Hello Dollface, Durango’s female fronted indie soul project, has spent the last five years gigging tirelessly, promoting musical outreach and carving a niche in the region with a style that veers sharply from your typical Southwest bar band.
The band has been a labor of love, but the work has paid off with a loyal fanbase and supportive community. And with a live EP hot of the presses this week, a Northwest tour about to begin and a new focus on a three-piece iteration, Hello Dollface has reason to celebrate.
And celebrate they will, with a free EP release and tour kickoff show Saturday at El Rancho Tavern. Hello Dollface will have copies of the new EP, “Live,” as well as new merchandise available for fans.
Hello Dollface frontwoman Ashley Edwards said the EP is a way to give people a sample of the band’s forthcoming album, which it hopes to have complete in early 2015.
The album, she said, will be the first one made with the new makeup of the band, which features her and bass player Jesse Ogle along with Alex Morrow on drums.
“This EP is kind of like the shedding of the skin,” she said. “Some of the older sound is still there, but it’s going into a totally different direction.”
The EP features five tracks that range in style from down-temple soul to bass-heavy R&B grooves and dynamic indie-pop. The thread that runs throughout is Edwards’ head-turning voice, which is sultry, bluesy and powerful.
By showcasing some of the many styles Hello Dollface travels through in a typical performance, Edwards said, the EP is a good representation of the band’s live show. It contains elements of everything from jazz to electronica and rock ’n’ roll.
“We call it a genre tour,” she said.
Edwards and Ogle, who are responsible for songwriting, arranging, booking and publicity, form the core of Hello Dollface, but travel and perform as a two- to 10-piece band with a network of musicians they have built over the years.
“We kind of play as a collective,” Ogle said.
And just as their makeup varies wildly, so does their style. Hello Dollface roams the musical landscape, picking up sounds of world music, slow-burning soul and Latin jazz. Their sound has evolved over the years with their explorations, and they aren’t afraid to cross musical borders.
“I think that’s why I call it vagabond soul,” Edwards said. “We’re always traveling, and we’re always playing with different sounds.”
Edwards’ and Ogle’s musical paths crossed five years ago after she responded to a Craigslist ad for a blues singer and he moved to Durango to work as a music director at a nonprofit. Though their backgrounds were very different – she is a self-taught singer who was too shy to perform in public for many years, while he studied music and had toured the Northwest with several music projects – they hit it off immediately.
“Jesse and I really clicked,” Edwards said.
Hello Dollface has since gone through a few lineup changes, but Edwards and Ogle have remained. The pair, who also play as a duo under the name Ace Revel, have funneled their inexhaustible energy into playing live, sharing their music and building a stronger music community.
Along with shows at Durango venues that range from the Henry Strater Theatre and Macho’s, Hello Dollface has released four albums and toured extensively through the Four Corners.
They happily play benefit events to help support local nonprofits, they say, and last year launched iAM MUSIC, an organization that aims to both fill gaps in music education and create a professional artist network.
Along with encouraging young musicians to pursue their dreams, the hope is to act as role models, they say, by showing that it’s possible to achieve success it if you put enough passion and work into it.
They’ve been repaid for their work, they say, by a number of sold-out shows and solid community support – their album, “Virtue,” was funded through a $10,000 kickstarter campaign.
Ogle said that while they love living and playing music in Durango, it’s important for Hello Dollface to take its music out of the community and to new crowds. The Northwest Intuition Tour, which begins on Wednesday with a show in Corvallis, Oregon, will include stops in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Victoria, B.C., as well as two slots at the Oregon Country Fair, a major summer festival near Eugene.
But before they hit the road in their Ford Excursion van, which they have named Brodine, they wanted to throw a party with their hometown crowd.
“It’s sort of like a celebration of this band we are becoming,” Edwards said. “Here’s our music. Buy it, love it, we’ll be back.”
kklingsporn@durangoherald.com
If you go
Hello Dollface’s EP release and tour kickoff show will take place Saturday at 10 p.m. at El Rancho Tavern, 975 Main Ave. The show is free.
