Grupo Firme Is ‘On Top of the World’ With a Hot 100 Hit & Record-Setting Audiences

As the pandemic reached North America in early 2020, the regional Mexican band Grupo Firme faced a watershed moment: “Innovate or die,” says 27-year-old frontman Eduin Caz. To avoid getting upended by the ensuing lockdowns, the seven-piece act traveled to Caz’s home in Mazatlán, Mexico; rented a studio that was accessible only to band members; and recorded a breakout album to “keep the momentum going,” he says. “We couldn’t let what we had worked so hard to build just fall apart.”

That album, Nos Divertimos Logrando Lo Imposible (“We Enjoy Doing the Impossible”) — Grupo Firme’s latest — arrived in December, helping the band cross the 1 billion career streams threshold in the United States, according to MRC Data. And that’s just one part of its success. Grupo Firme has now logged 11 entries on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart and recently became the third-ever act to score an entry on the Billboard Hot 100 with a regional Mexican song, “Ya Supérame,” in October. At the 2021 Premios de la Radio Awards on Nov. 10, the band earned top honors with five wins: artist, norteño group, banda song (“Ya Supérame”) and collaboration of the year (“Yo Ya No Vuelvo Contigo” with Lenin Ramírez), as well as the Latin pride award. The septet also earned a nomination for best banda album at the Latin Grammy Awards.

Founded by Caz in Tijuana, Mexico, in 2013, the group, which straddles the genres of banda and norteño, comprises Eduin’s brother Jhonny Caz, Abraham Hernández, Joaquín Ruiz, Christian Gutiérrez, José Rubio and Dylan Camacho. Initially known for performing corridos (narrative folk ballads), the group was catapulted into the mainstream in 2017 after signing a label and management deal with Isael Gutiérrez, CEO of independent regional Mexican label Music VIP.

Touring behind Lo Imposible, the band secured a historic booking at Los Angeles’ 20,000-capacity Staples Center as the first Latin act to perform the most shows in a single calendar year at the venue with seven sold-out concerts this summer. (The only other artist who has done more in one year is Adele, with eight performances in 2016.)

The band initially booked just one night at the 7,100-capacity Microsoft Theater for July 2020 before rescheduling due to demand. Prior to that, Grupo Firme had performed in the Los Angeles area just once before — in 2019 for 9,000 fans in Pico Rivera, a city approximately 11 miles southeast of downtown L.A.

The shows were Staples Center’s first live events in over a year, and the act surpassed every expectation: It sold an average of 9,000 tickets in the first half hour; to date, it has grossed $15.9 million and sold 177,000 tickets in 2021, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. In lieu of a standard advertising strategy, the group leveraged its social media platforms to entice fans.

“All they needed to do to sell a show was to upload one or two posts on their social media, and that was it,” says TuStreams booking agent Tony Larios, who worked with Isael and Nederlander Concerts Latin talent buyer Eddie Orjuela on securing the dates. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years,” says Larios. “And it’s something I’ve never seen happen before with a regional Mexican band.”

To mark the group’s 10th year together, Eduin and Jhonny reflect on Grupo Firme’s U.S. crossover success and how embracing social media during quarantine helped it reach new heights.

Your sound fuses traditional styles such as banda and norteño with contemporary rhythms, including an upcoming collaboration with Maluma, right?

Eduin Caz: Yes, we are collaborating outside of that style. We also recorded songs with Reik and Río Roma, but I’m always scared to go into another genre. I’m scared of losing our core fan base. That’s why sometimes I go onstage wearing an urbano outfit with sneakers, and other times, I’m wearing boots and a tejana [cowboy hat] so I can make everyone happy and they don’t get caught off guard when we sing with an urban artist. We’ve been very careful with those types of collaborations, and I trust in Isael that we’re doing the right thing. If he hadn’t pushed us to perform at Staples Center, we wouldn’t have done it. He’s hungry to become one of the strongest executives, and we’re hungry to become one of the biggest bands.

What was your vision for Grupo Firme when you founded it?

Eduin: We saw many of our friends doing big things locally, like selling out Las Pulgas, a nightclub that was open 24/7 in Tijuana. That was our biggest dream back then because it was considered the biggest venue. That’s really all we wanted.

Did music play a big role in your childhood?

Eduin: One Christmas, I remember I asked for a stereo with a Los Tigres del Norte cassette. I sat for hours in front of the stereo and listened to my cassette. On one side it had songs by Los Tigres, and then, when you flipped it, it had songs by Los Tucanes de Tijuana. That’s when I discovered my love for music, but I never thought I’d be a singer.

One day in high school, when I was 16 years old, I started performing with my friend [and bandmate] Joaquín on buses and in San Ysidro [a border town between the United States and Mexico]. In two hours, we’d make $100 each while performing for people who were waiting to cross the border. And we thought, “Wow, so you can actually make money with this.” We took it more seriously from that day on.

Why did you choose to work with Isael Gutiérrez?

Eduin: Isael saw us perform at Las Pulgas at an event for a local radio station when he was managing Los Buitres de Culiacán Sinaloa. It was a dream of ours to sign with someone and be a part of something. For four years, we worked with Isael without a contract. We just signed our very first contract four months ago. Before that, we all signed a blank piece of paper and promised to work together honestly. I later added the Music VIP logo to the paper using Photoshop so that we could show off on social media that we were signed to a company.

Had you spoken to anyone else about a working relationship?

Eduin: Other executives promised so many things, but there was something about them that didn’t convince me. I spoke to Isael in a one-on-one meeting the day we met. The first thing he told me was: “Money: I don’t have any. But I can show you a side of the business a lot of others can’t. From digital to touring, I can show you how everything works.” For him, it was about becoming partners. And not just me and him, but all of the band members. We would all get a percentage of everything Grupo Firme made. That’s what convinced me. To this day, we’ve been very happy with him.

What was his initial goal for you?

Jhonny Caz: Isael’s vision has always been to grow the brand, and he has always wanted to take regional Mexican music to spaces it has never been in before. So not only were we recording new music and videos, but we also recorded content for vlogs, TikTok and YouTube. We needed to be everywhere because Grupo Firme is a little bit of everything. From cumbia, corridos and ballads to singing a cover of [Karol G and Nicki Minaj’s] “Tusa,” we’re as diverse as it gets. And our fans should reflect that diversity.

You went from performing at nightclubs to seven back-to-back shows at Staples Center. How does an emerging act accomplish that?

Eduin: Regional Mexican music isn’t regional anymore. We are reaching a wider audience. At our shows, we see flags from so many different Latin American countries. Latinos, not just Mexican fans, are enjoying our music. They see seven guys laughing, singing, having a beer or tequila shot, and people want to be part of this phenomenon. That’s why we filled Staples Center seven times.

Jhonny: It’s something none of us ever imagined. And there really isn’t any explanation. We’re doing things right by taking care of our fans and making them a part of our experience. Really, the name of the album and tour says it all: We enjoy doing the impossible.

Jhonny, you came out as gay in December 2020. How did your fan base react, and how do you feel about their response?

Jhonny: The fans have been nothing but supportive, and, as a band, we’ve created a safe space for the community in our concerts. After I came out as gay, Grupo Firme came to break that stigma. I hope our genre becomes more inclusive and accepting of LGBTQ+ fans and artists.

What do you want Grupo Firme’s legacy to be?

Eduin: To be a global artist. I want to reach the level that Bad Bunny and Maluma have reached so that when you say our names in places outside of Mexico and the U.S., we are recognized. I want to tour Europe and South America. That’s when I’ll feel accomplished, but I’m also enjoying the now. We are on top of the world, where we want to be.

 

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‘It Was In My Blood’

Manager and label head Isael Gutiérrez reflects on making history with Grupo Firme.

When Isael Gutiérrez signed Grupo Firme to his independent record label and management company, Music VIP, four years ago, his goal was to grow the band stylistically and geographically. Having managed and toured with acts such as Banda Rebeldía, Los Buitres de Culicán Sinaloa and El Komander since 2007, Gutiérrez has now scaled back his roster to just two artists: El Mimoso and Grupo Firme. “I’ve never liked managing many artists at once,” he says. “I could have 20 right now, but I want to focus all of my knowledge.”

A trained graphic designer, Gutiérrez first worked in the music industry alongside his father, who opened a recording studio in Guerrero, Mexico, in the 1990s. The company couldn’t survive the piracy boom of the early 2000s, however, and shut down, leaving Gutiérrez with limited options to continue working in music. “I thought, ‘Maybe I should manage bands and help them book shows.’ It seemed like a natural fit,” he says.

Negotiating deals has always been “in my blood,” says Gutiérrez, who adds that his deep industry knowledge was learned “sobre la marcha” (“on the job”) while working with his family. “There’s no school that teaches you how to be a manager. It’s all lived experiences,” he says, crediting other independent executives such as Room 28 founder and Banda MS manager Sergio Lizárraga, Rancho Humilde founder/CEO Jimmy Humilde and DEL Records founder/CEO Ángel del Villar with guiding his early career. “It was a small circle, and we all started from scratch. We learned from each other.”

While Gutiérrez’s vision for Grupo Firme is still evolving, it’s clear that the band’s “time is now,” he says, especially after making history as the first Latin act with the most bookings in a single year at the Staples Center. The group is eyeing another large-scale trek for 2022, but this time “touring and selling out stadiums across the U.S.,” he says. “We want to continue the party.”

This story originally appeared in the Nov. 20, 2021, issue of Billboard.