Pit Thoughts: Danny Wimmer Presents Festivals Artist Spotlight – The Hu

Photo Credit: E. Altankhuyag

As we slowly close into the start of the Danny Wimmer Presents May 2020 festivals, it’s time to take a look at some of the artists who will be performing. Everyone knows the headliners for these festivals, but sometimes the festival attendees have no clue about the openers or even some of the middle of the day bands that perform. I want to provide attendees with some info on the bands so they can get to know them. And hopefully, be as excited as I am about getting to see them. In this post, I want to introduce everyone to the artist marked as “??? ??” on the festival lineups. This is The Hu!

The Hu is a Mongolian rock band out of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia that blends together hard rock and traditional Mongolian throat singing. They formed in 2016 by their producer Dashka using rock music with traditional Mongolian instruments. The Hu consists of four band members: Gala (Lead Throat Singer and Morin Khuur (horsehead fiddle)), Enkush (Lead Morin Khuur and Throat Singer), Jaya (Tumur Khuur (Jaw Harp)), Tsuur (vertical wooden flute-like instrument), Flute, and Throat Singer), and Temka (Tovshu (Mongolian guitar)). All four members have Bachelor’s degrees (and some higher degrees) in classical music with several years of touring experience as classical musicians. They made their first performance as The Hu in their hometown in June of 2019 and followed up with their first headlining tour in UK/Europe. That tour sold out. The followed up in Fall/Winter 2019 with a headlining North American tour that sold out 66% of the shows, including a performance at Danny Wimmer Presents Aftershock festival.

They decided on the name The Hu from the Mongolian root word for “human being” and calling their blend of music as “Hunnu Rock”. Their music was inspired by the Hunnu (better known in Western culture as The Huns) and is deeply embedded with their ancient culture, even integrating old Mongolian war cries and poetry into their lyrics. The band’s debut album titled The Gereg was released through Better Noise Music (formerly Eleven Seven) on September 13, 2019. The album title was the name of the diplomatic passport carried by Mongolian nobles during the 13th century. The album did very well hitting the Top Ten on multiple charts in the U.S. and internationally:

#1 Top New Artists

#2 Independent Label Artist

#4 Hard Music

#9 Top Current

U.K.:
#2 Top 40 Rock & Metal Albums

#3 Independent Albums

#21 Top 200 Artist Albums

#4 Top 200 Album Downloads

Australia:
#5 Digital Albums

#7 Physical Albums

#11 Overall Albums

Germany:
#24 Overall Albums

Sweden:
#13 Physical Albums

#19 Vinyl Albums

The Hu decided to mix up their blend of music with traditional rock artists as guest vocalists on some of their tracks from The Gereg. The first guest artist was Danny Case of From Ashes To New (labelmate of Better Noise Music) on the song “Yuve Yuve Yu”. The song was well received and peaked at #2 on BillBoard World Digital Song Sales chart. The original video for the song has over 37 million views on YouTube. You can see the official video featuring Danny Case below.

The second guest pairing brought in Jacoby Shaddix vocalist for Papa Roach for the song “Wolf Totem”. The original song was a #1 hit for The Hu on Billboard’s Hard Rock Digital Song Sales back in April 2019. The original video garnered over 26 million views. The new single with Jacoby also hit #1 on Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales. You can see the video featuring Jacoby Shaddix, which garnered over 4.5 million views on YouTube, below.

The Hu will be performing at Epicenter on Friday, May 1st, at Welcome To Rockville on Saturday, May 9th, and at Sonic Temple Art + Music Festival on Sunday, May 17th. The Hu is a phenomenal addition to the festival lineup. Don’t miss out on the chance to see them!