An Interview with Mo Lowda & the Humble

2:52 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? I am Scoobert Doobert, and welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with the incredible band Mo Lowda & the Humble. What's good, guys?

3:01 Mo Lowda & the Humble Hello, Hey! how's it going? I'm Jadlus, man.

3:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah, for sure. Could you each introduce yourselves so that we can know who's who for all the listeners?

3:11 Mo Lowda & the Humble I'm Jeff. Jordan, Shane, Kirby.

3:16 Luke F. Walton Sweet. I'm Scoob. So the first question that I want to ask y'all is you are coming out with your fifth studio record. What's it like doing the fifth record versus the first record?

3:29 Mo Lowda & the Humble The first we were in college. I don't know. I think there's been some growth in maturity since then. I guess amount of options we had on this one. We recorded it.

3:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble in uh five different studios across the country which was really fun to kind of branch out in that way you come into it with a different mind state and you know our first album we had 10 songs and you record those 10 songs and you you're like this is great

3:55 Mo Lowda & the Humble You know now we have all worked in studios long enough and have written music long enough that we have much higher standards and I think with that come more Detail oriented writing but also kind of this understanding of letting the song take its own shape during the process So I think there's just a lot of things that you learn along the way, you know, we're all coming from it at this point as for

4:18 Mo Lowda & the Humble Guys who have produced other projects and you know these guys work heavily in the studios You know we've all written quite a bit of music at this point So it's fun to come at it from a new angle. I think of just like I said more life experience and music experience

4:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I love that. In terms of the songwriting, part writing, arranging, how much of that was done in pre-production, actually in the studio? How did that kind of play out?

4:42 Mo Lowda & the Humble I think this time around we wrote a lot of it ahead of time it was Yeah. very very much like the old way of just sitting in a room just working on arrangements together I think only one song came together in the studio but we had the first half written and then basically kind of knew what we were going to do in the second half we just had to hash it out and we would hash it out before we got to the studio had we had the time you know we were just going in so we got basically the studio day to do that there's a couple songs that were like some demos we're throwing around

5:08 Mo Lowda & the Humble But more and more so I'd say was jam jam in a room kind of classic way of writing music

5:14 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah we would rent cabins for that purpose you know three four days at a time to just you set up your instruments on day one you have dinner you come back next morning you start working and kind of kept that flow and I think that's a great way of doing it and then you know you have

5:31 Mo Lowda & the Humble a batch of songs ready to go next time you're in the studio and I think it was really nice we kind of worked in threes and fours you know it's easy to be like oh what if oh that's a great tone for that song we worked on you know you know seven songs ago it's easy to get go down the rabbit hole but when you go to a studio with four songs that you need to knock out I think it keeps you really focused and I think that was something kind of new for us

5:55 Luke F. Walton I

5:55 Mo Lowda & the Humble I

5:55 Luke F. Walton love it. Where were the cabins located?

5:58 Mo Lowda & the Humble Let's see, Lake Travis, Texas, Clearwater, California, Tennessee, yeah, Piney Flats, Tennessee, and then the studios were in Joshua Tree, Denver, Austin, you know, Lake Travis, so beautiful places all around, very inspiring.

6:15 Luke F. Walton That sounds awesome. Yeah. Do you feel like the different locations inspired different songs or kind of brought different things out of you?

6:22 Mo Lowda & the Humble I think it just, you know, at the very least it kept us really stoked on where we were. You know, there's only so many times you can work out of the same spot or especially when you're in your hometown or home studio and feel inspired. It's different when you're working on a song that you are already stoked on. You look out the window and it's a desertscape or a mountain range or a lake.

6:42 Mo Lowda & the Humble You know, I think that was kind of the main thing. I don't think we're out here writing about deserts and cacti, but I think... Just being in those places kind of lifts all the spirits and you realize you're really lucky to be doing what you do.

6:54 Unverified it also added like a good flow to everything too because it was like we spend the day then we would make lunch and kind of just like be about the place where we were making you know whether it be a living room or kind of makeshift studio that we brought it added to the flow of like it being low pressure but still having our work ethic about it where

7:16 Unverified you know we would kind of not set hours but when everybody was feeling it we would go in and map stuff out break for lunch come back break for dinner come back that kind of thing so it just kind of felt like easy and

7:27 Mo Lowda & the Humble We're

7:27 Unverified you comfortable. know comfortable yeah

7:28 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah

7:28 Unverified yeah

7:28 Mo Lowda & the Humble i mean do that if you're just in a studio like when i'm here with people for three days in a row it's like cabin fever like kind of hard to figure out how to spend the extracurricular time while not wasting time kind of thing but we didn't have to worry about that we could just go for an hour and then someone needs to go do something weird or something

7:47 Mo Lowda & the Humble Ha ha ha ha ha! like that you know someone kind

7:49 Unverified It's so weird.

7:50 Mo Lowda & the Humble of like something like because if you remember

7:52 Unverified That's

7:52 Mo Lowda & the Humble i don't like then only a couple people are then in the room left then you have this organic just two people worked on something that needed to get worked out and then

8:00 Mo Lowda & the Humble they roll then someone else comes in and so like there's like this round robin happening too so like time is like efficient no one feels like wasted time is being wasted if we're not drilling you know what i mean so like in the studio i think like you don't get that luxury unless you have a serious amount of money and get to do that but i don't think that's reality for a lot of people anymore it's Yeah.

8:18 Mo Lowda & the Humble definitely not us

8:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah, and there's like a certain benefit to creative constraints too, right? Like if you had infinite time and infinite money, you could end up like Chinese democracy. democracy situation curious

8:27 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yes.

8:28 Unverified Yeah

8:29 Luke F. Walton in terms of when you know it's time to take a break or when you know it's time to call it for the day are there like any indicators as a band that's been together for like in a long time and are you able to like read it on each other's face like okay it's it's time to call it yeah

8:43 Mo Lowda & the Humble I think we're pretty damn good at that. Usually if someone's like, all right, okay, let's take a minute. It's usually they're just the first one to pipe up and say that. You know everybody's not like what really we were just getting into something it's

8:55 Luke F. Walton Right.

8:55 Mo Lowda & the Humble always feel that and we hang out with each other

8:58 Unverified Yeah.

8:58 Mo Lowda & the Humble quite a bit that you just know and I think also comfortable you know I don't know who I heard say it but I've really kept this with me for at least the last year or two in writing and it's this feeling of like you don't want to ditch an idea because you always think it's going to be your last good idea.

9:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

9:15 Mo Lowda & the Humble And I think just knowing that having the confidence in the fact that we're going to write another good one, we're going to write a hundred good ones, let the spark go because that is the roadblock. throw it in another song or just let it marinate

9:28 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah. you know for years who cares there's a graveyard of songs there might as well be a graveyard of parks and that's okay and i think just not letting that slow up the momentum is huge

9:38 Mo Lowda & the Humble that's that's a very strong thing to learn though that takes i think that's i'm still working on that i'm definitely better than i have ever been i'd say but that's that was always a hang-up being younger and having access to a studio and like the feeling like time's running out so you have to do it But you know,

9:53 Mo Lowda & the Humble Mm yeah, these -hmm. are yeah in the writing process rather than the recording process. I'm talking strictly writing Yeah,

9:59 Mo Lowda & the Humble no

9:59 Unverified yeah

9:59 Mo Lowda & the Humble no i agree no everything you're saying is true i'm just saying like i'm just i've gotten better at that personally is what i'm just trying to say because it's always plagued me but i don't feel it nearly as hard I think it's important to end on a good note to like we've tried this song for four hours

10:13 Mo Lowda & the Humble we just about have it let's let's get it done and let's make sure it's done but like i'm not going to be like all right let me let me learn a new part right now after playing for 10 to 12 hours and

10:22 Unverified Yeah.

10:23 Mo Lowda & the Humble then you won't feel good going to sleep because then you're like leaving in the middle of something like these guys are

10:28 Unverified Then there are some moments where it's like we're kind of packing up and then like someone does a riff and then everybody's like re-inspired and it's like wait what was that like let's get that before we wrap tonight, you know that kind of thing

10:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble I think that happens every time I

10:40 Unverified Yeah,

10:40 Mo Lowda & the Humble know

10:40 Unverified yeah

10:40 Mo Lowda & the Humble I know I was the last pack up because it feels like I always like like trying to squeeze more out of it

10:46 Unverified Yeah, yeah

10:48 Luke F. Walton What's good guys Scoobert Doobert here for the love music more podcast and I want to let you in on a little secret one of my favorite new things Minuendo lossless earplugs. So these are really really really cool.

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12:20 Luke F. Walton get cracking i think that's like one of the coolest things about bands i feel like a lot of people now including myself do a lot of just like in the room alone noodling i guess you're talking about each of you producing records i'm sure that you each have experience doing a lot of that too there's something magic about that interpersonal especially with people you've played with for a long time and you can kind of see where their head's going like you can kind of read their mind you hear that riff you're like oh i see how that can work in or i see where we can go

12:47 Luke F. Walton Oh, can you talk a little bit about that kind of energy?

12:50 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah i think that's kind of the energy behind what we did on this one yeah this record's like that

12:55 Mo Lowda & the Humble very all much about that so you talk about kernels jack like having that little seed that like you said you you can usually hear if there's potential and um fleshing that out all together and making things work in a room is it's like that thing that you know i think we all started playing music

13:13 Mo Lowda & the Humble to feel you know that that first time you jammed with somebody else and locked in for even a split second that same pocket or whatever it's like oh okay I see you know there's so much human connection in music and it starts with that playing as a unit it might get easy you know to sometimes have that be lost on you when you've been playing with a band as long as we have but I think there's still moments like like Kirby was talking about that reinspire you

13:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble I'm not sure if that answers the question. i feel that same especially going in this writing in just studio for a while you're like by yourself you get stoked on playing in a band situation playing with people get used to it because you're a human and you adapt you start doing things from me and a lot of people you start going in the studio making music by yourself it's fucking kind of lonely you realize and then you get reintroduced to like expedience and connection of playing with someone you're like

14:05 Mo Lowda & the Humble oh my it's good i love this again i mean but i it's like a practice to stay grateful for that because man i tell myself like not over but like tired and like not feeling it i was doing this as my day job like i told myself that the version of me five years ago would be doing this and that's what he would have to be doing that's what he was obligated or like i'd be like wow what a dream like

14:26 Unverified Yeah.

14:26 Mo Lowda & the Humble you know what i Yeah, mean like

14:27 Unverified I

14:27 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah and then

14:27 Unverified can continually do that. Like, yeah, we'll

14:29 Mo Lowda & the Humble exactly

14:29 Unverified have like 15

14:29 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah

14:29 Unverified year olds still say,

14:30 Mo Lowda & the Humble that's

14:30 Unverified right? Like, oh

14:31 Mo Lowda & the Humble a great my

14:31 Unverified gosh.

14:31 Mo Lowda & the Humble guy that's your best dude you're like you're like i'll give myself a fucking big ass high five i don't even give high fives and give

14:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble zero fives I get given that one.

14:43 Luke F. Walton i'm just a high five taker that's all yeah

14:45 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah, yeah. I get given high fives.

14:51 Luke F. Walton Let them come to me. Yeah. Speaking of hard work, I saw y'all's tour dates. That's just the first leg?

15:00 Mo Lowda & the Humble it's like yeah it

15:00 Luke F. Walton jeez nice

15:02 Mo Lowda & the Humble was took a couple months off This is a light year for us.

15:05 Luke F. Walton nice can you talk about uh road routines how do you stay fresh for the marathon that is your first leg of your schedule cool

15:13 Mo Lowda & the Humble just have fun yeah yeah it's easy when the shows are good it's hard when the shows But we

15:18 Luke F. Walton That's a good point.

15:19 Mo Lowda & the Humble are very fortunate that we've sort of always, whether it's really slowly or incrementally, we've always grown. We've never had a tour besides maybe the first post-COVID where you'd go to a place that you previously sold X amount of tickets and you sold less the next time, which is always going to be a little discouraging. But that was just kind of the state of the world at the time.

15:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble The next time we went out, it was great again. But all it takes is... a great crowd to send you happy and packing to that next show people come out to shows on tuesdays and wednesdays like they've lives and they're spending that amount of time with us and having a bit of a late night maybe on a school night you know i

15:58 Luke F. Walton Right.

15:59 Mo Lowda & the Humble i respect anybody that comes with any sort of energy To our shows and they often do it's rare that we we walk away from one scratching our head and like where was that, you know, where were they tonight?

16:10 Mo Lowda & the Humble We also have the fortune too of like playing really cool places and that just like continues to be like oh we're going here next we're going here next it's like it doesn't get old in that respect even if it's been you know a town that we've been to 10-15 times there's always new little pockets that we discover or people invite us to places and so it's just like

16:32 Mo Lowda & the Humble You know, we're excited to go back to this one place again because of this or and then that just keeps like revealing itself over and over again.

16:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble It makes those seemingly long list of dates not feel as long because we know that like there's something exciting coming up, like obviously the show, but then there's, you know, maybe a museum or something that we haven't been to or an experience that happens that, you know, facilitates the show being awesome too.

16:59 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah i think taking advantage of like where you are on the off days like kirby saying is important like if we're in seattle or we're in san diego or colorado or something like on the tour we'll be like let's take off sunday monday tuesday this time we usually have a studio dates but you

17:12 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

17:13 Mo Lowda & the Humble know and just like let's explore let's go hiking let's see what the city has let's have yeah let's go in the river let's like see what's fun or what we like to do and you don't feel like you're Working as much because you might have eight on days with driving and shows coming up so you might as well enjoy your time while you have it.

17:34 Luke F. Walton I've got some big news, everybody. My vinyl record is out. We didn't make a ton of these. These guys are going to sell out and I'd love for you to get your hands on one of them because they're so dope. And it comes with a whole bunch of like liner notes and pictures and special stuff, the things that really went into making this record.

17:50 Luke F. Walton And I want you to get your hands on it. So go to scoobertdoobert.pizza or check out my Instagram for a link or click the link in the show notes or the...

18:00 Luke F. Walton the bio or wherever you're watching this to pick up your copy you know they're gonna sell out we really did not make very many of these and i want you to have it it's it's like a collector's item so thank you thank you for supporting my music and i can't wait for you to hear it actually on physical vinyl enjoy the rest of the episode

18:17 Mo Lowda & the Humble We have like really great fans too and they just like are just so giving to us and been very fortunate to go to a place in you know like Buena Vista Colorado they'll

18:27 Mo Lowda & the Humble Oh, take us yeah. rafting down the river and

18:29 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

18:29 Mo Lowda & the Humble like you just can't yeah golfing like you just can't like buy that kind of experience it's just we've been so fortunate with thankfully the music that we make people relate to it and like it and want to share their lives with us and so it's like we're just so fortunate to be able to do that yeah

18:43 Mo Lowda & the Humble We also really like to hang and we play small places. So it's like you're face to face with us. I think what that's done is create all these great little pockets of friends that,

18:54 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah totally you know, we're circling that date on our calendar. They are also circling that date while that is coming back in town and it's not just to see us play live, yeah it's to hang out.

19:03 Mo Lowda & the Humble and we're getting texts from people like hey i see you're coming through like let's hang yeah

19:07 Mo Lowda & the Humble It's cool. i share all these sentiments and to tie it into the record i think the last tour was my favorite because for me like all these things are great i love hanging with all these people but a little bit aware of the driving every day and tiring like never getting a little bit of recharge personal time can kind of wear

19:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:22 Mo Lowda & the Humble and that's the way i spend time at home and i have this studio and i kind of like just in belt and all the time it takes so much to just keep everything up to date so i'm kind of used to always being involved with music and when you're on tour you're just like form drive perform drive you don't get this like you're really not in belt and like playing or writing music unless you make time for it that's one because we have the goal

19:42 Mo Lowda & the Humble off days or studio writing days I really enjoyed it because it was like we were doing all these things we already aforementioned but we also peppered in like staying on top of like being involved with what it is to write music or actually just

19:56 Mo Lowda & the Humble play it for enjoyment versus just perform it for an audience and that's something in the early days that was left out for me and I was like after a while I'd be like I feel a little weird because I didn't like do something I regularly do at home which would be just like pick up a guitar play an instrument

20:10 Mo Lowda & the Humble But we got that chance this time on the roads and it really made a difference for me for like getting the full scale of the hang and also just the side of me that like needs to kind of keep that part of my personality fed like, you know, being involved in music. That was a huge part of this record actually.

20:27 Luke F. Walton I like that. And I hear you too, because yeah, playing versus recording, it's just, it feels very different. It's both music, both very fun, but it is like.

20:35 Luke F. Walton two sides of the same coin kind of energy of something extremely ephemeral and something that will last forever you know but it's both music yeah that's an interesting curious how do you guys pick middle of nowhere you're driving uh how do you pick the like random fast food or something that you're going to pick

20:52 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah we

20:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:52 Mo Lowda & the Humble just skip sometimes i just will not eat if it's like an appetizer i just won't eat any beef jerky or succumb to like you're like all right it's nine o'clock we're getting to the destination hour i'm eating at the qt

21:04 Mo Lowda & the Humble Whatever, That's but yeah, a teddy bear. we try to we do a pretty decent job. We

21:08 Mo Lowda & the Humble We do. took really like a strict don't we really don't fast food sometimes That's where man

21:11 Mo Lowda & the Humble Sometimes we're desperate and we'll go for it or we've been like out partying and we're on our way back to the hotel and we're like,

21:16 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah, all right We'll go to Jack in the box, but it's not every night But in a row.

21:20 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah, that was our but besides that one we slipped up for a full week but Yeah besides that we were pretty good we found Whole Foods Loads of it.

21:31 Mo Lowda & the Humble We went to double cheeseburger rehab. Chitty burger. Took like eight years to figure out what makes me shit my pants and now I'm good, you know.

21:40 Luke F. Walton now that we have those data points we're uh yeah

21:42 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah, yeah.

21:42 Luke F. Walton yeah

21:42 Mo Lowda & the Humble The data is in for sure. Yeah, we'll do like we'll do we'll try to do whole foods or like the friendly fast food that's like kava or chipotle or something. Places where you can still get grilled meat and veggies.

21:56 Luke F. Walton I hear that. In terms of instrument maintenance from physical instruments like strings breaking, cymbals snapping.

22:05 Luke F. Walton vocal maintenance how do you guys kind of make sure that you're you're in tip-top shape you're you're kind of mending the things that inevitably come up on a on a long tour that's

22:13 Mo Lowda & the Humble I take really good care of my drums and I haven't broken a similar stick in like seven or eight years

22:19 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah, so yeah

22:19 Luke F. Walton it's amazing that's amazing yeah

22:20 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah I broke one stick last year that's because I bought these like jazz sticks to see if I

22:25 Mo Lowda & the Humble could play yeah I think we bring backup guitars as much as we can and then I know from a personal standpoint And I dealt with some vocal issues, I guess, 2021. And it was really scary. I was losing my voice a ton.

22:38 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah. And right now I feel as strong as I ever have felt. I have not lost it in a long time. Knock on wood again for me. But, you know, it was definitely like a lifestyle change, you know, but there wasn't a middle ground at that point between staying out till 5 a.m. talking all night and going straight back to the hotel and going to sleep immediately. That was the scary thing.

22:57 Mo Lowda & the Humble It was guaranteed if I stayed up late, it was gone. But at least I had a chance if I went back and slept. But sometimes. sometimes I'd still wake up with nothing I think it's just about like I know I lean in a lot when I'm at a loud bar now I'll apologize and say I'm sorry I'm going to talk really close to you but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna yell over this music because that's really worse than just singing

23:16 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah, I yeah think this is the most I've ever sung in my life between recording and rehearsing and I have solo stuff as well and it's a muscle and it's as strong as it's ever been so I'm gonna just keep that going it was after COVID that I was losing was losing it quite a bit and i absolutely attribute it to the fact that i wasn't using a hearing yeah

23:34 Mo Lowda & the Humble i think that's the biggest the scariest thing is the worst law for sure just one one night could kill you

23:40 Luke F. Walton it's great point about the talking too i feel like that's not talked about enough of yeah you're shouting over the next band or whatever trying to connect and have this really human moment at the merch stand or whatever and uh yeah and you overcompensate yep

23:53 Mo Lowda & the Humble you don't even realize it in the moment you're just you're just talking Just talking loud enough to get it over the music and sometimes you might not even be shouting, but even just projecting past what you normally would is enough sometimes.

24:04 Luke F. Walton super curious about a simple choice because i love love the way the drums sound i was listening to all the stuff that is uh already out for this upcoming release your fifth album curious simple choices they all sound really nice warm sizzly uh and then also do not hit them super hard is that part of your your secret to a to keep

24:22 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah

24:22 Luke F. Walton your sticks and your cymbals fresh?

24:23 Mo Lowda & the Humble i raise my arm up like this and i go sometimes i fucking go to town on them if we're if we're going to town but mostly k's k light hats 16 ish k light ride 22 and i'm using the oriental crash of doom in the solution effects line it's like un even in like yeah it's just super scoot sounding and

24:43 Mo Lowda & the Humble You made a symbol. then I recently made a cymbal with a Smooch Munch when Philly yeah you make your own cymbal so I made like a light ride with him and I'm using that as the other crash but I switch up the crashes all the time whether they're

24:56 Mo Lowda & the Humble like 18 inch abatises or big old rides i don't know whatever the room is whatever sounds nice yeah

25:01 Luke F. Walton So what's the process of making a ride? Are you like hammering it? Like how does this go down?

25:06 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah he basically like would show me and then i would kind of just follow suit for like two hours and just like beat the shit out of it for a really long time and i'd be like like this and he's like no and they're like i've been doing like this for 10 minutes yeah but now he would help me out and then yeah and then laid it decide what kind of bell we want if we want it unlaid or whatever that's cool yeah it was super fun experience oh

25:27 Luke F. Walton do you like melt the bell on top of is that how it works or like do you stick it out and heat it the up okay

25:32 Mo Lowda & the Humble black is pretty much there and the bells are the bells already made

25:38 Luke F. Walton Cool. So it's a matter of attaching that to

25:40 Mo Lowda & the Humble it

25:40 Luke F. Walton I didn't even realize.

25:41 Mo Lowda & the Humble looked like a symbol that was just like super super dark and like heavy and a little more flat than

25:50 Mo Lowda & the Humble that open yeah if

25:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah.

25:52 Mo Lowda & the Humble you want hammer it on one side something with like the atoms and the matter of the metal and how it's made if you don't do the same thing to the other side it's a wet noodle so if you like hammer the one side the symbol is literally like this and then the second you hammer the other side it's like stabilizes the molecules and then and it's super solid really science

26:11 Luke F. Walton so amazing it's so interesting too like how there's like that regional regionality to cymbal making of like like turkey is just where it's at for for symbols is is there a reason behind that is it just like like masters passing it down to apprentices or like what's what's the secret there

26:27 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah i think so they i think they uh like zildjian started they started by making cymbals for the sultan or something like 400 years ago and then like they had to get permission to make musical instruments for sale not just for his use has to do with the government and military and all this shit yeah zildjian's

26:45 Luke F. Walton The more you know, man. That's crazy.

26:47 Mo Lowda & the Humble Oh shit. the oldest uh company in america because they started over there 400 years old yeah

26:52 Mo Lowda & the Humble Before America. So

26:55 Luke F. Walton fascinating the reason why i'm always so fascinated by symbols is i feel like they're so critically important for making rock sound modern because like i feel like in pop production there's just like not a ton of symbols anymore like it's it's like the roll still exists of like excitement high end but it's like fulfilled by other things to make it not sound like you're a 70s cover band or like trying to be like just a classic rock thing you like your music it sounds

27:22 Luke F. Walton like now it sounds like 2025 and i think that cymbals and all of these small choices really really add up to like genre placement or like time localization guitar

27:34 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah, yeah, it's very true.

27:35 Luke F. Walton tones love guitar also i love the sense of room in all of your recordings throughout your entire catalog would just love to hear a little bit about kind of like the way you guys think about it because i do feel like there's this live energy to your music without it sounding live and i really But I really like that intentional.

27:50 Luke F. Walton How do you go about that? Are you trying to capture more of like the studio itself or is this some of like post effect processing or amp based reverb? So like how are you kind of thinking of the sound design of just creating your overall like band's palette?

28:04 Mo Lowda & the Humble I think it's all the above like

28:05 Luke F. Walton Cool.

28:06 Mo Lowda & the Humble you have song song for song riff for riff part for part and sometimes it's just like an in your face sound and sometimes you want it to be a little more bombastic and Organic, or what you guys talk about the guitars, I think A lot of the times it's almost reactive where one person has one sound,

28:23 Mo Lowda & the Humble you make a sound in response to it and sometimes it needs to be reconciled after you record it because we don't do the pre-pro and that requires, you know, some extra reamping or some, you know, oxes sometimes,

28:34 Luke F. Walton Can you describe

28:35 Mo Lowda & the Humble but like

28:35 Luke F. Walton what re-amping is just in case anybody listening doesn't know what that is?

28:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble taking a signal after you record it, sending it back out of your recording software or like off of. anything like a tape machine and reprocessing either through an amp or pedals and re-recording that sound source and either using both of the same the same source or just using the new one in lieu of yeah

28:56 Mo Lowda & the Humble So same performing yeah yeah i

28:58 Unverified It felt like such cheating the first time I did that. It's like, oh, I discovered something. This works. Yeah.

29:06 Mo Lowda & the Humble prefer everything rather than plugging like plugins are great to get the initial sound but they get the so-called automation out of something feels a lot better to actually do with actual real effects fast and more musical

29:19 Unverified Yeah, I also like what you're saying about the conversation, not just in like parts, not just in songwriting, but also the conversation sound design. I feel like that's not talked about a ton.

29:28 Mo Lowda & the Humble I think we're already very conscious of our tones. I know Jeff brought that when he joined the band nine years ago now.

29:34 Unverified Definitely made me think more about being purposeful in my guitar tones, you know, things coming in and out, elements playing off of each other. We do a lot of ambient stuff, just tuck. tucked in at the right moments and sometimes it's just enough to lift a certain section or sometimes it's backing off you know why does that part feel good because it dries up that you don't realize how wet it is until

29:56 Mo Lowda & the Humble Mm

29:57 Unverified it

29:57 Mo Lowda & the Humble -hmm.

29:57 Unverified dries up and then it gives you more headroom so to speak to utilize that later in the tune I mean we're rehearsing for this upcoming year of touring and we've been in cans for this go-through because we're doing a live session and we're going to record all these songs live but

30:13 Luke F. Walton Sweet.

30:13 Unverified we're all getting even more meticulous about our tones and how does this come across because you always want to think we're pretty damn good at it but there's like this two percent swing that can happen on any given night where it's like why did it not feel balanced it's like maybe we weren't balanced so i think we think about that more than the average band maybe we don't but

30:33 Mo Lowda & the Humble it's definitely a part of our sound there's some retroactive shit too where you're like you recorded it one way it was sounding cool but then you kind of in the mixing stage took it a little further in some direction so as you reinterpret it in a live setting luckily we have the headphones we can be like yeah we ended up making this a wetter kind of sound in this and that sound that tones you recorded it with obviously is the source tone but now we decided we want this to be for instance a little more ethereal so let's revisit the same tone you

31:00 Mo Lowda & the Humble Only have but add a little more juice on it or sauce, you know for this thing. So there's like a give-and-take with like

31:06 Mo Lowda & the Humble Not doing pre-pro letting the studio be a little random responding to the way we just randomly chose songs that we thought were good Reconciling them together and then reinterpret them again a live setting once once more It's kind of been the process. I would say explain

31:20 Luke F. Walton I like that closing that whole loop. Uh, curious on the bass, bass amp when you're recording straight DI, what is, what is your preference blend of the two reamping? What's, what's your process there?

31:31 Mo Lowda & the Humble the bass itch

31:32 Unverified Yeah.

31:33 Mo Lowda & the Humble I don't actually I don't think I ever re-amps anything at the bass definitely not in this one maybe on other ones pretty convoluted I've always like thinking like especially during on certain particular songs like where guitars might be going up really high for a while so I'm like in the studio it's a three amp setup or there's like a bass amp and two guitar amps so center bass two guitar wide

31:55 Mo Lowda & the Humble i just have my pedals set up so i can send the signal to the wide amps when when i need to and for the bass amp there's usually a mic on the rig and either a direct out of my pedal board for the bass tone or

32:07 Luke F. Walton Cool.

32:08 Mo Lowda & the Humble before the pedal depends on like what i end up hearing and being like okay i've got this effects chain that like it would be best to have a super clean bass the whole time

32:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:15 Mo Lowda & the Humble and then we can you mute it when it doesn't make sense And then there's times it's like, you know, take the DI out of the after the pedals, actually, because I think that's the tone that's going to work. So it's like on a per basis, but I'd say on average DI, whether it's from the instrument or from the amp or after the pedals of three different spots and two guitar amps and a bass amp.

32:34 Unverified For signal track.

32:35 Mo Lowda & the Humble Fortify signal,

32:36 Unverified Well,

32:36 Mo Lowda & the Humble really. but sometimes there is no bass, you just on baritone and sometimes he's there is no bass he's on guitar but it's an octave down and sometimes it's the other two

32:45 Unverified Let you guys play this yeah

32:45 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah a

32:46 Unverified switch it up a bit

32:47 Mo Lowda & the Humble lot of switching we

32:48 Luke F. Walton Do you figure that out in the studio or when you're doing the pre-pro process of like how you're going to structure like low end?

32:55 Mo Lowda & the Humble do that live and it's always a work in progress because like especially now and rehearsing we can i'm starting to hear but there's always been discrepancies you know like this song feels bigger this feels smaller how do you manage it sound guy can hopefully help more gear would help but it was always just like cost prohibitive and time prohibitive and

33:13 Luke F. Walton Yep.

33:13 Mo Lowda & the Humble now hearing it we can like i think luckily we're getting closer to like fixing it at the source whether play with this pickup play with the driver not you know step

33:21 Luke F. Walton Yep.

33:22 Mo Lowda & the Humble would be to like because it is two different bass sources two different guitars going to my rig with different pedal chains going into a switcher then into a di might be who has to like finally get like a preamp for both those rigs and then get those super reconciled and then they're always like pre-leveled you know but pre-pro wise everyone knows what that's when everything's figured out who's playing what yeah

33:44 Unverified Yeah,

33:45 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah

33:45 Unverified yeah.

33:45 Mo Lowda & the Humble after oh yeah for as far as like we wrote something

33:48 Unverified In in the writing process,

33:49 Mo Lowda & the Humble the room in the room sometimes

33:49 Unverified yeah.

33:49 Mo Lowda & the Humble in the room i'll write the bass line and it's like well this someone else is not going to do a playing sing that guitar part can you play the guitar part i'm going to play the bass and then just even though one person wrote one of these parts they end up playing someone else's part you know

34:01 Luke F. Walton That's right.

34:02 Mo Lowda & the Humble Happens sometimes.

34:03 Luke F. Walton Yep,

34:03 Unverified yeah it's like they have that ability and like it's not it's definitely not that bass isn't after that i think it's that bass is so important that someone needs to be holding it down that can hold it down for that song you know and then sometimes there's this freedom that comes with there's two songs in particular that like in the writing process

34:21 Unverified I had decided I was going to be playing bass on that song so the guitar parts could be more complicated. So

34:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:28 Unverified they could be weaving in and out of my vocals where I wouldn't be able to play and sing that but now that I'm holding it down on bass these guys can kind of flex a bit more and it gives you a little more space.

34:39 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah.

34:40 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I'm asking... What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go onto the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot, dot, dot on Spotify under there.

35:00 Luke F. Walton It says rate show and you go and you click it five stars. If you could do that for me, that's the best way for the algorithms and all this stuff to share it out with the world. I know that it's a lot to ask, but if you could please, please, please, just please just hit those three dots and a five star, it would really help us out.

35:15 Luke F. Walton out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode have you felt that structuring bass like that gives you more opportunities with your kick drum low end like being able to push that further if you're like a baritone

35:34 Luke F. Walton guitar that's carrying like those low mids and now you can have like a really beefy kick drum like that kind of thing yeah

35:39 Unverified Maybe, yeah, there's definitely some songs where it dries, but even, I think the bass is always there no matter what.

35:44 Mo Lowda & the Humble i mean to reconcile the bass baritone and guitar stuff i spend countless hours just like in here just testing the tone listen checking levels like peak level versus like the rms with the frequency spectrum is and then i'll just make custom sounds that like kind of get the the sounds actually closer together rather so they're not as divergent it

36:04 Luke F. Walton Cool.

36:04 Mo Lowda & the Humble comes in the fact that with the baritone you can still get that register but then i get this access to like just extended notes really and

36:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yep.

36:12 Mo Lowda & the Humble there is a little bit of a different nature of the low end i personally try to make it so they're not as divergent so that there's consistency with with the drums cutting through always you

36:22 Luke F. Walton Cool.

36:22 Mo Lowda & the Humble know yeah

36:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I totally get that.

36:26 Mo Lowda & the Humble it usually plays a pretty pretty

36:27 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

36:28 Mo Lowda & the Humble tight fat maybe a little room drums.com sound that way it's pretty consistent and if we get spacey it's not even up a bunch of space and

36:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:36 Mo Lowda & the Humble if it sounds like a band in a room so i think the kick drum usually is pretty consistent and these guys are good at the bass never feels like it's out even

36:43 Luke F. Walton Cool.

36:44 Mo Lowda & the Humble if it's a different representative yeah

36:45 Luke F. Walton That's great.

36:46 Mo Lowda & the Humble i found this di that i've been using has a super low end cut and it's a bass di like Like it's fine if you push weight a lot of those three, but I don't ends up being fine because it's like it's Cape John

36:57 Mo Lowda & the Humble Just by nature that thing existing is always has more punch than my bass unless it's a sub octave

37:02 Luke F. Walton I'm curious about your guys' influences. That's one of my favorite things with bands is like, where's the overlap where you guys like, yeah, we put this onto the van, like we're all about that versus where are the places that, you know, you come from different schools, you come from different fandoms. I'd love to hear from each of you.

37:16 Unverified The overlap definitely, I think, in rainbows to go to in the van. This record called The Party by Andy Schaaf. We all really

37:24 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

37:24 Unverified love.

37:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

37:25 Unverified Everybody's down with Grizzly Bear.

37:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

37:27 Unverified Is there another one that we all really connect on? I think those are the main ones. I It's a local native.

37:31 Mo Lowda & the Humble think there's a lot.

37:32 Unverified Everybody's down with local native.

37:33 Mo Lowda & the Humble It seems like a lot of them. I think it's funny enough, every one of us has listened to similar music at different times in our life. But we all like, I didn't know for a while that Kirby had knowledge of half the things he's like, I love that record. It's called his lines came up out of like, I've known this dude for like eight years and we didn't talk about that one fucking time. time and all

37:51 Unverified Trying

37:51 Mo Lowda & the Humble of a sudden like

37:52 Unverified to like last

37:52 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah

37:52 Unverified year on

37:52 Mo Lowda & the Humble we're like oh yeah that's like the best record in like one of the coolest and you're like i knew he knows every lyrics and we're up front just like driving to just like singing like each other like i have like i had no idea but like i thought this was from a totally different school and like you know so i think everyone's got this eclecticism that comes out at different times that you didn't realize so that's probably why we have a good groove when it comes to a lot of agreeing about ways to approach certain songs or whatever

38:17 Mo Lowda & the Humble Whatever and there's differences between

38:18 Unverified definitely

38:18 Mo Lowda & the Humble all of us, you know me and like and as you get older and you like I'm more into this thing right now And he's more into that but like there's these weird group points that always are existing still, you know

38:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Any guilty pleasures? Anything you'd be embarrassed to share?

38:30 Unverified guilty pleasures um

38:32 Mo Lowda & the Humble I got you.

38:32 Unverified um

38:32 Mo Lowda & the Humble I'm not ashamed of anything if

38:34 Luke F. Walton Absolutely.

38:34 Mo Lowda & the Humble it's a guilty if it's

38:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:35 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah,

38:35 Unverified yeah

38:35 Mo Lowda & the Humble then it's good

38:36 Unverified yeah

38:36 Mo Lowda & the Humble if anybody

38:36 Luke F. Walton Don't be embarrassed.

38:37 Unverified this isn't guilty at all but I've found sometimes it's a little polarizing but that last Harry Styles files record

38:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:44 Unverified i think it's

38:45 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

38:45 Unverified as perfect as it gets

38:47 Luke F. Walton Yep.

38:47 Unverified and like i think he gets thrown in this like pop kind of pigeonhole and if you listen to some of that stuff even his previous two there's like indie rock songs on there there's folk songs like it's kind of all over the place i think he's a g i think he's amazing

39:01 Mo Lowda & the Humble i don't know guilty pleasures i think for me because i re rediscovered limp biscuit last year hell yeah i mean like i'm That's just like

39:09 Luke F. Walton a good

39:09 Mo Lowda & the Humble put

39:09 Luke F. Walton one.

39:10 Mo Lowda & the Humble like i love the nostalgia factor and if i just slice out the voice a little bit and just listen to like the drum beats and the guitar parts i'm just like um what like

39:19 Unverified It is sick.

39:20 Mo Lowda & the Humble what and when i was younger when i was younger i i didn't think it was i didn't know that was a guitar like that's now i hear i'm like oh my god it's guitar and it's funny enough like i've kind of ventured into like exploring guitar in a lot of ways that they already been doing and when i didn't realize you just got it way earlier you know i'm sitting here thinking i'm doing something new and like i listen to olympus great i'm like i did that like

39:44 Mo Lowda & the Humble So

39:44 Luke F. Walton that's what i'm looking for right there that's the stuff corn fans any corn fans

39:49 Mo Lowda & the Humble We listened to some corn I can't got through those lyrics when I was younger. I guess I didn't take him seriously But like the music was sick again though like I mean it's crushing there's so much cool guitar delay all over it that I didn't get when I was younger because I didn't understand that's what what what it was I guess

40:06 Luke F. Walton totally i always ask my guests this question i want to leave ourselves enough It was enough time to do it. So the show is called Love Music More. The segment is called Love Music Why. It's a simple question, but it's a hard question. And I want you guys to take it wherever you want to go. Why do you love music?

40:23 Mo Lowda & the Humble Music is life. Music is everything that I pretty much have ever known. A language I could definitely speak better than with words personally. So that's my why. I don't know.

40:34 Unverified I think what I still have and I'd never want to lose this is after feeling like i've written a good song or or have an idea that i'm really excited about like that pure like i won't sleep that night and i and i hope i never lose that in that i'm still just as fired up about the next song i write as i was when i was fucking 14 years old first couple you know that's the why i love music is that it still gets me there

41:02 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah I share that same sentiment I would say there's like there's different ways to answer that there's like you know like it feels good to like be excited

41:10 Mo Lowda & the Humble and there's so much shit that you see every day and like so much stuff to like like do I like what I just you know like ingested it's because we're on you know internet all the time we're seeing people all the time a lot of interactions and to be able to come back and be like this one thing that's like I came to see still gets me more excited and I can't sleep and I'm excited about like excitement pleasure and purpose all in one sometimes

41:31 Unverified Yeah, I love it because it's the universal language.

41:35 Mo Lowda & the Humble I mean you can like go anywhere in the world and play a song and somebody knows it or can feel it you know it's the thing that I think unites everybody across the world just it's the gift that keeps on giving in so many different ways and there's never gonna be the last song nobody's ever gonna write the last song like it's

41:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:54 Mo Lowda & the Humble just always gonna be continual and everlasting

41:58 Unverified evergreen yeah it's just really cool that it happens all over the world in different ways and different places and it brings people together and can probably tear people apart but then bring them back together again you know it's just such a

42:10 Mo Lowda & the Humble Only Limp Bizkit.

42:11 Unverified only Limp Bizkit yeah yeah

42:12 Mo Lowda & the Humble That's awesome shit, Kirby, by the way.

42:14 Unverified yeah but it's a it's yeah I think that's why I love it

42:18 Luke F. Walton I love that and I love the sense of yeah you go to a different place and you can instantly connect over something or like the two of you that have been have been really close for nine years and you discover something new about your relationship you're talking about it now of like we didn't know we both loved this record you

42:33 Mo Lowda & the Humble Yeah.

42:34 Luke F. Walton know that's a crazy thing and also same thing like it's so hard to wake up in the morning when you've got a day ahead of you that you don't want to do and it's so easy to wake up or just not sleep if you have an idea that you just need to get out or that momentum on a record and it just feels like it's

42:50 Luke F. Walton like it's pulling you through at that point and i appreciate too the sense of like you can step away for a second like that's healthy too music is like a natural rhythm there's a there's a wave and an energy to it where you're like yeah you want to keep giving to it you want to maintain your skills and all that kind of stuff maintain your instrument like your voice um but writing that energy finding that energy i think all of those are super important takeaways well guys

43:15 Mo Lowda & the Humble Great listener. You just reiterated everything we had said

43:18 Luke F. Walton I'm soaking it up, man. I'm soaking it up.

43:19 Unverified Yeah,

43:19 Mo Lowda & the Humble Hey, that's good.

43:20 Unverified I

43:21 Mo Lowda & the Humble I really do love that some people listen and they're just like yeah, and so the next question it's like that had nothing to do with what we were talking about like oh shit What the hell did you just

43:29 Unverified and here's another one how

43:30 Mo Lowda & the Humble by the way? Where's the name?

43:32 Unverified did you

43:33 Mo Lowda & the Humble get How'd

43:33 Unverified your name

43:34 Mo Lowda & the Humble you get the name?

43:35 Unverified Very very good at what you do

43:37 Luke F. Walton Thanks. Thanks. So where can people get in touch? Where can they hear your music? Where can they come see you live?

43:44 Mo Lowda & the Humble My number is 777-7 text Kirby directly Mo Lowda.com or follow us on Instagram Spotify it's all pretty much at Mo Lowda M-O-L-O-W-D-A and yeah find us on all the things bro

44:04 Luke F. Walton Well, thanks guys and I'll be in San Diego. So I'll see you in October then.

44:08 Mo Lowda & the Humble Oh, hell

44:08 Unverified hell yeah yeah

44:08 Mo Lowda & the Humble yeah.

44:08 Unverified hit hit us up we'll put you on yeah put you on yeah yeah

44:11 Luke F. Walton Look forward to it.

44:12 Unverified thanks dude

44:13 Luke F. Walton All right dudes. Appreciate it. See ya

44:15 Unverified Cheers

44:15 Luke F. Walton later.

44:16 Mo Lowda & the Humble Cheers