Oliver Hazard, an emerging indie folk trio from Waterville, Ohio, have announced their debut album 34 N. River, to be released June 15. Today, the band share album track “Illinois.”
Oliver Hazard say of today’s release, “This song is loosely based on a weekend that we had spent together in Chicago.. we left the state with less than we came with. The song was written about an emotional addiction, a lost love that can begin to take over your everyday life. No matter where you look, that person is embodied, and at the end of the day, all you’re left with is a cigarette and her on your mind.”
Few people have heard of Waterville, Ohio. A rust-belt city of a few thousand comfortably settled against the Maumee River, it’s the kind of Americana often romanticized about as a place of unvarnished love, bitter outcomes, and hometown grit. The entire place feels like a dream—a sense found in the music of Waterville’s ascendant indie-folk trio, OliverHazard.
The story of Oliver Hazard is the digital age’s version of classic band mythmaking. One member of the band returned to Ohio after leading camping trips in California and decided to make an album with two of his childhood friends, a door-to-door salesman and a construction worker. They won a Facebook raffle to record a single song at a recording studio. Instead, they pitched playing their whole album straight through once, and so came their debut album 34 N River. They sent it to a friend who sent it to a friend, who sent it to The Fader, who called it a “folk-pop masterpiece.” The band was booked at Bonnaroo and Mountain Jam shortly thereafter.
34 N River is named after the house that Oliver Hazard’s members share. The band has tended it as their “creative vacuum and cultural refuge”: inside are discarded mandolins, tambourines, a suitcase kick drum, and other odd instruments that charm the band’s music. At their essence, Oliver Hazard is indie-folk seemingly meant to be accidentally discovered—at a bar somewhere in the Midwest, sung by three earnest, harmonizing musicians, who make you turn your head and feel like not giving up just yet.
Tour:
May 18 | Kansas City, MO at Bluegrass in the Bottoms
May 19 | Davenport, IA at Raccoon Motel
May 24 | Ferndale, MI at Otus Supply
May 25 | Lansing, MI at Mac’s Bar
May 26 | Kalamazoo, MI at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe
June 07 | Manchester, TN at Bonnaroo
June 17 | Hunter, NY at Mountain Jam
June 29 | Toledo, OH at Civic Music Hall
