Lola Amour On Breakthroughs, Growth, And Maturity With Upcoming Album ‘Love On Loop’

It’s been more than a year since Lola Amour have come out with their self-titled debut album.

The funk-pop seven-piece have been since gearing up to release their sophomore album entitled Love On Loop set for release on August 15. In its eight tracks (which you can learn more about here), the group explore a love cycle of sorts, shifting from “The Moment” you fall head over heels for a significant other, to coming to terms with your mistakes in “Did My Time.” This sequence, according to Pio and Manu Dumayas, Zoe Gonzales, Angelo Mesina, David Yuhico, Jeff Abueg, and Raffy Perez of Lola Amour, is fully intentional, and a conscious shift from their previous creative process.

In an exclusive interview with Billboard Philippines, the band’s frontman and vocalist Pio Dumayas says, “With this album, it comes with more maturity and at least, as an artist, with our craft, we were able to think of a story first. Parang yun yung philosophy na (That was our philosophy,) ‘story first.’ Authenticity, the genuineness of all the emotions and connecting all the dots.” With creative input from each member, the record fleshed out to be, in Mesina’s words, “A cohesive body of work.”

In addition to its thematic cohesiveness, the upcoming full-length feature involves a cohesiveness of sound – even despite being expressed in various genres. Within eight tracks, the band vary from city pop-reminiscent funk to synth pop, to a mellow folk ballad. In their press conference launching the album, Pio notes, “This is the sound we wanted to achieve and they helped us do it.” Rather than describing the change as a “switch up,” he says, “It’s just that we found out how we could achieve this sound.”

“Dati, kami lang nag-p-produce, kami lang nagiisip, at kami lang nag-a-arrange, and all that. So, it was hard to bring it into the sound that we exactly wanted without someone to guide us.”

(Before, it was just us who would produce, create, and arrange [our music] and all that. So, it was hard to bring it into the sound that we exactly wanted without someone to guide us)

And that’s precisely where Hyuk Shin (Justin Bieber, EXO, NCT, Anderson .Paak, and more) and CUURLEY (CHUU, FELIP, Jeff Natur, Patrickananda, and more) come in.

Lola Amour had previously met Hyuk Shin and CUURLEY at an international music camp, Pio details, where they had also met their collaborator on the album’s third track “One Day Away,” RIIKI REID. After initially connecting at this music camp, the seven-piece flew to Malaysia for a week to produce precisely the kind of sound they’d always sought out, this time with the help of industry-seasoned producers.

The shift in the creative process by having producers like Hyuk Shin and CUURLEY involved was palpable to each member. In the way Raffy put it, the pair helped Lola Amour change their approach for studio recordings, “‘Cause normally, our approach would be, ‘Would this fit for a live setting?’ Kasi (Because) the culture here talaga in the Philippines is that we’re gonna gig all the time, so we have to write a song na — of course, it’s still really personal to us — but can it translate live?”

Rather, the two producers reinforced an idea of performing solely for the studio recording. “The producers really taught us na, you’re not on stage, let’s just make the most out of it in a studio, so that if a listener listens to your song, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is it. This is their peak performance in the studio.'”

This wasn’t the band’s only breakthrough sonically, but Lola Amour also collaborated with two international artists in this record — “One Day Away” with RIIKI REID and “The Moment” with PSYCHIC FEVER’s KOKORO. For Lola Amour, working with KOKORO was a smooth and easy process; one that showed them that even an artist as (in their words) “up there” as KOKORO would be humble and responsible in their work ethic. They similarly shared awe in New Zealand power vocalist RIIKI REID’s dedication to her craft.

Pio describes, “She’s a great lyricist also. Ang bilis niyang magsulat, she really knows what she wants, and her voice is so good. Isipin mo yan ha, day five na yan ah, paos na siya tapos ganun boses niya sa track. Galing talaga, galing. I was inspired kasi eh, you don’t see her falter.”

(She’s a great lyricist also. She writes really fast, she really knows what she wants, and her voice is so good. Imagine, it was already day five, her voice was really hoarse but really amazing on the track. She’s really great. I was inspired because you don’t see her falter.)

Having fleshed the album out and dropped three pre-release singles leading up to the record’s premiere, the band express a mixture of nervousness and excitement in debuting Love On Loop. Mesina details, “Siyempre (Of course), [we’re] nervous, because we’ve been preparing and we don’t know how people are gonna receive it — but we’re also excited… It’s gonna be our sophomore album, so we’re excited how it’s gonna be received, but at the same time, it’s also a part of us that we want to share with the audience and fans.”

On that note, Raffy adds, “Regardless of what the reception will be (like), we’re extremely proud of this album and we hope at least some people can really take in what we want to show them.”

In anticipation of Love On Loop, listen to “The Moment” (with KOKORO) here: