Hokus for Hoku
The winner of six Na Hoku Hanohano awards this year-including best Hawaiian album and vocalist and entertainer of the year-Kaneohe boy Hoku Zuttermeister is excited to be headlining Windward Community College’s ho’olaulea Saturday. After winning six Na Hoku Hanohano awards this year
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Hoku Zuttermeister Headlines The Big Windward Community College Ho’olaulea This Saturday
After winning six Na Hoku Hanohano awards this year, Hoku Zuttermeister couldn’t be shining brighter. But the Kaneohe boy is a bit squeamish over all the recent attention, especially since he doesn’t consider his award-winning album, ‘Aina Kupuna, a solo endeavor, but one he shares with longtime friend and group member Ioane Burns.
“I’m still trying to get used to being referred to as a solo artist because that CD is just as much me as it is Ioane,” says Zuttermeister. “And the CD is the same kind of music we’ve been playing for the past 17 years.”
And while he welcomes the honor of winning the categories of Hawaiian Album of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Hawaiian Language Performance, Most Promising Artist, Entertainer of the Year and Liner Notes, Zuttermeister is really beginning to feel the weight of such acclaim. Maybe this is why he waited so long to record an album.
“We’ve been really busy now after the CD and a few awards,” he says. “And it was a really big honor to even get one award, but when we first started out, we asked ourselves what our goal is, and it was never to win an award or to get rich. Our goal was to be proud of what we do and in 20 years to still love what we do. And I think that’s still our focus. But it was really nice to be recognized, but I don’t think it’s our responsibility to make CDs just to win awards.”
For Zuttermeister, music began well before he picked up his first ukulele in intermediate school. He was born into a hula family, where the melodies of the mele are as recognizable as the movement, where backyard parties meant listening to legendary Hawaii musicians perform and kanikapila sessions were a regular weekend affair.
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“The pillars of Hawaiian music like Mahi Beamer, Aunty Genoa Keawe, Linda Dela Cruz were really influential and, luckily for me, many of these people would be at family parties because they would play for my great-grandmother when she would do her hula performances,” says Zuttermeister, great-grandson of Kau’i Zuttermeister, who penned the song Na Pua Lei ‘Ilima, and great-nephew of kumu hula Noe Zuttermeister. “So I was around Hawaiian music all the time, and I got to grow up listening to all the people who everyone looks up to now. Surely that inspired and ingrained Hawaiian music memory in me that I can draw back on.”
Immersed in the hula culture, Zuttermeister danced hula from the age of 4, but decided in high school to pursue his music passion instead. With a taste for the ukulele and guitar from a music class at King Intermediate, Zuttermeister was curious about taking his music interests further. Those ambitions met an obstacle during his freshman year at Castle High School when he found out there was no Polynesian music class.
“For two years we went around and got signatures of students who would like to be in the class, and so finally we had enough signatures, so we went to the principal,” says Zuttermeister, a 1993 Castle grad. “So our junior year we got a Polynesian music class and it was a learning time for all of us, the teacher included.”
It was during his junior year that he took his talents to the stage. He met up with a few guys from Kamehameha Schools (Ioane Burns, Marcus Ontai and Kekoa Kaluhiwa) and formed the group Kana’e.
“We’ve been playing as Kana’e every since, but in 2000 one of the members moved to Hilo and the other member (Kaluhiwa) is in the band Holunape, so there’s pretty much just two of us left, Ioane Burns and myself,” says Zuttermeister, who admits that as a child he aspired to be a kumu hula, but is quick to add that this is no longer the case, having witnessed just how difficult the hula business is.
Whether they’re performing as Kana’e or billed as Hoku Zuttermeister, the duo are usually there backing up each other - as they’ve done for the past 17 years. But you will sometimes find one without the other, or even one with another musician. They joke that it’s how they’ve managed to learn and improve over the years.
“We learned to grow ourselves because when we play with other people, it forces us to break out of our routine,” says Burns, a 1993 Kamehameha graduate. “We’ve become better musicians.”
Burns and Zuttermeister have stuck together in a tough business where the lines of friendship, business and loyalty are often blurred. Whether it’s hanging out watching friends and acquaintances perform at the Waikiki Shell or gearing up for a solo gig at a baby luau, it’s always unconditional support.
And both agree that nothing is more perfect than those moments on stage when everything is going right and it just clicks.
“That’s our favorite thing about music, because there’s no feeling that is like that,” says
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