Growing up in a family of musicians and minsters, Hunter Plake’s path to his BEC Recordings debut took a few unexpected detours. As a teen, Plake led worship in his home church, even getting his GED his junior year of high school so he could attend ministry school. But it wasn’t until he auditioned for NBC’s The Voice that music became a possible career path. “A friend of mine, Koryn Hawthorne, had just gone to the finale on The Voice. I thought, well, if she can do it,” Plake says with a smile. He ended up placing fifth in his season, opening doors for him to pursue music full-time.

After a few years of recording pop songs, producing and trying to make a go of it in Los Angeles, Plake felt something missing in his life. In June of 2020, his nagging and ever-present sense of emptiness grew into a full-on collpase. “I hit a breaking point and had a total breakdown,” Plake says. “I hit the end of myself.” In crisis mode, Plake turned inward, writing songs between himself and God instead of performing for an audience. Those private worship moments eventually became the songs that make up Thunderbird, a debut collection of hope-filled, pop/rock/worship songs that redefine Plake as an artist. “This project gives people in the alternative world something to listen to but still know what the songs are about,” he says. “It’s not vague. It’s about Jesus, you can hear that.”

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