They’re just starting their professional career, but Grupo Frontera already has a song with Bad Bunny, they’ve performed at Coachella and received Latin AMAs. Not bad for a group of Mexican-American music lovers who got together to play regional Mexican music for the love of art.
“The truth is, we didn’t think we would get to where we are right now. When Juan called me to tell me if I wanted to join the group, I think everyone thought it was going to be a group just a hobby of playing at quinceañeras and weddings and being nothing more than a local group, but it is already totally another level”, said the vocalist Adelaido Solís III “Payo” in a recent interview by video call.
Juan, accordionist and second voice of the group, was born and lived in Mexico before immigrating to the United States. He studied to be an agronomist and had a ranch before joining the band. The rest of the group was born in the United States and grew up in the border area of McAllen, Texas.
Payo worked making fences in a gated community, percussionist Julián worked as a car salesman, guitarist Alberto “Beto” had a photography studio, bassist Carlos Zamora and bassist Carlos Frontera also had other occupations. They all speak Spanish perfectly.
Grupo Frontera recently won a Latin AMA (Latin American Music Awards) award for best regional song for their hit “No se va (en vivo)”, a norteño version of the original song by the Colombian pop band Morat, from which Grupo Frontera declares himself a fan
“It was the one that opened the doors to this for us, if it weren’t for this song we wouldn’t have met important people like Edgar Barrera, or Benito (Bad Bunny), or Carin (León)… Nobody. That song opened us everything,” John said. At the Latin AMA ceremony they also had a musical number with León.
When they recorded “No se va” emulating the live style of a small gig, they didn’t think they would go that far. Beto was the one who proposed that they do it, Payo learned it and they recorded it in a matter of a week.
“At first we weren’t going to release it because we had doubts about the song because there was a lot of stress when doing it because we didn’t have that much time to record it,” Juan recalled. “And where we recorded the video they didn’t want to leave us over time.”
It finally saw the light of day exactly one year ago, but not much happened. But suddenly it took on a life of its own on TikTok and within a month it was already viral.
Grupo Frontera would like to present it live with Morat. For now they already have the blessing of the Colombians.
“They congratulated us via Instagram in our stories for the Latin AMA that we won,” said Payo. “They also deserve the victory because that song was composed by them and it was their first.”
After this first success, the popular Mexican producer and composer Edgar Barrera contacted them to work on his project. Barrera provided them with new songs like “Un x100to”, about someone who has only 1% battery life on his cell phone to tell his mistress that he misses her.
“It was a recording that we did just ourselves, the plan was that this was going to be the first song that we were going to release alone, that was not a collaboration, and then out of nowhere Edgar arrives, after about two weeks, and tells us ‘ I have a surprise for you, the song ‘Un x100to’ is going to be a duet, but I can’t tell you with whom or what or anything, you just trust me,” Payo recalled.
Thus came the day of filming the video for the song. Barrera had not shown them anything about the new version and then Bad Bunny appeared on the set with jeans, boots, a bandana and a shirt.
“I didn’t even know what to do in the video,” Payo enthused. “The directors were yelling at us to ‘dance, move’, and I don’t know what.”
The video was shot just outside of Las Vegas in an old mining town that goes perfectly with norteño music.
“Benito had a very cool style and we were surprised because he was wearing his boots, his shirt, he brought everything to 100,” said Juan, who pointed out that before releasing the song they were fans and dreamed of doing something with the Puerto Rican urban musician.
After this collaboration they had such good chemistry that Bad Bunny invited them to one of his concerts as the main artist at the Coachella festival. They thought that they were only going to sing “Un x100to” and in a similar way to what happened to them with the video, being close to the stage, he told them that they were going to sing three songs, including “No se va”.
“It was a great detail from him, really, because it was our first performance at Coachella, also in primetime,” Payo said. “I thought we were going to play ‘No se va’ and that nobody was going to sing or dance, but they all chanted it.”
“Even people who are not Hispanic were dancing; we were congratulated by several artists who were there who are not Latino,” added Juan.
At the end of May, Grupo Frontera will begin a tour of the United States. It is his first official tour in Theaters and with greater production. They will have stops in cities like Oakland, San Diego, Hidalgo, Albuquerque, Austin and Miami, among others.
“We do know the road a lot because we have traveled a lot from October until now, we have played in many places, but not like our tour,” said Juan.
Despite being a regional group, they have many musical influences. Payo grew up listening to Duelo e Intocable, Eslabón Armado, Ivan Cornejo, Junior H, between the lying down and the most classic of regional Mexican music. Juan and Carlos listen to everything, including, of course, Morat.
They said that they are one step away from releasing their first full-length album.
“More issues are coming, we are still in shock,” Juan said excitedly.
