Lola Amour

Quick Facts

Photo: Lola Amour – Fallen Extended Version Live at Spryta Studio

About Lola Amour

From Two Rival School Bands to One

Lola Amour started as friendly competition. At De La Salle Santiago Zobel School, two student groups ran in the same circles: “Sinigang Na Baboy,” fronted by Pio Dumayas, and “Decaf.” When one band needed extra players for a graduation gig, the two camps joined forces, and the collaboration stuck.

The members made it official as they moved on to college, folding both lineups into a single, horn-heavy act. The band traces its beginnings to 2013, and the group has cycled through many members and instruments since.

The name is a family affair. Lola Amour is named after the grandmother of Pio and Manu Dumayas, whose own name is Lola Amor. She was in her nineties when the band adopted it, and by their account she happily gave her blessing.

From the start, the group leaned into a big, brassy sound that set it apart from the guitar-and-drums template of most local bands. Trumpets, saxophone, and keys became as central to their identity as the vocals.

Winning Wanderband and Paying Their Dues

The band’s first real spotlight came in 2017, when they won Wanderband, the annual battle of rising acts that earn a slot at the Wanderland Music and Arts Festival. By their own cheerful admission, they were unlikely champions: they had barely one original song to their name and did not fully realize how serious the competition was.

That win did not translate into overnight comfort. In the years that followed, the members often paid out of their own pockets just to keep playing gigs, treating the band as a passion project alongside school and work.

They kept building a catalog through the late 2010s, releasing the EP “Don’t Look Back” in 2017 and singles like “Pwede Ba” and “Sanity.” A turn on “Coke Studio Philippines” in 2019 widened their reach, pairing them with rapper Al James on tracks such as “Sundan Mo Ko” and “Pa-Umaga.”

Their 2021 single “Fallen” became an early signature, a bright, danceable showcase for the group’s funk-pop instincts. It hinted at the crossover appeal that was still a couple of years away.

“Raining in Manila” Changes Everything

In June 2023, Lola Amour released “Raining in Manila,” a city pop-inspired song written about friends leaving home to chase opportunities abroad. It struck a nerve, and the response was immediate and enormous.

The single shattered streaming benchmarks, posting the biggest single-day and single-week numbers for a Filipino song on Spotify at the time. It parked near the top of the charts for months and became one of the defining OPM songs of the year.

The reach spread well beyond the Philippines. Members of the K-pop group ENHYPEN sang along to it, and stars like EXO’s Chanyeol performed it at their own Manila shows. The most surreal moment came on January 19, 2024, when Coldplay’s Chris Martin sang the opening lines at the Philippine Arena and invited the band up to finish it in front of a stadium crowd.

The song’s success reshaped the band’s plans. They pushed back their long-awaited debut, then finally released the self-titled album “Lola Amour” in April 2024, a record that folded the hit into a fuller portrait of the group.

Awards, Love on Loop, and Life as Headliners

The recognition poured in. At the 2024 Awit Awards, one of the country’s most respected music honors, Lola Amour led the field, winning Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Raining in Manila” among their four trophies. “Raining in Manila” also earned the band an international nod, drawing a special award for Philippine popular music from Music Awards Japan.

Behind the scenes, the lineup was shifting. Longtime bassist Raymond King left in 2024 after eight years, and Pio’s younger brother Manu Dumayas stepped in on bass, keeping the band a tight-knit, almost familial unit.

In 2025 the group opened a new chapter with their sophomore album “Love on Loop,” released through Warner Music Philippines and made with outside producers for the first time. Pio described the record as a more mature, story-first effort, a deliberate step beyond the all-in-house approach of their earlier work.

The momentum has not slowed. Lola Amour returned to the 2025 Awit Awards as one of the night’s big winners, taking home Record of the Year again, cementing their place as one of OPM’s most bankable live bands.

Videos

Albums

• Lola Amour (2024)
• Love on Loop (2025)
• Looking Back (Live at PETA Theater) (2022)
• Lola Amour: The Album Concert (Live) (2024)

EPs

• Don’t Look Back (2017)
• Don’t Look Back (Revisited) (2020)
• The Lunchtime Special (2022)
• Raining in Manila (Tour Edition) (2023)
• ulit-ulitin: the dahan-dahan trilogy (2024)

Singles

• Pwede Ba (2018)
• Sanity (2019)
• Fallen (2021)
• Closer Than Before (featuring Clara Benin) (2021)
• Click (featuring Leanne & Naara) (2022)
• Madali (with Al James) (2022)
• dahan-dahan (2022)
• Raining in Manila (2023)
• Namimiss Ko Na (2024)
• Maria (with Oliver Cronin) (2025)
• Dance with My Mistakes (2025)
• Misbehave (2025)
• The Moment (with KOKORO of Psychic Fever from Exile Tribe) (2025)

Song Collaborations

• Pa-Umaga (Al James – 2019)
• Sundan Mo Ko (Al James – 2019)
• Closer Than Before (Clara Benin – 2021)
• Click (Leanne & Naara – 2022)
• Madali (Al James – 2022)
• Waiting Here Sa Pila (Michael V – 2023)
• Maria (Oliver Cronin – 2025)
• The Moment (KOKORO of Psychic Fever from Exile Tribe – 2025)
• Take It To The Roof (PLAYERTWO – 2025)
• In The Morning (PLAYERTWO – 2025)

TV / Screen

• Coke Studio Philippines, Season 3 (2019)
• Miss Universe Philippines Coronation Night (2024) – guest performers

Awards

Awit Awards

• Record of the Year (Raining in Manila – 2024)
• Song of the Year (Raining in Manila – 2024)
• Best Pop Recording (Raining in Manila – 2024)
• Best Novelty Recording (Waiting Here Sa Pila, featuring Michael V – 2024)
• Record of the Year (2025)

Wanderland Music and Arts Festival

• Wanderband Champion (2017)

Music Awards Japan

• International Special Award for Philippine Popular Music (Raining in Manila)

Nominations

Awit Awards

• Best Alternative Recording (Raining in Manila – 2024)
• Best Performance by a Group (Raining in Manila – 2024)
• Best Remix Recording (Raining in Manila, DJ Young Remix – 2024)

Perspective

Lola Amour make sadness sound like a party. Their best songs pair wistful, homesick lyrics with brass, groove, and a rhythm section built for dancing, so you catch yourself moving before the ache in the words lands. What makes them special is that they play like a genuine ensemble rather than a frontman plus a backing band, every horn line and key part pulling its weight. Watching a scrappy group that once footed the bill for its own gigs grow into a stadium-worthy act is exactly the kind of story that makes rooting for OPM so satisfying.

Praise for the Artist

On ‘Lola Amour’, the band prove their chief strength is blurring genre lines with dancey and rhythmic songs that pair with Pio and King’s largely – and subtly – sad lyrics.

– Khyne Palumar
On their debut album, Lola Amour hold space for joy and grief
NME

I learned from them by seeing how serious they are in their approach to music, and how when they’re up on stage, the focus isn’t on one member or another, but instead each and every member is the main character.

– KOKORO of Psychic Fever from Exile Tribe
Kokoro Kohatsu & Lola Amour: A Musical Chemical Reaction Across the Borders of Japan & The Philippines
Billboard

It’s been raining in Manila and Lola Amour have taken home the most awards at the Awit Awards 2024.

– Mayks Go
Lola Amour Lead The Winners For The 37th Awit Awards
Billboard Philippines

Contact

• facebook.com/lolaamourmusic
• x.com/lolaamourmusic
• instagram.com/lolaamourph
• youtube.com/@lolaamourmusic
• tiktok.com/@lolaamourmusic

Bookings

• Lola Amour – Official Bookings

Listen

• Spotify – Lola Amour
• Apple Music – Lola Amour

Apple Music

On Instagram

Trivia

• The official “Raining in Manila” music video is gloriously surreal: it imagines a Manila where it has rained for 1,427 straight days and follows a man searching for his wife, who has turned into a magic gecko. The band filmed parts on a boat in protective gear amid the staged floods.
• Their 2021 single “Fallen” set off a viral #FallenStory challenge, with fans posting love confessions and before-and-after photos. It started on the band’s Discord before taking off on TikTok and pulling in millions of views.
• Frontman Pio Dumayas keeps a day job outside the band, working as a news producer for an alternative news website.
• Pio’s guiding creativity motto is “Don’t take life too seriously,” and he says he warms up for creative work by knocking out small tasks like making his bed first.
• The band’s songwriting pace swings widely: Pio wrote “Pwede Ba” in about two hours, but “Raining in Manila” took roughly three weeks because it needed more emotional digging.
• Trumpeter Angelo Mesina originally played drums in one of the two school bands that merged into Lola Amour before he moved over to the horn section.
• Lead guitarist Zoe Gonzales is one of the band’s deepest roots, tracing back to “Decaf,” one of the two founding school groups.

Posted: July 11, 2026