‘Pretty Mind Blowing’: Kyle Hunter Goes From Under The Big Sky Crowd to Main Stage

While Kyle Hunter and his band, The Mountain Standard, may be making their Under the Big Sky debut this weekend, it’s certainly not Hunter’s first time at Whitefish’s signature country and Americana music festival.  

For the last five years, the Montana native has been to every edition of the festival, which has grown since its first run in 2019 to bring tens of thousands of music lovers like Hunter to the 340-acres at Big Mountain Ranch along Voerman Road each July. 

On Saturday, Hunter will make the move from behind the barricade to front and center on the main stage.

“It’s actually pretty mind blowing,” Hunter said. “I’ve been looking at that big main stage for years hoping just someday maybe we’ll get the shot to step on there. Just grinding and grinding and grinding and working so hard, sacrificing sleep and relationships and money, and finally it’s like, wow, we really get to do this on Saturday.”

After years of gigging across Montana — years marked by moments of stagnation or self-doubt — Hunter and his band will share a stage this weekend with the likes of Chris Stapleton, Zach Top and Cody Jinks, symbolizing a gratifying next step in what Hunter has deemed a steady upward trajectory.

“It’s not always as glamorous as you would think,” Hunter said. “There’s a lot of times where I would question if I was doing the right thing … then you do get these big opportunities where you get to play alongside or on stages where a lot of the people you look up to have played. That’s really gratifying and definitely means a lot to me and the band to be able to step on that stage on Saturday.”

The road to the Under the Big Sky main stage hasn’t been easy or linear — it’s one that starts in a small town about a 20-minute drive outside Thompson Falls.

“It was pretty isolated,” Hunter said. “I grew up there riding horses and just being outdoors a lot. That’s where I taught myself how to play guitar upside down when I was a kid because I’m left-handed, so I picked up my dad’s right-handed guitar and flipped it upside down and started playing left-handed and kinda just did it my own way cause that’s what felt right. Been doing that kind of ever since.”

“Being so isolated in Thompson Falls, once the sun goes down there wasn’t much else to do, so I just kinda stuck my nose to the grindstone and taught myself how to play,” he added.

Despite learning to play guitar at a young age, Hunter didn’t start pursuing music seriously until his mid-twenties, he said. His early career seemed headed toward an engineering path, with Hunter doing some land surveying and electrical work until age 23, he said.

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, Hunter, like many others, was laid off from his job, leaving him with a lot of unexpected free time. Hunter picked up his guitar, honed his craft and taught himself how to sing — ultimately deciding to pursue music as a profession instead of returning to a more traditional work setting. 

Hunter began traveling across the state playing acoustic sets, often going on what he called “adventures” to find any place that offered live music to try to get himself booked. When he got himself booked at Whitefish’s iconic Great Northern Bar and Grill, Hunter ran into a slight roadblock — the lack of a band.  

“I didn’t even have a band, but it was a full band show,” Hunter said. “So I just asked this guy I knew who played bass, and I asked this guy I knew who played drums and just threw together three hours of music that I kinda knew and we practiced like once,” Hunter said with a laugh.

Once Hunter realized playing with a full band was “a heck of a lot more fun” than flying solo, he never turned back, now playing most of his gigs with his band. Hunter and The Mountain Standard will be back at the Northern on Sunday as part of the festival’s “after party” performances, opening for longtime Colorado-based jam band, Leftover Salmon. 

“Ever since then, I’ve pieced together a really really tight, solid band of local musicians that I’ve met through the years, and we’ve been kind of hitting the road together for quite some time now.”

While on the road, Hunter and his band have drawn musical inspiration from Montana’s beautiful landscapes, with Hunter aiming to embody the spirit of the nature and the people that make the state where he grew up so unique.

“Where I grew up is … isolated, so you kinda get a little bit sad or you’re gonna get the blues and you gotta learn how to live with them,” Hunter said. “I think a lot of folks use the West as an aesthetic, but I think we embody that a little bit more of, like, a condition of being. We have our own sound and I think it sounds like Montana and I think folks can connect with that wherever they’re from.”

With a country drummer, organ player, fiddler and pedal steel guitar, Hunter and The Mountain Standard pay homage to traditional country and folk roots while experimenting with bluegrass, blues and soul influences. Hunter said the band aims to create polished songs that are still laced with authenticity and a little “rough around the edges.”  

“It all kind of just comes together and in a unique way, which I think is very reflective of what the landscape brings and the attitude of Montanans.”

With recent releases “In the Spring” and “LENNY” in his arsenal, Hunter is looking forward to the opportunity to wrangle in some new fans from a crowd of festival-goers from across the country, while also playing unreleased music to his already-established local fan base. 

“We’re ready to show a crowd of this size and a festival of this size what we can do and what we’ve been doing,” Hunter said. “It’s almost just a big celebration for me and the band too. Definitely looking forward to just sharing that stage with my guys that have been with me for years and grinding.”

Under the Big Sky will take place from noon to 11 p.m. July 17 through July 19 at Big Mountain Ranch in Whitefish. Ryan Hunter and The Mountain Standard will play from 2-3 p.m. on the Great Northern stage on Saturday, July 18. For a full list of set times, click here. For more information on this year’s festival, click here. 

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