Kat & Alex: September Country Rookie of the Month

Since the release of their debut single, “How Many Times,” in 2020, married country-Latin duo Kat & Alex (Kat Luna and Alex Garrido) have set out on a path that is thoroughly their own, with bilingual lyrics and a genre-blending style that harmonizes variants of country, R&B and both American and Latin pop.

Garrido and Luna were first introduced to mass audiences via a stint auditioning on American Idol’s 18th season. Their love story, and their Hispanic heritage, have been key entry points drawing fans to their music. Luna is a Miami native and first-generation American from a Cuban family, while Garrido, of Puerto Rican descent, grew up in Georgia and moved to Miami by middle school. Last year, Luna and Garrido were married, and also celebrated their debut performance on the Grand Ole Opry.

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Now, they are set to release Side A of their self-titled EP for Sony Music Nashville on Sept. 16. They wrote all but one song on the seven-track project, which includes “Let’s Find a Bar,” “I Want It All” and “Still in It.”

“We’ve been working on this project for two years, so this has been our baby for a while,” Luna tells Billboard. Garrido adds, “We have so many songs that we’ve fallen in love with — songs we’ve written, songs we’ve had pitched to us — to the point that if they didn’t make this EP, they could definitely come out on a future project.”

Kat & Alex have released Spanish iterations of their singles, including “Mi Casa” (“We Bought a House”), “Tomemos Un Trago” (“Let’s Find a Bar”), and “Yo Quiero Amarte” (“I Want It All”), as well as Spanish-English language versions of country hits such as Tim McGraw’s “Humble and Kind” and Luke Combs’ “Forever After All.” Their “Humble and Kind” cover earned the support of McGraw himself, who shared it on his TikTok page and added, “I’ve always felt Humble & Kind was such a universal song…thanx @katandalex for covering it!” (Two weeks after the release of Side A, the duo plans to release a fully Spanish version of the EP.)

Kat & Alex are building upon the work of many breakthrough Latin-country artists spanning the last half-century. Johnny Rodriguez made his Billboard Country Songs debut with “Pass Me By (If You’re Only Passing Through)” in 1972 and followed with six chart-topping hits, including “You Always Come Back (to Hurting Me). Freddy Fender released 1975’s smash country and pop hit “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” (which earned single of the year honors from the Country Music Association Awards) and followed that with additional chart-toppers including “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” Linda Ronstadt launched a multi-genre career which included Hot Country Songs chart hits such as “When Will I Be Loved,” won the Academy of Country Music Awards’ most promising female vocalist honor in 1974, and also paid tribute to her heritage with the album Canciones de Mi Padre, a project of traditional Mariachi music. Rick Trevino and The Mavericks earned a string of entries on the Billboard Country charts in the 1990s, with the Mavericks earning CMA Awards’ vocal group of the year in 1995 and 1996.

More recently, The Last Bandoleros (which includes Diego and Emilio Navaira IV, sons of the late Tejano artist Emilio Navaira) inked a deal with Warner Music Nashville in 2016. And in current day, Kat & Alex are part of a new group of country artists celebrating their Latino heritage, including Sammy Arriaga, Angie K, Valerie Ponzio, Frank Ray and Leah Turner. “There are so many of us out there and we’re here for representing it in whatever capacity,” Garrido says. “There are so many legends who came before us, from Freddy Fender to the Mavericks to Rick Trevino and we’re just honored to be able to do this. It’s a blessing and we are so grateful.”

Billboard caught up with Kat & Alex to discuss their upcoming project, their musical origins and more.

You worked primarily with producer Brad Hill on this project. How did you connect with him?

Garrido: We had just finished American Idol and were in Miami, and literally, this was in March 2020. We knew we wanted to pursue our dreams in Nashville and I had been following a few people on Instagram, some people from Big Loud, people from other parts of the industry. There was a song I loved called “Giving You Up” by Kameron Marlowe and Brad produced that. I reached out to Brad and told him I would love to try working together. He responded and said he liked our sound. We ended up coming to Nashville, and it was just a match made in heaven.

You are signed with The AMG and Rob Beckham for management. How did you end up signing with them?

Luna: Rachel Buchanan was Rob’s assistant, and she heard our music and told him about it. We met with him and on the spot, he asked to work with us. Very quickly, we also signed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell [Nashville] in September 2020, and then with Sony Music Nashville for our label deal. It is just surreal how fast everything happened.

Do either of you come from musical families?

Luna: My mom is a pediatric nurse and my dad works in aviation. No one in my family is a musician, so when I came to them at a very young age, telling them this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, they were very shocked at first — but they have always been supportive, from the very beginning. They would take me to practices and performances. My grandma would blast songs by Whitney Houston, just these powerful vocalists. And then my grandfather, he’s a Cuban cowboy — that’s what I call him. He was always listening to Celia Cruz, but also Garth Brooks, and he would ride horses on the farm. So I always heard Latin and country music growing up.

Garrido: I was three years old when I moved to Georgia, and that influenced me big time, just growing up with that Southern hospitality. I only spoke Spanish as a baby and a young kid, and started learning English in school, in preschool and kindergarten. And country music was just on the radio everywhere. My dad served 32 years in the military, and my family made sacrifices when he had to go overseas. That’s where I learned discipline and hard work.

How did the two of you meet?

Luna: I saw him onstage at church and it was like love at first sight. We didn’t meet that day; it took like two months. My friend looked him up on Instagram and I followed him. He commented on one of my song covers. He did not slide into the DMs, which was good!

Garrido: I left a public comment asking if she wanted to collaborate some time.

Luna: We went to a park in Miami and sang, and it was just this instant connection. Then we sang “Shallow” and we kept messing up on purpose and kept meeting up to try to get the video done, but we realized it was also a way to hang out more. And we fell in love just doing that song.

You have put out all these videos of yourselves performing songs in Spanish and you’ve received a lot of support from artists such as Tim McGraw. What have been your favorite fan responses?

Garrido: My favorite fan comments are when people tell us, “We can now share this music with our family members who don’t speak English. Now we have not only our English version we can listen to, but a version that our families can listen to.” That is so special, because Kat and I have loved country music from a young age — and it is a storytelling genre, telling songs about real life, faith, family, things everyone can relate to.

Elvie Shane has a song called “My Boy” and there is a version of it that is “My Girl.” People have tagged us in it and said, “We have a Quinceañera coming up” — which is like a Hispanic Sweet 16 party, but it’s for a girl who is 15. We had a woman tag us a few times and ask for a Spanish version of that song, and we’re working with Elvie on a couple of lyrics to translate that, and maybe even see if he wants to do a collaboration to make it a special moment.

Who is on your bucket list to collaborate with?

Luna: Chris Stapleton would be a dream, because his voice is just so unreal. Also, Luke Bryan was a big reason why we considered working as a duo. When we auditioned for American Idol, he asked us, “If you were a duo, what would you call yourselves?” and encouraged us to perform together. So a collaboration with Luke might be fitting.

You wrote nearly every song on this album, except for “Marry You,” which was written by Maren Morris and the late producer/songwriter busbee. You turned it into a duet and added Latin rhythms to it. What made you want to record it?

Garrido: Before coming to Nashville, I was looking at producers who were doing influential work in Nashville. Brad [Hill] was one of them, but another was busbee. When we came across this demo during a pitch meeting, we loved Maren’s voice singing on the demo, and then we asked who wrote the song. We always like to find out who wrote a song after we hear it, because we don’t want it to influence our decisions. But we loved this song and he’s just left behind a legacy through his work. So what you’re hearing on that track is 99.9%. busbee, with like a 0.01% that we added a couple little things to just give it a little like Latin flair.

Luna: I think this song is so special and we just hope we are doing his name justice by putting this song out, and we’re really honored to be able to do so.

What are some of your must-haves when you are touring?

Luna: I have my pillow that is shaped like a shark, because I love the ocean. I have to get my Starbucks coffee every morning

Garrido: I’m pretty easy. I usually just borrow her snacks.

What else is on your bucket list?

Garrido: We just want to keep going and reaching more people. That’s the goal: bringing people together through music.

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