Phoebe Hunt’s ‘Good Blood’ Reintroduces Awaited Next Album, ‘Neither One of Us Is Wrong’ [Exclusive Premiere]

Years ago, Phoebe Hunt spent an afternoon at an audition with a friend. She's gone on a whim, but when the time came, she simply couldn't follow through with the opportunity.

"While we were there, the audition atmosphere kicked in," Hunt recalls, "and my friend started saying weird things to me like, 'I can’t do this if you are gonna do this,' 'I don’t want to embarrass myself,' etc."

So, Hunt pulled herself out of consideration and headed out for a gig she had that night. "I decided to be a support role to my friend rather than to compete with her," the singer-songwriter explains — but, on the drive to her show, she started thinking.

"I was reflecting on how vibes can get so off when competition enters the atmosphere and started singing the phrase 'I just want to have good blood with you' over and over while I was on the drive," Hunt remembers. By the time she got the the venue, she was ready to start writing.

The song became "Good Blood," premiering exclusively on The Boot, but it took some time, and some changes. Musician and producer Matt Rollings offered some lyrical tweaks and co-wrote a bridge with Hunt; following the breakup of her folk band the Belleville Outfit, Hunt found the song had "an entirely different meaning."

"Every time I sing "Good Blood," I feel all of the miscommunications and disconnects from my past experiences," the Austin, Texas, native says. "I sing with the hope that we can all learn to untangle the webs of pain we weave with one another and just remember that, deep down, we all just want to have good blood with one another."

With the release of "Good Blood," Hunt is re-introducing her awaited next studio album, Neither One of Us Is Wrong. She says the song well represents the message she hopes listeners draw from the record as a whole.

"In a world fraught with division, where families and friends are divided over semantics and politics, I hope this album can be a reminder that, no matter what our differences are, there is a human connection that must be acknowledged," Hunt explains. "We have to find a way to accept one another rather than to judge one another. We must find a place where we can have "Good Blood" despite our differences.

"Even though it can be hard to see, my hope for this album is that we can all find a moment to reflect on our own lives," she adds, "and rather than pointing the finger at another, we can hold the possibility in our hearts that Neither One Of Us Is Wrong."

Hunt had originally intended to release Neither One of Us Is Wrong in April of 2020; however, as her tour plans unraveled in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, she opted to push the project back more than a year. The artist says the delay "has been a huge lesson in patience," and taught her "to let go of my personal expectations and trust something greater than myself (the song) to direct the release of this project."

"I have done my best not to listen to the album very much over this unprecedented time and to 'push pause' on my own relationship with them so that I could be ready to put attention on them again when the right time presented itself," says Hunt, who spent her time instead writing new music and working on other creative projects. "Still," she adds, "I hold these songs and the music my band recorded in Brooklyn with me in a sacred place in my heart and am now ready to share them with the world."

Hunt's aforementioned other creative projects include a podcast, Listen First — during which she deconstructs the song co-writing process with guests such as Molly Tuttle, Lindsey Lou and others — as well as Plant Seeds of Music, an online music school in conjunction with Nashville School of Traditional Country Music. The curriculum features more than five dozen videos from Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn, Tim O'Brien, Sierra Hull and others that helped musicians keep their skills sharp during the pandemic, and that helped the school grow its footprint.

Now due out on Sept. 17, Neither One of Us Is Wrong follows Shanti's Shadow, Hunt's 2017 release with her band the Gatherers. More information is available at PhoebeHuntMusic.com.