8 September 2025
Every Monday I will be bringing you an interview with an independent band, duo or music artist. This week, I caught up with Leeds artists Hevelwood and HerOrangeCoat to find out more…
Where are you from and how did you first get into music?
We’d actually known each other from the Leeds music scene for a while before this collaboration came about. We’re both members of the Wild Moon Folk Collective – a new Leeds-based folk initiative – and under this began a collaborative video project that grew into Seasons.
Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Hevelwood: As a lad it was mostly punk bands like Rancid until I went deep on 00s Radiohead. I got into folk about 10 years ago via the songwriting of Anais Mitchell who remains peerless (see: Xoa, Hadestown, Young Man In America) but most of my contemporary influences are still from the electronic/experimental end of things. I’m currently rinsing Thought For Food by The Books again.
HerOrangeCoat: All the tunes my dad put on for the journey to school, and all the CDs my mum put on for the way home. But for this project, I love the album Duets by bassist Ben Nicholls, and the cello line in Seasons is definitely a nod to a more double-bass-like style of playing the cello.
How would you describe your sound?
Folk on a laptop, a convergence of past and present, the acoustic and the electronic.
What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
We’ve just released our collaboration, Seasons. It takes the traditional folk tune, particularly the iterations by Fiona Ross and Lizzie Higgins, and places it in this moment of climate catastrophe, a distancing from nature, and general seasonal confusion. This is a faint undercurrent in the otherwise upbeat track, but comes out in full force for the second version of the tune: Seasons (Climate Breakdown). Here, our influences largely stemmed from climate concerns, but Kali Malone’s amazing organ work inspired the melancholic death throes that end the song.
What’s your local music scene like?
The Leeds music scene is fantastic, but the folk scene more specifically is something we’re actively trying to foster more community within. That’s part of the impetus of the Wild Moon Folk Collective – we’re all about bringing people together!
What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
We’re going to be performing the song as part of the launch of Folk Night with the Wild Moon Collective on 21 September.
Beyond this, each of us have things planned in our individual artist capacities, and there will be a lot more coming out of the Wild Moon Folk Collective, too. It really is an exciting time for folk in Leeds!
Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
HerOrangeCoat: Working with Hevelwood on this release has been a lot of fun, and we’ve produced a track that I’m personally really proud of, so this has been a brilliant collaboration in my eyes. I’m also very excited to see who else I might work with as our Collective grows…
Hevelwood: Yeah, HerOrangeCoat’s been a dream to work with so hopefully more to come. For the last few years I’ve been really looking to push traditional ballad arranging as far as I can and I’m hoping I can convince some more amazing trad singers to bung me a vocal track that I can mess around with.
Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
Only that we sat and performed Seasons for about 2 hours to a bunch of toy rabbits in Meanwood Valley. It was for a photo shoot, and it took most of that time for us to work out that we could have probably just sat in silence and got the same result.
Do you have any upcoming live dates and performances?
The Attic, Leeds – 21 September (both Hevelwood and HerOrangeCoat will be performing, with a performance of Seasons during the night). You can find out more about HerOrangeCoat’s upcoming gigs here, and Hevelwood’s Instagram is the best place for his gig updates.
What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
That we’re very excited about this collaboration, Seasons, which can be found here.
You can find out more about Hevelwood on his website or via Apple Music, Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube (channel) or YouTube Music.
You can find out more about HerOrangeCoat on her website or via Apple Music, Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube (channel) or YouTube Music.
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