McCloskey and Laura Petracca of Hunter Valentine has been performing together for 11 years, and while other members have come and gone, the band’s brassy brand of rock and roll has stayed consistent. With three full-length albums, several tours and two stints on reality TV (Showtime’s The Real L Word and Vh1’s Make it Or Break It: The Linda Perry Project), it almost seems like the group is just getting started. But, sadly, Hunter Valentine has announced that their appropriately titled So Long for Now tour and EP, The Pledge, will be their last.
“It has been an amazing ride with Hunter Valentine and [its] supporters,” Kiyomi said in a statement, “a ride that will continue to define my identity for the rest of my life. We will never forget the times that we had on the road with our fans and really hope that we can create one last epic memory with this tour.”
We spoke with Kiyomi about the decision to go on hiatus and how things have changed for her in the last decade since the band first started as a two-piece in Toronto.
AfterEllen.com: I was excited to see you guys are playing The Dinah again this year.
Kiyomi McCloskey: It’s always so crazy there. It’s like a whirlwind of a weekend. We’re happy to be back. Maybe it’s going to be Hunter Valentine’s last Dinah. I mean, it should be. Meaning, we’re not supposed to play any more shows, so. It’s going to be very celebratory I think. We’re still gonna do one-offs. We’re not gonna do tours but we’re probably gonna do some prides, stuff like that over the summer, and that will kind of wrap it up. We’ll be completely pretty much done by the fall. But basically, we’re keeping it open if we want to play something, we’re gonna play it.
AE: What’s the idea behind wanting to stop touring and doing what you have been doing?
KM: Really it’s just time. I mean, like anything you’ve been doing for 11, 12 years, however long you want to call it, we needed to try other things and explore ourselves as individuals and explore the world as individuals, rather than a full-on band package. Laura’s gonna start focusing more on her cooking career. She came from working in fine dining in the kitchen, so she missed it. She still did it here or there. Well, when you’re in a band at this level, you have to be all in; you can’t dabble in other things. And I was trying to dabble with other things, and it just feels like you can’t-it’s hard to focus until we put this big thing to rest a little bit. We’re not killing it, but we’re telling the fans and the supporters to not expect anything for a little while. We’re just being honest with where we’re at in our lives.
AE: You said you want to dabble in other things-what are those things?
KM: You know I’ve done some acting. I’m always going to do music, but I don’t know if I want to do music in the same way, where you go out on tour for a million months out of the year. It’s a really hard lifestyle. It wears you down, and I love it. I love it, but I don’t know. I just feel like-when I was a teenager, my biggest problem as a teenager was I felt like I got overwhelmed with all of the things that I wanted to do-all different kinds of art, sports, cooking, doing all these different things would give me a panic attack and it started again recently, where I wanted to explore other things. Acting is one. I have started working with the social app HER. I’m their New York City ambassador, basically. I’m just enjoying life and figuring out next steps, stuff like that. I am going to do music. I’m going to put out a solo record. That’s not the reason why this is all happening. It was actually Laura who wanted to get back in the kitchen full-time.
AE: So she came to you, and you agreed because you have other things you wanted to do, too?
KM: Yeah, and it was just time. It was just time to try other stuff.
AE: Did you decide that before you recorded the EP?
KM: We went in, and we were going to make a record with Linda Perry and then, um, that didn’t pan out and then we came back to the drawing board and, I don’t know, it was just quiet for a while. And then basically [Laura] came forward and said that, and then we were deciding what we were gonna do. Like, was the band just gonna break up? We had already worked on 15 songs. It wasn’t about the music, and it wasn’t about the friendship. It wasn’t a typical band blowout or something like that. And I know no matter how much you try and say that people are going to try and demonize what happened, but we still have the best time together, all four of us. So with that, because we still enjoy making music together, enjoy one another, we wanted to finish off on a positive note to let everyone around us-our supporters, our fans and everyone around know that we’re finishing on a good note, which is the opposite of what happens with a lot of bands. They go out screaming at each other. So it’s two things: It was really important for us to leave on a good note and it was important to us to leave the fans with one last piece of work and music.
AE: So the songs on the EP, are they new songs that you came up with after deciding to break up or some you had already written?
KM: I think it was a mixture. It’s six songs on the EP, so it’s not like a full-length record but it kind of feels like one. It didn’t feel like it needed to be longer; it felt like it needed to be shorter and it says what it needs to say. It’s well-rounded and gives a farewell in a way.
AE: What happened with Linda Perry? Why didn’t it work out?
KM: [laughs] I think we just have different visions. I’m going to leave it at that. We’re still friends. Her and I talk here and there. She’s kind of a little bit of a mother mentor.
AE: I saw that not too long ago, you posted a photo with Adrienne [Lloyd], who used to be in the band, obviously. What’s your relationship like with old bandmates these days?
KM: I think, I mean, I’ve grown up a lot in the last 10 years and one of the things that I’ve learned, now more than ever-I learned it a while ago but more important these days, life is so precious and too short to hold grudges, and I just feel like, it’s not even about the fight you actually had. People need to realize that when you hold a grudge, you’re carrying a weight on you and if you don’t want to squash the grudge or figure out how to solve the problem that you’re having with the person to mend your friendship or your work relationship or whatever it is, it’s important to do it for yourself because it’s a dead weight that you’re carrying around with you. And I had a lot of dead weight. The friendships that I’ve had-I’m friends with all my childhood people, you know? Friendship is very important to me, and I don’t like to carry that weight. It got to a point where I started reaching out to people and if I needed to apologize, apologize and if I needed to say something-whatever, just squashing it, letting it go, and one of those people was Adrienne. I’ve reached out to [former bandmate] Somer [Bingham]-I’m trying to be friends with everybody still. Some people will have it, and some people will not have it. [laughs]
AE: All you can do is take ownership for your part.
KM: And sometimes you have to take ownership even when you don’t own it, you know?
AE: And other people may just have their moment a year down the road. It happens when it happens for you.
KM: What’s important to you is clearing your air and then sometimes you have to be the bigger person and say you we were wrong, even if you don’t feel-you know what I mean? Depends on what you want out of a relationship, out of life or whatever.
AE: So how does what’s going in your life fit into what you’re writing about and what ended up on the EP?
KM: Well, there is some relationship stuff in terms of that sort of topic where you let go and don’t hold grudges over the things that went wrong in relationships. “The Pledge” is about, basically, learning to love someone you’ve been with in the aftermath, telling them you’re going to love them no matter what, just in a different way. I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of growing up on the record. There’s a lot of songs about promising to just be better, a better version of me. That is what growing up is, in a way.
AE: What would be the biggest difference between the first Hunter Valentine album and this new EP?
KM: Well, it sounds like shit to me. No, I’m joking. I think there’s a lot of-what’s the right word? Not ignorance, but a lot of unknowing. It comes from a young voice. When you’re young you’re a little bit more arrogant I think. You gain a certain amount of poise and become more grounded. I don’t know-I’m trying to think about songs that were out there because there were songs about addiction and other things that are serious topics I would still write about now.
AE: You also had a lot of fans who came to follow you from seeing you TV and be interested in the more personal aspects of your life. How has that been for you to navigate?
KM: I think that it just comes with the whole package. If you want to be in the entertainment industry right now, you have to give everything, and you have to be able to do everything. They used to say, “Oh this one’s a golden ticket because they’re a triple threat. They can act, sing and dance.” Now it’s act, sing, dance, build your own app, have a blog. With all those things, people are buying into a brand of what you are, in a way. And so whether you have a reality show or not when people become your follower on Instagram or Facebook, Twitter or SnapChat, whatever it is, they’re buying into your brand in a way, almost, and your brand should be honest and what’s really happening in your life. Because when it’s not honest, people can smell it from a mile away and they’ll move onto the next person that intrigues them. I have people on social media that I follow because it looks like they have an interesting life. In a way, it’s its own little reality show, you know? And I think that’s where producers are finding their next television shows is from how many people follow a person’s life and they ultimately will create a show around the persons’ life. It’s a full-on package.
AE: Have you ever heard anything from Showtime about any possible Real L Word reunion situation?
KM: No, never. It was just done. I was in San Francisco on tour, and I got the call that it wasn’t happening anymore. I was like, “Oh. OK. Does this mean we can do our own show?” [laughs] It was surprising because I think the last season–the season that we were on–had the highest viewership out of any of the seasons, so I don’t know. I mean I do know why it ended, but you would think they would want to do something with it afterward. I recently watched the documentary they did after. That was really good.
AE: Yeah, it was really dark and heavy compared to the previous seasons.
KM: I know, and I always thought it was important to do. It was a different entity, but I think it was really great that they did that. To me, when I go out on tour, and we go to smaller towns, people tell me that they watched The Real L Word to escape the small towns that they lived in.
AE: So what do you have planned for this last tour? Are you pulling out all the hits?
KM: Yeah, we’ve been busting our ass. I haven’t had any sleep this month; I swear to God. I was like “Holy shit, we have a lot of songs!” I think it’s like a 20 song set, or more than that maybe. We made sure that we had songs from every record and really try to give the fans what they want but also try to introduce them to this new record that we want them to hear live. I feel like it’s going to be a party every single stop. It’s going to be a bittersweet party. There are going to be a lot of mixed emotions. It’s going to be super fun, it’s going to be sad, but it’s also celebratory that we achieved so much, and hopefully the fans will see that, too.
Tour dates are available on the Hunter Valentine website.
