The Band Loula
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279
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Rising Artist
The Band Loula are Malachi Mills and Logan Simmons, lifelong best friends from Gainesville, Georgia, who went from singing gospel together at North Georgia tent revivals as teenagers to signing with Warner Music Nashville, earning a standing ovation at their Grand Ole Opry debut, recording their "Sweet Southern Summer" EP with Grammy-winning producer John Osborne of Brothers Osborne, and spending 2025 on the road with Dierks Bentley as one of the most buzzed-about new acts in American roots music.
Current Tour & Setlist
The Band Loula is actively booking 2026 dates including a headlining show at the Station Inn in Nashville on March 29 and an appearance at the Tortuga Music Festival in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on April 10 through 12, and will join Dierks Bentley's "Off The Map Tour" as a support act for his summer 2026 amphitheater run alongside Kaitlin Butts, with a fall tour supporting Lukas Nelson also confirmed. Fans can expect a swampgrass-soaked setlist built around "Marshall County Man," "Running Off the Angels," "Don't Call Me," "A Little at a Time," "Gasoline," and their live collaboration with Dierks Bentley on "Get Down on Your Knees and Pray."
Early Life
The Band Loula is the duo of Malachi Mills and Logan Simmons, lifelong best friends who met as teenagers in Gainesville, Georgia, with the band's name drawn from Lula, the tiny North Georgia town where Logan grew up and where gospel tent revivals, old-time bluegrass, and the gritty swamp culture of the North Georgia foothills shaped both young men's instincts about what music should sound like and feel like. Logan grew up immersed in gospel music at church and tent revivals where multi-generational families gathered in century-old wooden tents to sing and worship, while Malachi pursued music more formally and appeared as a contestant on American Idol before the two recognized the extraordinary chemistry of their voices together, with Logan also developing a separate career as a nationally published photographer before music took over completely.
Career Highlights
The pair officially formed The Band Loula in September 2022, releasing their debut single "My Mama Likes You" that same month, and quickly caught the attention of Nashville's publishing community by simply making YouTube videos of themselves singing together, which led to a publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group in 2023 within months of their debut. Warner Music Nashville signed them shortly after, and they began working on their debut EP with Grammy-winning producer John Osborne of Brothers Osborne, with additional production from Greg Bieck, who has worked with Little Big Town. Their debut EP "Sweet Southern Summer," released in 2025, produced the haunting murder ballad "Marshall County Man" and the standout single "Running Off the Angels," which Billboard called "an immensely promising release," and the duo earned a standing ovation at their Grand Ole Opry debut while spending 2025 on the road as support for Dierks Bentley and Zach Top on Bentley's Broken Branches Tour, and also opening for Ashley McBryde, Paul Cauthen, Elle King, Brent Cobb, and Lukas Nelson.
Family & Personal Life
Both Mills and Simmons are married, and both have spoken about the grounding and stabilizing role their spouses play in sustaining the relentless demands of their hard-touring life, with the Georgia Public Broadcasting Peach Jam Podcast revealing that the duo prays before every single show and that faith is as central to their partnership as music itself. No further personal or family details beyond their North Georgia roots have been made public, and the depth of their lifelong friendship remains the most prominent personal fact in virtually every interview they give, with both describing the band as something that felt predestined from the moment their voices first blended together as teenagers at church in Gainesville.
