Hunt was born in 1950 in Christchurch in south-west England and studied art at the Nottingham School of Art. He played in several bands before starting to play bass with the British-Irish folk punk band The Pogues in 1986. He had previously worked as a rower for the band.
The Pogues’ scandal-ridden frontman Shane MacGowan pays tribute to his bandmate Twitter : “I’m very sad that Darryl has passed, he was a really nice guy and a great friend and a great bass player. We’re all going to miss him.”
The first The Pogues album Hunt appeared on was 1988’s ‘If I should fall from grace with God’. One of the tracks on it is ‘Fairytale of New York’ – the duet between McGowan and Kirsty MacColl that has since become one of the most played Christmas songs in Sweden as well as in many other countries.
Hunt lived to be 72 years old.