Jeremy Andrew "Jer" Hunter (born June 16, 1995) is an American YouTuber, musician, composer and music educator who hosts the YouTube channel Skatune Network, where they post ska covers of popular songs. They also release original music under the name JER.
Jer has played trombone for ska punk band We Are the Union since 2015, and performed on albums by The Bruce Lee Band, Jeff Rosenstock, and Illuminati Hotties. Prominent on social media, Jer has been outspoken about the history and current state of ska music, earning the fan nickname "The CEO of Ska".
Jer was born on June 16, 1995 and grew up in Broward County, Florida. They discovered ska as a child via the Digimon: The Movie soundtrack, which featured ska bands Less Than Jake and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. In sixth grade, Jer joined the school band, where they played trumpet and trombone. They also took piano lessons and learned bass guitar, and by high school had taken on a wide variety of instruments.
Jer attended West Broward High School and graduated in 2013. Their love of ska was deepened by high school friends, who introduced them to the music of Asian Man Records as well as the local DIY ska and punk scenes. In between high school and college, Jer worked at the all-ages DIY punk venue The Talent Farm in Pembroke Pines, Florida, where they became involved with the local scene, forming a band, helping book shows in the area, and beginning to write their own music.
After a brief stint at Broward College, Jer moved to Gainesville in 2015 to attend Santa Fe College, where they studied musical composition with plans of becoming a film score composer. Jer posted a number of songs to SoundCloud between 2012 and 2016. They also fronted an emo side project, 11:59, that was sporadically active from 2014 to 2019.
In 2015, Jer joined the ska punk band We Are the Union on trombone and backing vocals, marking their return from a three-year hiatus. Jer wrote most of the horn lines for the band's 2018 album Self Care, and performed on that album as well as Ordinary Life (2021), released on Bad Time Records. Jer and the band also performed at The Fest in 2015 and 2021.
In December 2016, having recently purchased recording equipment, Jer began posting ska demos to Facebook, including a joke Christmas cover of José Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" (entitled "Feliz NaviSKA"). That cover, as well as a similar rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" for New Year's Eve, were unexpectedly popular on the site, inspiring Jer to start the Skatune Network YouTube channel.
After an April 2018 cover of the Mii channel theme went viral, Jer began regarding Skatune Network as a "full-time job" rather than a side venture. The subjects Skatune Network covers are eclectic and wide-ranging, encompassing 1980s pop music, emo, and R&B as well as songs and theme music from films, television shows, and video games.
Music released under the name JER first appeared on benefit compilation albums in mid-2020: demos of "R/Edgelord" and "A Message to My Future Self" were included on Skank for Choice's 2020 Quarantine Compilation in May, while "Breaking News! Local Punk Denies Existence of Systematic Racism" appeared on Bad Time Records, Asian Man Records, and Ska Punk Daily's Ska Against Racism compilation in early September.
In April 2022, it was announced that JER’s debut album, titled Bothered / Unbothered would be released on May 27, 2022 via Bad Time Records; a new lead single, "Clout Chasers!", was released alongside the announcement. Two more singles, "Decolonize Yr Mind" featuring Oceanator and "Nobody Can Dull My Sparkle", were released in advance of the album.
The album was well-received: BrooklynVegan and Punknews.org included the album in Best of 2022 lists, Pitchfork's Nina Corcoran called it "a modern classic in the ska-punk canon", and music critic Anthony Fantano awarded the album an 8/10 score and included it on his 2022 "Loved List". In June 2025, Hunter announced their new album Death of the Heart, which released on August 15th via Bad Time Records. The announcement came with the single "The Way You Tune It Out."
John Ochoa of VICE described the typical sound of Skatune Network covers as "somewhere between bratty punk, dub-tinged ska, and loungey jazz, and often all three in one single track." Their JER music, meanwhile, incorporates rocksteady, early Jamaican ska, 2 Tone, third wave/ska-punk, and New Tone Ska with elements of genres like indie rock, emo, and hip hop. JER’s lyrics emphasize political themes of anti-racism, labor rights, and intersectionality through Jer's own personal experiences.
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…shrink me down again