While some musicians are scheming to go viral, the Waterville, OH indie-folk band Oliver Hazard has been killing it the old-fashioned way: squeezing into a van, traversing a tangle of Interstates, and winning over fans one city at a time. They created a Living Room Tour, where one fan would host the band and invite over some friends. They played 60 shows across the U.S. in 2019 alone. Such is the ethic that’s made Oliver Hazard a case study in smarts, hustle, and unrelenting charm.Since then, Oliver Hazard — Mike Belazis (frontman), Devin East (guitarist) and Nate Miner (keyboardist) — have released a pair of albums (34 N. River, Oliver Hazard) and two EPs (The Flood, Northern Lights). The trio has gone on to headline tours, created their own festival Oliver Hazard Day, played Bonnaroo and Mountain Jam, and amassed nearly 850K Spotify monthly listeners. On December 6, the band will release its latest EP, Raindrop River (Nettwerk), a collection of warmly harmonic sing-alongs that celebrates an earnest, uncomplicated band at its peak.“Our music is a lot more heartfelt, because we’re actually playing together in a room. It’s pretty old school, but so are we,” Mike says. “Oliver Hazard wasn’t an overnight success. It’s not like we got two million followers on TikTok and all of a sudden the venues were full. We really had to be intentional about our shows. And we didn’t want to abandon that sense of place and community that helped us get to where we are.”