Morat: The Life Story Behind the Colombian Pop Band

Morat is a band that grew up together before it ever played a note in public. Its founders, Juan Pablo Isaza, Juan Pablo Villamil, Simón Vargas, and Alejandro Posada, have known each other since they were five years old, when they attended the same school in Bogotá, the Gimnasio La Montaña. They learned their instruments side by side, they sang together as teenagers, and they carried a friendship that began in a classroom all the way to stadiums across Latin America and Spain. Martín Vargas, Simón’s younger brother, later took over on percussion, and the four who play together today carry that same friendship forward. That friendship is not decoration around the music. It is the music, because Morat’s sound, gentle, acoustic, built on guitars, a banjo, and four voices that know each other well, could only come from people who have spent a lifetime listening to one another.

The band’s professional life began in 2015, when it released “Mi Nuevo Vicio” with the Mexican star Paulina Rubio, and the song became a hit in Spain and Mexico. A few months later came “Cómo Te Atreves”, a song of heartbreak that topped digital charts in Spain and earned the band a Latin Grammy nomination. The debut album, Sobre el amor y sus efectos secundarios, followed in June 2016, and it reached number one in several Spanish-speaking countries. From there the band’s story runs through a change of drummer, a duet with Juanes called “Besos en Guerra”, a second album, Balas Perdidas, in 2018, and two more albums in 2021 and 2022 that carried the group into its second decade.

What sets Morat apart from other Latin pop bands is the quietness of its sound. There is no shouting, no spectacle for its own sake, and no attempt to hide behind production. The songs are about love, about the pain of losing it, and about growing up, and they are written in plain language that a teenager in Bogotá or a student in Madrid can understand at once. This is the story of four school friends who turned a childhood friendship into one of the most loved bands in the Spanish-speaking world.

Four Boys Who Knew Each Other Since They Were Five

The story of Morat begins in a school in Bogotá, not on a stage. Juan Pablo Isaza, Juan Pablo Villamil, Simón Vargas, and Alejandro Posada met at the Gimnasio La Montaña when they were five years old, and they grew up together in the way that only school friends can, sharing classes, games, and the slow discovery of music. Bogotá is a high, cool city, two thousand six hundred metres above sea level, and its schoolyards are places where children learn to live with rain, with altitude, and with each other. The four boys learned music in that environment, picking up guitars and singing together long before anyone thought of them as a band.

Juan Pablo Isaza, born on 9 August 1994 in Bogotá, became the band’s main songwriter and one of its lead voices. He learned to play several instruments as a child, including guitar and piano, and later studied music production, a skill that would shape the band’s sound from the inside. Juan Pablo Villamil, the other Juan Pablo, took up the banjo and guitar, and his voice became the second lead in the band’s harmonies. Simón Vargas played bass and sang backing vocals, and Alejandro Posada played percussion. Each boy found an instrument that suited him, and the group that formed around those instruments sounded like a conversation between friends, because that is what it was.

There is something rare about a band whose members have known each other since childhood, and it shows in the way Morat performs. They do not have to learn each other’s habits on tour, because they learned them in school. They do not have to guess how the others will sing a harmony, because they have been singing harmonies together since they were teenagers. That familiarity gives their music a warmth that a group assembled by a record label cannot fake, and it is the first thing listeners notice, even if they cannot name it.

The friendship also gave the band a resilience that would matter later. When success arrived, it arrived for four people who had already survived childhood together, and when a member left, the three who remained had a bond that went deeper than music. A band built on a classroom friendship has roots that go further down than a band built on an audition, and Morat’s roots have held through every change the group has faced.

Malta, a Name Change, and the First Recordings

Before the band was called Morat, it was called Malta, a name that came from a pet, and the early years under that name were spent learning to write and to play as a group. The four friends finished school, and as teenagers they began to take the band seriously, rehearsing regularly and writing songs that reflected their own lives. The name change to Morat came later, and it marked the moment when a school friendship became a professional project. The new name, taken from a family surname, gave the group an identity that sounded like a band rather than a school nickname, and it stuck.

The years before the professional breakthrough were spent in Bogotá, writing and recording in the spaces the band could afford, and playing for audiences that were small but attentive. Morat’s sound was already forming in those years: acoustic guitars, a banjo that gave the music a folk colour, and harmonies that sounded like four friends singing in a room together. It was a quieter sound than the reggaeton and urban pop that dominated Latin radio, and that quietness was a risk. A band that does not shout can be overlooked, and Morat spent its early years being overlooked by an industry that was listening for something louder.

What kept the band going was the songwriting, and in particular the writing of Juan Pablo Isaza, who was becoming the group’s main composer. He wrote songs about love and heartbreak in plain words, and the band arranged them with the care of people who had played together for years. The songs were not written to chase a trend. They were written to say something true about being young, about loving someone, and about losing them, and that honesty became the band’s calling card when the industry finally listened.

By 2014 the band was ready to be heard more widely, and the following year it signed with Universal Music Spain, a label that understood the Spanish market and saw the band’s potential there. The signing gave Morat a team, a budget, and a plan, and it set up the two singles that would change the group’s life. The school friends from Bogotá were about to become a professional band, and the name Morat was about to be known far beyond the classrooms where it had begun.

Paulina Rubio, “Mi Nuevo Vicio”, and “Cómo Te Atreves”

Morat’s recorded debut came in February 2015 with “Mi Nuevo Vicio”, a duet with the Mexican singer Paulina Rubio, and it was a bold way to introduce a new band. Rubio was a star with a career stretching back decades, and her name on a debut single gave the unknown group from Bogotá an instant audience in Spain and Mexico. The song, whose title means “my new vice”, was a bright pop record about a love that becomes a habit, and it topped charts in Spain and Mexico while reaching listeners in Colombia and the Latin Songs Airplay top twenty. For a band that had spent years playing quietly in Bogotá, it was a sudden and dizzying entrance.

The follow-up was even bigger. At the end of 2015 Morat released “Cómo Te Atreves”, a song of heartbreak that asks a former lover how they dared to leave, and it became a number one on digital charts in Spain. The song’s power lay in its restraint. It did not shout about betrayal. It asked a quiet question, and the question carried more pain than any accusation could have. The record earned the band a Latin Grammy nomination, and it became the song that listeners in Spain associated with the band’s name. A group that had been unknown a year earlier now had a hit that strangers were singing.

An EP called Grabado en Madera followed, carrying “Cómo Te Atreves” and showing the band’s acoustic side, and the success of the two singles gave Morat a platform for the album that was already being written. The band wrote almost thirty songs for the debut record and chose twelve, a discipline that shows how seriously Isaza and his bandmates took the craft of songwriting. They were not releasing everything they wrote. They were choosing the best of it, and the choice paid off.

The two singles also established the band’s pattern: a romantic pop song, written in plain language, arranged with guitars and banjo, and sung by voices that sounded like friends rather than stars. That pattern would carry Morat through the next decade, and it is still the sound that listeners recognise when a new Morat song comes on the radio. The Paulina Rubio duet opened the door, and “Cómo Te Atreves” walked through it on its own strength.

A First Album and a Drummer’s Departure

On 17 June 2016, Morat released its first studio album, Sobre el amor y sus efectos secundarios, through Universal Music Spain, and the record reached number one in several Spanish-speaking countries. The title, which means “about love and its side effects”, captured the band’s subject exactly. Love, in Morat’s songs, is not a simple happiness. It is a condition with symptoms, with side effects, with good days and bad ones, and the album explored that condition from a dozen angles. It earned a Latin Grammy nomination, and it established the band as more than a singles act. It was a group with a full record to its name, and a record that held together as a story.

The same year brought the band’s first lineup change. Alejandro Posada, the founding drummer who had known the others since they were five, decided to leave in 2016 to focus on personal projects and other professional opportunities. His departure was a serious moment for a group built on childhood friendship, and it could have broken the band. Instead, Martín Vargas, the younger brother of Simón Vargas, stepped in on percussion and backing vocals, and the lineup settled into the four that still play together today: Isaza, Villamil, and the two Vargas brothers.

The change worked because Martín was not a stranger. He was Simón’s brother, he knew the band’s history, and he had grown up around its music. A new drummer from outside the circle would have had to learn the band’s habits from scratch. Martín already knew them, and the transition, while sad for the loss of a childhood friend, did not break the group’s sound. The band continued to tour, to write, and to perform, and the new lineup soon felt like the natural one.

The expanded edition of the debut album, Sobre el amor y sus efectos secundarios… y unas cuantas cosas más, followed in 2017, and it carried the band further into Spain and Latin America. A duet with the Mexican singer Alejandro Fernández, “Sé Que Te Duele”, arrived in April 2017 and climbed into the Hot Latin Songs top fifty, showing that the band’s appeal was widening beyond its first audience. Morat had survived its first lineup change, released a successful debut, and begun to build the touring life that would define its next years.

Juanes, “Besos en Guerra”, and Balas Perdidas

The band’s second album, Balas Perdidas, was released on 26 October 2018, and its most famous song was a duet with the Colombian rock star Juanes. “Besos en Guerra”, which means “kisses in war”, told the story of a love that survives conflict, and the combination of Juanes’s voice with Morat’s harmonies gave the record a weight that neither act could have achieved alone. The song was certified four times platinum in Mexico, and it became one of the defining records of the band’s career. Juanes, a star who had himself come from Medellín and built a career on guitar-driven rock, was a natural partner for a band that loved guitars, and the collaboration felt like a meeting of two generations of Colombian music.

Balas Perdidas, whose title means “stray bullets”, carried a double meaning that the band has spoken about: the stray bullets of a conflict, and the stray words of a love that has gone wrong. The album reached number one in Mexico and Spain, earned a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Album, and gave the band its second major hit in “Cuando Nadie Ve”, a song about a love that only exists when nobody is watching. The record was more confident than the debut, and it showed a band that had learned how to write for arenas without losing the intimacy of its sound.

The album also gave Morat its first tour of the United States in 2019, covering major cities, and a tour of Spain that ended with a performance at the WiZink Center in Madrid. In total the band played more than eighty concerts in thirteen countries on that run, a schedule that would have been unimaginable in the school days in Bogotá. The touring life changed the band, too. A group that plays eighty shows in a year learns things about its songs that a studio cannot teach, and Morat’s later records carry the lessons of those stages.

“Besos en Guerra” remains the song most associated with the Balas Perdidas years, and it is still a centrepiece of the band’s concerts. When Juanes joins them on stage for it, the moment becomes a celebration of Colombian music itself, two acts from different generations singing the same song about love surviving a war. It is a fitting image for a band that has always written about love as something worth fighting for.

“No Se Va”, “¿A Dónde Vamos?”, and “Si Ayer Fuera Hoy”

The years after Balas Perdidas brought new songs and new albums, and the band’s audience kept growing. “No Se Va”, a song about a love that refuses to leave, became one of the group’s most streamed records, and it showed that Morat’s simple formula, a plain lyric, a memorable melody, and four voices in harmony, still worked in a music world that was changing fast. The band did not chase the urban sounds that dominated Latin radio. It stayed with its guitars, its banjo, and its harmonies, and the audience stayed with the band.

On 15 July 2021, Morat released its third studio album, ¿A Dónde Vamos?, a record that asked where a relationship, and a life, is heading. The album carried the duet “Bajo la Mesa” with Sebastián Yatra, and it achieved double-platinum status, with four of its songs reaching the charts. The title question suited a band that was itself at a turning point, no longer a new act, not yet an old one, and wondering what the next decade would hold. The record’s answer, in song after song, was that the band would keep writing about love, keep touring, and keep growing up in public with its audience.

The fourth album, Si Ayer Fuera Hoy, arrived on 4 November 2022, and it was built around nostalgia, the feeling of wishing yesterday could be today. The record included “506”, a second collaboration with Juanes, and it showed a band comfortable enough with its history to look back at it. The songs on the album were warmer and more reflective than the earlier records, and they spoke to an audience that had itself grown up with the band. A listener who had been a teenager when “Cómo Te Atreves” came out was now in their twenties, and the new songs met them there.

In December 2023 the band released the EP Antes de Que Amanezca, and the years since have brought new music and the promise of a fifth album. Morat’s later work has the confidence of a group that knows its sound and trusts its audience, and the band’s concerts have grown into large events where thousands of people sing every word. The school friends from Bogotá have become a band with a decade of records behind them, and the friendship that began at five years old is still the engine of it all.

Guitars, Banjos, and a Band That Grew Up Together

Morat’s legacy is not a single hit or a single award. It is a catalogue of songs about love that have become the soundtrack of a generation’s youth, and a sound that is recognisable within seconds: acoustic guitars, a banjo, and four voices that have sung together since childhood. The band’s records have earned Latin Grammy nominations, platinum certifications in Spain and Mexico, and number one positions in several countries, but the numbers are not the point. The point is that millions of listeners have found their own feelings in the band’s plain words, and that finding is a form of companionship.

The band also matters because it proved that a quiet sound could succeed in a loud market. Latin pop in the late 2010s was dominated by reggaeton, by trap, by spectacle, and Morat arrived with a banjo and a song about heartbreak. The industry could easily have ignored that sound, and for a while it did. But the audience did not, and the audience’s loyalty carried the band from a debut single with Paulina Rubio to a stadium show in Madrid. That loyalty is the real achievement, and it belongs to the songs and to the friendship behind them.

The band’s connection to Spain deserves a final word, because it is there that Morat’s quiet sound found its largest audience. Spanish listeners, far from Bogotá, took the band’s songs about love and heartbreak as their own, and the group’s tours of Spain became some of its most important dates. A Bogotá band singing about love in plain Spanish found a home in Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville, and that home has stayed open for a decade. It is a reminder that a song written honestly in one city can belong to another city entirely, and that the distance between Bogotá and Madrid is shorter than it looks when the words are true.

My Take:

I think Morat is the easiest band in this whole series to love, and the hardest to explain, because there is nothing dramatic about their story. They did not come from poverty, they did not survive a tragedy, and they did not fight their way out of a difficult past. They met at school when they were five, they liked music, and they kept playing together until the world noticed. That sounds too simple to be a real story, and yet it is the most honest story a band can have. I admire it precisely because it is simple, and because it shows that a career in music does not have to begin with suffering. It can begin with friendship, and friendship can be enough.

What I love most about Morat is the sound, and I want to be specific about what I mean by that. The banjo is the instrument that tells you everything. A banjo is not a fashionable instrument in Latin pop, and it is not an instrument that a record label would choose for a new band. It is an instrument that a boy picks up because he likes the way it sounds, and it gives Morat’s records a folk colour that no other Latin pop band has. When I hear that banjo beside an acoustic guitar, I hear a band that chose its sound for itself, and I respect that choice more than any hit single. It is the sound of four friends in a room, and it has stayed the sound of four friends on a stadium stage.

The childhood friendship is the other thing I keep returning to, because it changes how I hear the harmonies. Four voices that have sung together since they were teenagers do not sound like four singers who met at an audition. They sound like people who know each other’s breathing, who know when the other will hold a note a fraction longer, who know how to leave space for a friend’s voice. That knowledge cannot be taught in a rehearsal room in a week. It takes years, and Morat had those years before they ever signed a record deal. I think that is why their harmonies feel warm rather than perfect. They are not trying to impress anyone. They are singing together because that is what they have always done.

“Cómo Te Atreves” is the song that made me understand this band, and I think it is one of the best heartbreak songs in Latin pop. The question in the title, how dare you, is asked quietly, and that quietness is what makes it hurt. A loud accusation is easy to dismiss. A quiet question stays with you, because it sounds like a person who is genuinely confused by being left. The band sings it without anger, and the restraint gives the song a dignity that louder songs about betrayal do not have. I have listened to it many times, and I notice something new in it each time, which is the mark of a song that was written with care rather than thrown together for a chart.

I also admire the way the band handled its first lineup change, because it would have been easy for the departure of Alejandro Posada to break them. He was a founding member, he had known the others since they were five, and his leaving could have felt like a betrayal of the friendship that the band was built on. Instead, the band brought in Martín Vargas, Simón’s brother, and the transition worked because Martín was already part of the circle. That choice showed a wisdom that many bands lack. They did not look for a stranger with a better resume. They looked for a person who already understood the band, and that understanding mattered more than any technical skill. I think young bands should study that decision, because it is a lesson in what holds a group together.

The Paulina Rubio duet is an interesting part of the story, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it was a smart move, giving an unknown band an instant audience in Spain and Mexico, and the song itself is bright and catchy. On the other hand, I wonder whether the band needed a famous name to be heard, and whether the industry’s habit of launching new acts through established stars hides how good the new act is on its own. Morat proved with “Cómo Te Atreves”, a few months later, that it did not need a famous partner to have a hit. The Rubio duet opened the door, but the band walked through it alone, and that is the part of the story I value more.

“Besos en Guerra” is the song I would play for someone who had never heard Morat, because it shows the band at its most generous. Juanes is a star in his own right, and a duet with him could easily have become a Juanes song with Morat as guests. Instead, the record feels like a true meeting, with the band’s harmonies carrying as much weight as Juanes’s voice. The theme, a love that survives war, is serious, and the band treats it seriously, without turning it into a slogan. I think the song works because both acts respect each other, and because both understand that a love song can be about something larger than a romance. It can be about a country, about a family, about the decision to keep loving when everything around you is falling apart.

Balas Perdidas is an album I respect more than I love, if I am being honest, and I want to say why. The record is confident, well made, and full of strong songs, but it is also the album where the band began to sound like a professional touring act rather than four friends in a room. That is not a criticism, exactly, because a band that plays eighty concerts in a year cannot sound like it did in a school rehearsal room. But I miss a little of the rawness of the debut, the feeling that the songs were being discovered as they were sung. The second album is polished, and polish is a good thing, but it can also hide the small imperfections that make a record feel alive. I say this with respect, because the album’s success is deserved, and “Cuando Nadie Ve” is a beautiful song.

The later albums, ¿A Dónde Vamos? and Si Ayer Fuera Hoy, are the records that interest me most, because they show a band growing up in public. The members are no longer teenagers writing about first love. They are men in their late twenties writing about relationships that have lasted, about nostalgia, about the wish that yesterday could be today. That is a harder subject than first love, because it requires honesty about time passing, and the band handles it with a gentleness that I admire. “506”, the second Juanes collaboration, is a good example. It is not a song about a new romance. It is a song about looking back, and looking back is a braver thing to sing about than looking forward.

I think about the audience a lot when I listen to Morat, because the band’s fans have grown up with them in a way that is rare. A listener who was fifteen when “Cómo Te Atreves” came out is now in their mid-twenties, and the new songs meet them at that age. The band has not tried to stay young by chasing the sound of teenagers. It has grown older with its audience, and that loyalty, in both directions, is the reason the concerts feel like reunions. I have seen that kind of loyalty in other bands, and it is always the sign of a group that treats its audience as friends rather than customers. Morat treats its audience that way, and the audience answers by singing every word.

There is a lesson here about quietness, and I think it is an important one. Latin pop in the last decade has been loud, fast, and full of spectacle, and a band with a banjo and a song about heartbreak could easily have been drowned out. Morat was not drowned out, because quietness, done well, is its own kind of power. A quiet song makes a listener lean in, and leaning in creates attention in a way that shouting never can. I think the band understood that from the beginning, and I think it is the reason their songs last. A loud song is exciting for a summer and forgotten by the next. A quiet song stays, because it was written to be listened to rather than to be noticed.

I also want to say something about Juan Pablo Isaza as a songwriter, because he is the engine of this band in a way that is easy to miss. He writes most of the songs, he plays guitar and piano, and he studied music production, which means he understands both the feeling of a song and the craft of recording it. That combination is rare, and it is the reason Morat’s records sound so coherent. A band with a strong songwriter has a centre, and Isaza is that centre. I hope he gets the recognition he deserves, because the songs are the reason the band exists, and the songs are mostly his.

If I am honest, there are things about Morat that worry me, and I will name them. A band that writes about love in plain language can fall into a pattern, and the pattern can become a cage. The songs on the later albums are beautiful, but some of them sound like songs the band has already written, with the names and details changed. I do not think the band has fallen into that trap yet, but I think the risk is real, and the next album will be a test. Can Morat write about something other than love, or can it write about love in a way that surprises even its own fans? I hope so, because the talent is there, and the audience is waiting.

I think about the school in Bogotá, the Gimnasio La Montaña, and about the five-year-olds who met there and are still making music together more than twenty-five years later. That image stays with me because it is so rare. Most friendships from school fade. Most bands break up. Most childhood dreams are abandoned. Morat kept the friendship, kept the band, and kept the dream, and that persistence is a kind of achievement that no award can measure. I hope the four of them know how unusual that is, and I hope they keep it, because it is the thing that makes their music different from every other band on the radio.

In the end, I think Morat matters because it proves that a band can succeed by being gentle. The music world rewards noise, and it rewards scandal, and it rewards the loudest voice in the room. Morat chose the opposite path, and the world followed. That is a hopeful story, and it is one I would tell to any young musician who feels that their quiet songs will never be heard. They can be heard. Four school friends from Bogotá proved it, with a banjo, a guitar, and a friendship that began when they were five years old.

One more thought stays with me, and it is about Spain. Morat found its largest audience not in its home country but across the ocean, in a country where listeners took Bogotá songs about love and made them their own. That crossing tells me something about the Spanish language itself, and about how a plain lyric can travel further than a clever one. A song about heartbreak needs no translation inside the Spanish-speaking world, and Morat’s plain words crossed the Atlantic without losing anything on the way. I think the band knows how fortunate it is to have that second home, and I think it repays the debt by touring Spain as faithfully as it tours Colombia.

Finally, I want to say that Morat’s greatest gift may be the simplest one: the band gives its listeners permission to feel sad about love without feeling foolish. A heartbreak song that is sung gently, with friends harmonising beside you, tells the listener that the pain is normal, that others have felt it, and that it will pass. That is a small gift, but it is a real one, and millions of people have received it from this band. I hope Morat keeps giving it, because the world will always need songs that make a lonely listener feel less alone.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long have the members of Morat known each other?

Juan Pablo Isaza, Juan Pablo Villamil, Simón Vargas, and the founding drummer Alejandro Posada met at the Gimnasio La Montaña school in Bogotá when they were five years old. They grew up together, learned their instruments side by side, and carried that school friendship into a professional band.

What was Morat called before it took its current name?

The group was first called Malta, a name that came from a pet, and it used that name while the members were teenagers learning to write and play together. The change to Morat, taken from a family surname, marked the moment the school friendship became a professional project.

Which duet gave Morat its first hit, and what came right after it?

The band’s recorded debut was “Mi Nuevo Vicio”, a February 2015 duet with the Mexican star Paulina Rubio, which became a hit in Spain and Mexico. A few months later the band released “Cómo Te Atreves”, a heartbreak song that topped digital charts in Spain and earned a Latin Grammy nomination.

What happened when the band’s founding drummer left in 2016?

Alejandro Posada, who had played percussion since the band’s beginnings, left in 2016 to focus on personal projects and other work. He was replaced by Martín Vargas, the younger brother of bassist Simón Vargas, and the lineup has stayed the same since.

Why is the duet “Besos en Guerra” with Juanes so important to Morat?

“Besos en Guerra”, from the 2018 album Balas Perdidas, paired Morat with the Colombian rock star Juanes for a song about love surviving conflict. It was certified four times platinum in Mexico and became one of the band’s defining records, as well as a centrepiece of their concerts.

What are Morat’s most recent albums, and what do they sound like?

The third album, ¿A Dónde Vamos?, arrived in July 2021 with the Sebastián Yatra duet “Bajo la Mesa”, and the fourth, Si Ayer Fuera Hoy, followed in November 2022 with the Juanes collaboration “506”. Both records are warmer and more reflective than the early work, with the same guitars, banjo, and harmonies, and an EP, Antes de Que Amanezca, followed in December 2023.