Fresh from a summer spent on tour with Dierks Bentley and the release of their acclaimed debut EP ‘Sweet Southern Summer' (our review here) The Band Loula are quickly making their mark as one of the most exciting new acts in country music. The North Georgia duo, known for their swampgrass sound, soulful harmonies and sharp storytelling, have also joined Bentley for a powerful live cover of ‘Get Down On Your Knees and Pray.'
Later this month they’ll cross the Atlantic for their first-ever UK shows, bringing their mix of grit, gospel and southern charm to a brand-new audience. I caught up with them to talk about the EP, life on the road and what’s next as they continue their rapid rise. You can buy tickets to their UK shows in London, York and Glasgow right here.
Thanks for much for your time today guys, we appreciate it! It's nearly time to introduce yourselves to the UK!
Logan: We're so excited to be coming over to meet everyone and play our songs to a whole new bunch of people! We're thankful to be doing it, it's unbelievable.
Let's start at the beginning before we dive into the new EP. Can you tell me a little bit about how you two met, the town in Georgia that inspired your name – the origin story of The Band Loula if you will!
Logan: Malachi and I met when we were about 14 years old. Funnily enough, we love to tell this story, but we met doing karaoke! We were at a cancer benefit event and I was with my cheerleading squad who had just done a really terrible rendition of a Justin Bieber song! I had been cast as Justin for that and had just got off the stage and Malachi got up to sing a Percy Sledge song – that was the first time I ever saw him!
Our lives started coming together in different ways – our friend groups started to mix, going to homecoming with each other, you know? I moved to his church, we started singing there too. I grew up in a town called Lula, Georgia and that is the name of the town we are named after. It was wild – I think our moms might have even known of each other before we born too! We might have even been in the same hospital at the same time because our birthdays are at the same time of the year as well!
At what point did the two of you look at each other in the face and say ‘We can do this for a living?'
Malachi: I think it was more like looking at each other and having a conversation about what we had to stop doing for a living before we could actually take this to the next level! Logan was a professional photographer – she was amazing at it, she still is amazing at it. We have a huge advantage there as a band because Logan leads all our visuals! I was surprised she'd consider stopping photography to do this because she was awesome! (laughing)
The moment that we officially decided to start doing this I was in a Publix parking lot and I'd just got a big box of fried chicken – I can remember because of the smell! We'd done some Youtube videos together and Logan had got some calls asking us to come and play a set in a bar or at weddings but I really believed that we should start writing original music together. So that was when we decided to create this thing – next to a bucket of fried chicken in a grocery store car park! (laughing)
You've got this ‘swampgrass' soundbite attached to you, which is really on-point but I can hear lots of influences in your music, right up to some Led Zeppelin in the end part of ‘Running off the Angels.' Who were your musical heroes growing up?
Logan: This question also stumps both of us because we both listen to a LOT of of music from many different genres. Personally I consumed so much music in high school as phones and iPods really became a thing – throw in a childhood influenced by Gospel music and I would say there was such a wide range of styles at play. Church music at my family's tent revival was where I learned harmonies and learned how to sing.
Once I started exploring music in middle and high school I would say a real hero of mine would be Adele. No Doubt and Gwen Stefani was huge for me and other women that were singing outside of the box. I love Jason Isbell, I think he is a beautiful songwriter and I also listen to a lot of alternative rock – bands like Third Eye Blind and Kings of Leon. I hang my hat on a lot of Johnny Cash too.
Malachi pulls a little more Motown and Bluegrass. Since we've become friends I find myself listening to more things like the SteelDrivers because of him and artists like Bill Withers, Percy Sledge and that kinda Motown feel.
A lot of your songs have very dramatic cinematic lyrics or really sharp observations. Are films and movies an inspiration to you both?
Malachi: We are always thinking about the bigger vision when we write a song, the life of the song after we've recorded it. Logan is so visually creative that it helps us to paint these pictures that you are describing. It comes naturally to us and we enjoy it. We're hoping to connect with people and we're always looking for ideas, phrases and feelings that can help people identify with what we are singing about.
My favourite song of yours so far is ‘Karma's the Devil' – I love it when that song explodes. It must be a fun song to play live – where does it go in your set?
Malachi: Nice! We usually play that song somewhere right up the front of the set to set the pace for what's to come!
‘Running off the Angels' is a very evocative, cinematic song. What inspired the lyrics to that song?
Logan: That song is very special to us. When we wrote it we didn't think we'd be playing it live as often as we do. We weren't sure people would enjoy it or connect with it in the same way that we did – we thought about just keeping to ourselves for a while. We put it out in March and the internet really connected with it – we gained over 100,000 followers after we put that song out into the world!
It's kinda a shocking song and the lyrics are inspired by my story, specifically. Malachi and I wrote it together with a friend of us, Peytan Porter. We are all cut from the same cloth and we've all had similar experiences growing up. My own experience is very specific and very deep and I'm sure one day I'll get to explain the whole story but it's mostly about my reflections of dealing with church and some really tough things that I've had to deal with in my adult life. I was a worship leader for years but ended up leaving the church altogether and I'm now kinda regaining my faith in organised religion again.
I know that there are some great churches out there and Malachi is such a leader for us – he has to pray each night before we go on stage or I would be a nervous wreck! He shows me what faith can look like and what a great church can look like and that's helped me a lot. The lyrics are a reflection of something that I went through a few years ago – at that time I had never been to therapy before and it was a beautiful way for me to express my thoughts and for Malachi and Peytan to express their thoughts and help create a a song for everybody.
On the flip side of that, you mentioned therapy. A song like ‘Can't Please ‘Em All' is also like therapy I think, a very different kind of therapy but still healing all the same.
Malachi: Yeah, I would say so. The truth is in the title there. Sometimes you fall into the trap of being a people pleaser and I think we need to remind people that it's more important and less confusing to stand for something, without being mean or judgemental: you will never make everyone happy or please everyone but you will be at peace with yourself.
You recorded the EP with John Osborne, who we are big fans of. What was it like working with him?
Malachi: Oh man. John produced a huge part of the EP and then there were some additional production from Greg Bieck. Both were very generous with us on this project in terms of their time and skills.
When you listen to John's production on things like Ashley McBryde's ‘Lindeville' album the beauty comes in the silences that he creates – which is fascinating given he is a guitar man!
Malachi: It's pretty cool working with someone like him. Usually he doesn't touch a guitar until after band tracking is done, that was how he worked with us. Whenever the tracking was done, he came in with his guitar playing and sometimes he did a lot of amazing things with that and then other times it was very minimal. That's what makes a great producer – that knowledge and skill to have the discretion to know what to do when for the sake of the song.
Another artist that's figured large in your lives so far is Dierks Bentley. You've been out on the road all summer with him and you've just released the cover of ‘Get Down on Your Knees and Pray' with him. What lessons have you learned from him as an artist, performer and genre leader?
Logan: There's so many lessons we learned from him – I could sit here all day and read the list if you wanted me to! (laughing) We did 35 shows with him this summer and Malachi and I liked to watch both him and Zach Top from various places around the venue. I wanted to see it from all angles. The operation he ran was so totally different to anything else we've ever experienced. It's a lot larger than any tour we've ever been and you can tell that both Zach and Dierks are so good with their people – you can see it trickle down throughout their whole teams.
I can't tell you how many times I've cried this tour! Most of the time it was when I was sitting there side-stage watching Dierks' show because the songs he was singing reminded me of the kid I was in 7th grade waiting to get picked up from school in my brother's beat up truck! Those same songs I listened to back then I'm now watching from the side of stage sung by somebody I'm grateful I can call a friend, right? That's insane! So special to me.
Him giving somebody like us an opportunity to play with him is a lesson that can be learned in itself. To reach down from where you are and all you've done to give the little guy an opportunity, knowing that no-one knows who we are – wow! That's the first lesson. The way he treats his team is also a lesson and the way Dierks conducts himself around them and around everyone else – he's just a regular guy in a ball cap – no airs or graces or egos. That's a big lesson to us. We are truly changed as both artists and people after touring with Dierks and we will be forever grateful for that.
We're so looking forward to getting to see you play some live shows in the UK in a couple of weeks. What are you looking forward to the most about being here, outside of the shows. Have you got any sight-seeing plans?
Malachi: We've got a pretty compact trip planned but we'll try and see as much as we can. We're excited to see London and the architecture and history of the place.
Logan: I'd love to see a couple of antique markets! Every where we go, out on the road, I'm always like, ‘Hey, can you pull over at this place because I need a couple of things for the house!' (laughing) I have had a couple of people tell about some good vintage and antique markets I should check out. Hopefully we will have some time to check out those things.
I'm really looking forward to meeting the people over there. We're at Warner Nashville and there's a lot of those folks over there and folks at Universal Music publishing to say hi to alongside the fans. The Opry show is happening at the Royal Albert Hall whilst we are there so I think we might go and check that out because we have some friends, like Ashley McBryde, that are playing there that night. We're just excited to meet some new people and play our music for y'all.
Go check out The Band Loula's UK shows in London on September 24th, York on the 25th and Glasgow on the 27th. Tickets right here.
