Lola Amour talk self-titled debut album: "We're glad it's finally out!"

It's been scorching hot in Manila and Lola Amour definitely have something to do with it.

You can't deny how insane the heat has been. You touch the ground, it burns. You raise your hand up in the air, and something unholy breathes through your fingers. Even the water coming out of the pipes feels like it went on a little field trip through the core of the Earth. But little did you know, this heat was due to the fact that the country has been preparing itself for Lola Amour's eponymous debut album to finally drop.

The 9-track record, which features the funk-pop act's hit 'Raining in Manila' (a song that over 55,000 people sang along to when the band shared the stage with Coldplay) and 'Namimiss Ko Na', offers a good time through cheerful melodies, horn solos, and a whole lot of disco. It will likely be your best friend through the summer and a hand to hold when the rain finally comes.

Ahead of their album launch this weekend, Bandwagon caught up with Lola Amour to talk about their freshly released debut album, the work that went into it, and their plans for the rest of the year.

You open strong with ‘Umiinit’. Out of all the songs on the album, why else did you choose this song to open it?

We wanted to have a strong, upbeat song to start up the album and when we were looking at our album repertoire we decided that 'Umiinit' was the perfect song that would get our listeners hooked to our album. The intro of the track sounded perfect to start the journey. It's a fun song that just makes you want to dance and sway when you hear it!

Writing music as a band is always a collaborative effort. Tell us about your process and how you went about songwriting for the album. 

What usually happens is the songwriter (usually Raymond or Pio) shows up to the rehearsals with an idea or a skeleton of a song and then the rest of the band would flesh out the arrangements and make the rest of the parts.

What was the timeframe like working on this album? 

Some songs were written as early as 2015 ('This Ain't Love'), another in 2018 ('Part II Bliss'), two songs in 2020 ('If I Ever Come Back', 'Umiinit' (which had a lot of changes)), and the rest were worked on from 2022 to 2023. We've been promising this album for a good 5-6 years now and we're glad it's finally out!

Tell us about the personnel behind the album and their contributions. Any producers you worked with? 

The album was self-produced and recorded in Spryta Production Inc. with Rene Serna as our recording engineer. It was mixed by Jorel Corpus and mastered by Jett Galindo.

Let’s talk about the album art. Who did you work with and what inspired the artwork?

Fun fact: Initially, the single art for 'Namimiss Ko Na' with the lolo and lola was supposed to be our album art. It was shot back in July 2023 and was initially supposed to be released last October, despite it being summer-themed. We didn't expect 'Raining in Manila' to explode the way that it did. We didn't plan on going on another tour. It was a pleasant surprise, but it meant we had to delay our album. When we finally had time to work on the album again, we realized that the lolo and lola cover would be perfect for 'Namimiss Ko Na' and that it would make much more sense to have the entire band in the cover since it's a self-titled album. 

If you actually check the band photos for 'Namimiss Ko Na', you'd notice that the guys (especially Manu) look different vs the solo photos.

For the final album art, we requested for it to be aligned with the 'Namimiss Ko Na' cover and band photos—bright, sunny, and showed their playful personalities. We're glad to have the same photographer, Renzo Navarro, and our prod, TwoFold back for this.

You already had an album in the works just when ‘Raining in Manila’ blew up, but decided to scrap it completely. Did you keep and rework any old material that made its way to the album? 

There were definitely songs that had major rework. 'Umiinit' was actually a track we started writing back in 2019/2020, but it sounded completely different. It used to be an English song and we started recording it with our previous members, Joxx, and Renzo. We revisited the track when we started working on the album again last year and we made a lot of changes as our music has evolved since. We were actually working on around 16-18 songs, and these were the ones that made the cut!  

If you each had to pick one song from your debut album to introduce a new listener to, which one would it be and why?

Zoe: 'Saan Kakapit'. It's an easy song to listen to and a really fun instrumental part in the middle. 
Jeff: 'If I Ever Come Back'. One of the best parts of this song is the choir that comes near the end of the song.

Following the release of your album, what do you have in store for fans in 2024? 

This year, we are planning on going on another nationwide tour, but with fewer tour stops than our previous 'Fallen' and 'Raining in Manila' tours. Another thing on our wish list would be to perform more shows overseas. We had so much fun in Singapore last year (Thanks to Bandwagon!!) and we hope to perform in other countries like Indonesia and especially Japan! 

Stream Lola Amour's self-titled debut album below.