Scrolling through any form of social media right now inevitably leads to strings of posts about protests, petitions, resources, and a myriad of other pieces of information about the current political climate (Black Lives Matter, defunding the police, police brutality – the list goes on). Everyone from celebrities to your third cousin’s daughter’s friend has an opinion that they want to share.
The Southern California band “The Mowgli’s” is no exception. Since the protesting began, the band’s account has been a huge and reliable source for a wide variety of information. Lead singer Katie Earl has always been vocal about her beliefs and where she stands on the political spectrum (The Mowgli’s performed at a rally for Bernie Sanders earlier this year, before his campaign suspension). Now, however, her social media feed has become dedicated to amplifying black voices and spreading information. She believes that to quote many signs from the aforementioned protests, silence is violence. Her husband and bandmate, Josh Hogan, has been equally vocal, even getting into virtual arguments with Facebook friends over opposing beliefs.
Drummer Andy Warren, on the other hand, is helping in another way: donations. Warren creates digital art both for fun and for profit. Recently, he pledged to donate all commissions for June to bail funds and Black Lives Matter.
Finally, the group participates in a bi-weekly virtual game on Twitch that they’ve called “Match the Mowgli’s”. The game is based on the old television game show, “Match Game.” Contestants are given fill-in-the-blank prompts and have to do their best to match the celebrity participants’ answers (participants have included members of The Mowgli’s, Jukebox the Ghost, the Griswolds, and more). When the game show first started, the money raised from viewer donations was going towards CrewNation, a division of LiveNation dedicated to helping touring crews who were out of work because of the global pandemic. After the protests broke out, the Mowgli’s started donating to various bail funds and Black Lives Matter groups instead.
The Mowgli’s are not rich and famous. They’re not touring internationally (they only just toured England for the first time earlier this year) or booking stadium shows. They’re just like the rest of us, doing anything they can to back their own beliefs and help in any way they can.
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