It was by sheer chance Brisbane musician Ryan Henderson discovered a latent passion for acoustic folk music.
As one half of indie-folk acoustic duo Hollow Coves, alongside Matt Carins, Ryan has gone from hip hop head to folk hero. “It's a funny story for me,” Ryan begins.
“I grew up listening to rap and hip hop and nothing else. One year I ended up going to Woodford Folk Festival and some friends dragged me along to Angus & Julia Stone. I’d never heard of them and I wasn't expecting to like it but something about the music caught my attention.
“After that I started listening to those guys and branched off from that, slowly listening to more of that acoustic music until one day I realised there was no longer any rap or hip hop on my playlists at the time.
“So, I fell in love with that genre of music which led to me picking up the guitar to try and play it. Then eventually trying to sing some of it and it went from there.”
Hollow Coves released their debut EP ‘Drifting’ in 2014 that included songs ‘The Woods’ and ‘Home’. Ryan says he and Matt are currently working on a follow-up EP for release next year, which will feature a refinished version of ‘The Woods’. “We're trying to view the new EP as our debut,” he says.
“We're looking at this as a fresh start because when we released those songs we weren't thinking of a future for us in music. We just chucked them out there and we had no idea what we were doing, but now that we have more focus and a direction, we want to do it properly.
“The new EP builds on the sound we had already been working on. In terms of whether this EP fully represents our sound, I don't think it does. We've been writing a lot and our sound has definitely growing now more as well. Hopefully the stuff we're writing now is maturing further.”
This Sunday (13 November), Hollow Coves play Livespark at Brisbane Powerhouse as part of their regular Sunday afternoon sessions. Appearing along with Deena, Ryan says he’s looking forward to playing their new songs as a more cohesive and dynamic live duo. “We’ve played a few shows with a band and that's always fun because you have the energy behind you.
“Mostly we're just playing as a duo and trying to utilise other things like a stompbox and ambient backing tracks to build the sound and keep the energy behind it. We might chuck a cover in there, but it’s mostly originals at the shows.”
Hollow Coves perform at Livespark at Brisbane Powerhouse 13 November (from 3.30pm).
