Mollie Ryan | courtesy Devil’s Hollow is (left to right) DW Howe, Justin Murray and W.J. Robinson.

THEY ARE: Devil’s Hollow Trio

THE MEMBERS: Justin Murray, guitar, vocals; DW Howe, bass, vocals; W.J. Robinson, drums

THE SOUND: Soulful blues with some funk and rock mixed in. “We’re trying to go for the head-bopping, booty-shaking thing,” Murray said. “I don’t want to bring anybody down or get too deep. We want to make sure everybody’s having a good time.”

The guys get the crowd going with catchy party songs such as “The Guadalupe Blues,” which includes the line “Let’s go down to the Guadalupe / We’ll get high and have a real good time.” But they also have darker material, such as “Whiskey Song,” which is about “personal demons and addictions,” Murray said.

THE BACKGROUND: Murray, Howe and the trio’s original drummer were playing in another band — “kind of a Nickelback thing, it wasn’t really us,” Murray said — when, drinking beers and listening to live music in Gruene Hall one night three years ago, they decided to start their own project.

“I think we had one rehearsal and decided to quit the other band,” Murray said. They named themselves after a creek behind Murray’s Canyon Lake home.

Robinson joined the band just a few months ago after the original drummer quit. The trio had been recording in the home studio that belonged to Dub Robinson, guitarist for the Drugstore Cowboys and father of W.J. “I’d just hear them all day, and Justin was really shredding the guitar. As soon as they called me, I knew I’d fit in the band just right,” W.J. Robinson said.

THE ALBUM: The band is finishing up an EP, which it plans to release at Sam’s on the Fourth of July.

WEB SITE: myspace.com/devilshollowtrio

CHECK THEM OUT: You can usually find the guys jamming outdoors near a river, like the River Road Icehouse in New Braunfels, where they’ll play on Thursday, July 3.

They also will headline the Fourth of July festival at Sam’s Burger Joint and play at Main Street Bar on Saturday, July 5, before going a mini-tour of the West Coast in mid-July.

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor