Despite being half-Indonesian, Ed Riman has only ever visited the country as a tourist, not a musician. “Most of my Indonesian trips have been to visit family or travel around, so it’s very exciting to perform at UK/ID Festival,” he gushed. At the same time, the presence of family members during his performance still racked his nerves, especially since it was the first time they had seen him perform. “But it was a lot of fun. The audience was very lovely and I was proud to be a part of it,” the Londoner confirmed.
Ed is also proud of his mixed heritage and uses it to his advantage, especially for artistic purposes. “‘Hilang’ is Indonesian for ‘missing’ so I thought Hilang Child made a cool stage name. It kind of stuck and I got used to it,” he explained. He chose a moniker due to not wanting to be known by his real name when he first started singing. “I was so terrified of my musician friends hearing my voice. I wanted a fake name so no one would know it was me singing,” he reminisced.
Although at present known as a singer and songwriter, he began his music career by playing drums in bands and sessions for 10 years. “I didn’t get into singing and songwriting until about 4 or 5 years ago. I sort of got tired of never being able to play my own songs, and I wanted a creative output for myself,” he said. Gradually, his creative process has shifted over the years. “For a long time, I would have the skeleton of a song on the piano. Then I would record it and add layer after layer to see what worked and what didn’t,” he elaborated. As he started to take a more active role in producing his own music, Ed said that nowadays he might create a song by building its sound first. Nonetheless, one thing remains the same.
“It’s always an organic process because I never plan anything. There’s not an actual process I follow each time.”
