Interviews (247)

• May 24, 2025
• Colleen Johnson
• 888
• 0

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Mo Lowda & the Humble are a self-produced indie rock band hailing from Philadelphia. The band is set to release their fifth studio album on June 20th, 2025, entitled: Tailing The Ghost. Since releasing their debut album in 2013, they’ve vastly expanded the sonic exploration of their recorded material whilst developing a dialed-in, yet energetic live show

New England Sounds: This is to preview when you’re in Boston in a few days for Boston Calling. It’s your first Boston Calling, right? 

Jordan Caiola: Our first Boston Calling, yeah!

NES: How are you feeling going into it, considering this festival has been around for at least 12 or 13 years now? 

Jordan: Yeah, it’s always been one of the ones we’ve circled on our calendars since we got it. Very exciting news, and just to be on that stage, with that lineup throughout the day, is just surreal. 

NES: Speaking of that line-up, it’s the last day, but it’s closed out by two wildly different bands, at least in my opinion, with Dave Matthews Band and Vampire Weekend. While it is a busy day, are there any bands that you hope to catch or see when you’re there, if there’s time? 

Jordan: Well, I hope we can hear them playing while we set up and soundcheck, but Snack Time is another Philly group, and they play right before us. They’re pretty insane musicians, but I think Remi Wolf is also on that stage; that will be cool. Yeah, I mean anytime we play one of these festivals, we’re only playing thirty minutes, and that’s going to be an absolute blast, but being able to hang after. See some sets and meet some other artists we’ve almost always crossed paths with. We kind of chase each other around the country; it’s usually a pretty fun day for us. 

NES: And it’s the first time where that stage, I’m not sure of the full mechanics, I’m sure you’ll find out when you’re here, but where that stage will spin around instead of being two separate stages. Hopefully, they have all the kinks worked out by the time you play. 

Jordan: Yeah, we were looking at the advance and the schedule, and we were like, “Ten-minute change-overs?” This is going to be wild. We’re going to have everything in the monitors in ten minutes, but then we got the full scoop of how the stages will work. It’s pretty insane. 

NES: Then Friday is the first show of your new run, Tailing the Ghost, which comes out in about a month. Several songs from that album have already been released, and they all scream festival. Are there any of those you’ve been preparing for this set, or do you think it will be a while until those start hitting the rotation? 

Jordan: We actually just went to upstate New York last week, and we played the entire new album front to back. And shot the whole thing, sort of a week-long retreat, and we’re going to make a mini-doc. So these songs are ready to go. We’ve been drilling them for months now. It’s always fun because we don’t road-test a lot of songs anymore, we just kind of do them in the studio. 

NES: Then your last release, the self titled, was about that classic two years in between album cycle. When did you really start working on Tailing the Ghost, like when did that first start coming together for you? 

Jordan: Good question. I think, for the first time, this whole record was made on the road. We had rented a bunch of cabins across the country. I think the first time we went to write, and really sat down and started mapping out some of these songs, I want to say was in May of last year. And then, it came together pretty quickly.  We booked like four to five days of studio time, during the time that we went out on the road. I think, having these songs fleshed out, really helped. Because as soon as we got into the studio, it was really just executing.  Rather than kind of hitting around some ideas, and not wasting time, but prolonging that process. By the pressure of writing a lot in the studio.  We had these tunes ready to go. Especially because we had been playing them so much on the off days in those cabins.

NES: Was that the first time you did that on an album? Or is that always something you’ve tried to do? 

Jordan: It’s the first time we recorded it all on the road, or elsewhere. Because the previous album, the self-titled, we kind of went through that process, but we brought all the songs back to Philly and recorded them here. So this was the first time that we gave up the engineering duties to someone else, Jeff Lucci (also a member of the band) who enginereed our album, he’s a great guy. Drums, bass and guitars all on their own separately.

So this is the first time we could all just truly be bandmembers and I think that truly helped the process. but yeah, it as the first time we actually did it that way.

NES: That must have been nice to just get to focus in on it. I know you’re so hands on in the process. I’m sure that was a little bit of a breath. 

Jordan: Yeah, we still ended up making it ourselves. At the end of the day, we still had the quote on quote on control that we wanted. But it really did loosen up the process, yes and allowing to those guys to put on the finishing touches.

NES: And then I wanted to ask, I know what’s to come, we’ve talked about it a little bit. But you’ve been coming to Boston since 2014, with this project so you’re no stranger to Boston. You’ve played lots of venues that are maybe a five minute drive from where you’ll be at on Sunday.  But you’re coming back to MA for another festival in a month, you’re going to Nantucket for two nights. Maybe Nantucket in particular, was there a special connection? For those two shows? 

Jordan: Yeah. We play this place called The Gaslight, it’s just agem of a place. It’s a restaurant until 10 pm, then by 10:15, it’s filled with concertgoers. And we always do two nights there, it’s such a good hang, now we’ve got friends across the island, because we are back every summer. It really is just such a unique place. I think New England, in general, is such a special place. I’ve been going on vacation to Cape Cod every summer of my life. The first week of August and it’s like a probably forty to fifty year tradition in my family.  I think that was part of it. I have cousins, aunts and uncles that still live out there in the Boston area. And that’s sort of why this band started touring up there. 2014, that’s as early as we started playing anywhere besides our hometown. We would do Boston, New York in a weekend and then come home and do Philly. So it’s always sort of been a part of this band’s history and we’ve always had good shows up there. So it’s a great market for us.

NES: To kind of end it off, since this is to preview Boston your Boston Calling set. There are four different stages, it’s packed every day. When the festival first started, it was one band at a time. As cheesy as it may seem, what makes a Mo Lowda & The Humble show something they should be putting in their schedule, considering all the bands playing? 

Jordan: It depends on what they like, but our whole thing is we just try to bring a genuine show. LIke we’re committed to playing these songs well, committed to writing them well, we’re going to leave every single thing out on the stage every night.  There’s not a whole lot of showboating or glitz and glamour. We just play rock & roll.

:: Mo Lowda & the Humble play the Green Stage on Sunday at from 2:10-2:40. Tickets for Boston Calling are still available – HERE. ::

Featured image by: Luda Ronky