Evan Haywood

Michigan's Evan Haywood plays a wild strain of rootsy psychedelia that careens between intimate, textured folk music and uplifting, occasionally feral rock. Although he got his start in hip-hop, Haywood's passionate music is sprung from a multitude of influences, ranging from garage rock and dub to blues and spiritual jazz. The singer, songwriter, and producer began making music under his own name in the mid-2010s, releasing his solo debut, Ramshackles, in 2018. Two more ambitious studio records, 2020's Perfumed Gardens and 2023's Elderberry Wine, followed, each one self-produced at Black Ram Treehouse, the recording studio and label he runs out of his Ann Arbor home. Also a visual artist and filmmaker, he has continued to work creatively in multiple directions, often all at once. Haywood returned in 2024 with Canterbury Tales, an archival live album. Music has been a constant pursuit throughout Haywood's life from his childhood singing in the Boychoir of Ann Arbor through his work with Tree City, the acclaimed hip-hop collective he helped form when he was 16. Along the way he learned to play guitar and a number of other instruments and, after Tree City went on hiatus, he began performing as a singer/songwriter around Southeast Michigan. Always an adventurous listener, Haywood's inspirations ran the gamut from Bob Dylan, the MC5, and Sonic Youth to Alice Coltrane and Lee "Scratch" Perry, the latter of whom he later worked with. In 2018, he released Ramshackles, his first album under his own name. A set of thoughtful, melodic psych-folk, it introduced the heavily textured, lo-fi production style that became one of his sonic imprints. Two years later, Haywood inaugurated his newly built studio and Black Ram Sound label with Perfumed Gardens. Dense and exploratory, it also featured more structured arrangements and orchestrations than his debut, revealing elements of his pop side. Haywood's next release was 2023's Elderberry Wine, with a more stripped-down version of his core sound and forays into chamber pop and raucous, rootsy psych-rock. The 2024 live album Canterbury Tales was compiled from a handful of key shows played between 2014 and 2018. Moving from a tripped-out early solo acoustic show at Ann Arbor's legendary Canterbury House, the collection later presents Haywood with a full band at Detroit's Third Man Records.
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