Kat Velasco Reclaims Her Voice in Cowgirl Complex

Photography by J Michael Walker

Kat Velasco’s story begins in South Carolina, in the quiet tension between who she was expected to be and who she knew she wasn’t. Raised in Columbia and later rooted in Charleston, she grew up surrounded by family, structure, and a sense of familiarity. She studied Communications briefly at the University of Alabama (“one semester,” as her brothers like to tease) but returned home quickly, realizing she was drifting without purpose. That sense of misalignment followed her into adulthood, even as she started to built a stable career in finance, working for her father at Merrill Lynch and preparing for a future that, on paper, looked perfectly respectable.

Then the world slowed down. During COVID, amid a breakup, therapy, and long stretches of self-reflection, Kat found herself confronting questions she had subconsciously avoided for years. She had never imagined a wedding. Never pictured motherhood. Never felt pulled toward the life she was quietly settling into.

Sitting on a porch swing in Columbia, one built by the man she thought she might marry, she wrote Cliche Country Song, a moment she describes as a reckoning at the time, but also a career move. The song poured out of her in a rush of honesty and disbelief, capturing the realization that she had been living someone else’s version of her life. It took months before she shared it with her parents. When she finally did, everything shifted. Music, the thing she had carried with her since childhood, was a way for her to come back to herself, bubbling up from being something she quietly loved; it became the thing she chose.

That choice set everything else in motion. Kat began writing obsessively, teaching herself how to build songs from scratch, co-writing with artists in Nashville, and slowly shaping her sound and her sense of self simultaneously. What followed was a commitment: to her voice, to authenticity, and to creating work that showed the world who she actually was, not who she thought she should be. That commitment would later turn into Show Pony and her forthcoming project, Cowgirl Complex, in which she documents the path to stepping away from performance for performance’s sake.

By the time I sat down with Kat, it was clear that everything she’s creating now, her sound, her visuals, her songwriting, traces back to that moment of disruption. From pageantry to Nashville, from expectations to authorship, her journey has been one of unlearning as much as becoming. And it’s there, at the intersection of discipline and defiance, that I will start you, in the middle of our conversation.

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From Pageantry to Purpose

Adar: I saw that you were involved in pageantry early on. Hopefully I’m not making that up…

Kat Velasco: No, you’re not.

Adar: Okay, so let’s talk about that a little bit. How did that experience of always having to be “put together” kind of influence how you present yourself now as an artist? And did you have to unlearn some of that perfectionism in your music, or does it stay with you?

Kat Velasco: I’m actually so glad you asked that. I’ve never been asked that question, and it’s really a lot of things. It ties into Show Pony, right? It’s growing up in the south, and, you know, my parents being part of like country clubs and all these things.

But yeah, they put me in pageants when I was younger, and I really loved them, and I think I loved them mainly because I was around a lot of girls.

But mainly, I realized that I just really love to sing, and that’s why I never went into the USA organization. I stayed in the Miss America organization because they have Talent. The only thing I tried hard at was keeping in touch with my friends and my talent, you know, which makes sense now.

But I did go through a lot in Nashville when I moved, just having to relearn that when I’m on stage, I’m not being judged. Like that was a lot of the release of releasing Show Pony and writing it in a translation of growing up and how I felt as a child, like having to be put together and feeling different and not really being allowed to be different, to then doing pageants and feeling like, “okay, whatever I say in an interview I’m being judged.”

I had to relearn that not everyone is judging me, and also that I don’t really care.

How the music industry has made me feel at times, where you do have to be put together, and you do have to be that triple threat. You have to be everything. What labels want from you is like a catch-22. They want you to be everything before they sign you.

Show Pony is a lot of that just wrapped into one song.

And I knew I always wanted to write a song about how much pageantry affected me. I know that it helped me in a lot of ways, like being able to have a conversation like this in interviews, and I was really bad at interviews.

I sat down with Johnny Gates, and I was like, “I want to write a song about pageants.” And then it just kind of flowed from there.

And yeah, I love that question. I’ve never been asked that before.

Writing Show Pony and Reclaiming Creative Control

Adar: Perfect. Well, then let’s keep going. Let’s talk about Show Pony.

So, you spoke about Show Pony pretty much being a statement and also a liberation of sorts from being the “show pony” or the expectations that come with that. When you wrote it, what moment or realization were you coming from emotionally? Was there a specific point where you decided, “I’m done performing for others, this is about me now”, or releasing a lot of those things that I’m carrying with me?

Kat Velasco: It was that moment when I was sitting there with Johnny, where I was like, “No, I want to do an EP.” It’s time for me to put out a project, a body of work.

And I was really serious about what I wanted that to be.

Show Pony is the beginning of that.

Like, you hear “Diamond-coated, empty…” It’s like all of these things didn’t fill my cup, right?

They left me kind of standing there like, “wait, who am I?” You know, like wait, who am I in this?

And I feel like Show Pony was a little bit like, “I’m not going to be that anymore.” I’m done with that. You’re getting real, raw me, and it’s just going to be that way from then on.”

I’m making a decision to put out the music I want, to be a part of every single creative aspect of it, make edits to the mixes, and finally use my voice, and it feels good.

I’ve noticed I’m just not looking because I believe in it, and that’s all that matters at the end of the day; that’s what’s going to set you apart.

Finding Community and Protecting Creative Energy in Nashville

Adar: Love that. And also, since you mentioned Nashville and how your early collaborations there have kind of taken you away from what you wanted to be, and with Nashville being such a strong traditional hub for western pop music.

Kat Velasco: Yes.

Adar: It’s a hard place to stand out. What kind of community or creative circle have you built around yourself this time around? And how have those collaborations shaped Cowgirl Complex?

Kat Velasco: Oh, wow. I honestly have become more introverted than I’ve ever been. Mainly because, as you said, there’s so much competition in Nashville. It’s like everybody wants it. And I think that we all have the same dream.

I’ve surrounded myself with people who have the energy that I have.  I can tell if you love music. I can tell in the rehearsal room if you’ve practiced my music, if you care about my music, if you even care about music yourself, you know.

I’ve tried to really tighten my circle of people who believe in me and want the best for me. At the end of the day, it’s like no one’s going to care about my music and my brand as much as I am. It’s keeping my energy safe, and it’s keeping me safe while I’m doing something kind of against the grain…

I really think I’ve attracted the people with that energy; I’ve attracted people who are supposed to be in my life. Johnny Gates, Joey Myron, like these are all close, close friends of mine.

Keeping things close to you is important. I don’t want people’s opinions about Cowgirl Complex. I know what I’ve created, and I know how much I love it. They can give their opinions when it’s out.

It’s like we’re all trying to make it, so it’s very different, because no one talks about planting roots in Nashville like, “Oh, we’re going to live here, and we’re going to have our family.” It’s very rare in my group of people; we don’t talk about the future because we don’t really know what the future holds, right?

It could be one song, and our lives are completely different, and we’re all just kind of waiting on that. It’s a city of dreams and drinking. One of my songs is “Shutting Down Midtown.” It’s very unique, and I’ve had to figure it out for sure.

I’ve had to figure out, like, I don’t really need to be out networking every night. It’s not very good for me. Do they remember? Do they care? Probably not. It’s just like putting myself in the right places, picking and choosing, and also just, you know, keeping my energy safe as possible.

Defining Cowgirl Complex and Shaping a Sound

Adar: Makes sense. Speaking of Cowgirl Complex, actually, let’s dive into that a little bit more because when I think about a “Cowgirl”, I think of strength, independence, but then you add the “Complex” to it.  What does that phrase mean to you personally, and how does it thread through the rest of the EP?

Kat Velasco: It’s just really like my full complex personality in one body of work, I can say.

But for me personally, I’m like, “Here is my complex.” It’s life.

[For example,] my next song is “I Should Quit Drinking.” I think you’ll really like it.

It was crazy because when I wrote it with Johnny, we literally looked on Spotify. We’re like,

“How is there not a country song called I Should Quit Drinking?” We were looking everywhere.

So that was really exciting.

Whether it does anything for me or not, I will be able to cherish it for the rest of my life because I believe it’s timeless music, and that’s what I’ve always wanted to create.

Songwriting Process and Emotional Honesty

Adar: With your sound toeing the line between country storytelling and pop polish, how do you navigate that balance creatively? Do you begin a song thinking more lyrically, or does it start acoustically?

Kat Velasco: Sometimes, recently, it’s been like “what’s in your notes,” right? I learned this from Dolly Parton. She keeps notepads and pens everywhere in her house, so I started doing that too. I’ll write things down.

Johnny’s like, “What do you have?” and I’ll be like, “Well, I have this line, like ‘rose-colored glass has always been distorted’,” and he’s like, “Oh, I like that.” And so then we’ll start writing from that.

I have a new song that I’m adding to the EP, that’s called “Rambling Girl,” because I’m like, there’s always been songs about rambling men. What about a rambling girl? You know, we’ve never had that.

So, you know, it starts with a guitar with a title, but we really focus on the lyrics with an acoustic guitar.

“I Should Quit Drinking” we wrote on the piano. That’s the only one that we wrote on the piano. That came from a much different place.

My brother, who recently passed, has always struggled with addiction, and I’ve had addiction in my family, and I kind of wrote it from the perspective of an addict.

And so yeah, that’s a huge song.

I mean, all of them, the lyrics are very important to me. And then we build the sound in the room with the band. It’s very lively, and it’s very like, “Oh no, I don’t like that. I like that. I want this. I want that.” It’s a really cool process.

But the lyrics on an acoustic guitar are always how it starts.

Grief, Legacy, and Writing Through Loss

Adar: I wanted to ask you about this, but I was on the fence about whether to ask, since you brought up your brother’s struggles earlier. With what happened with your brother, how did that shape your outlook on life and art, if you’re open to talk about it? How did it transform your writing?

Kat Velasco: He was the second oldest, the middle brother, Evans.

I wrote my first song about him in years, alone, like four days ago, and it was just because I felt like I needed it, like it needed a release.

Evans was huge into music, too. Like he played the bass, and when I walked into his apartment, he was actually composing music, and I was like, “Are you kidding me?” like I’ve been a musician for years, and I can’t compose.

So writing has been very difficult since he passed.

And so it’s definitely transformed my writing.

I’m in therapy and very open to talking about him because I want him to stay a part of my life forever.

I know I’m going to be different forever, without him.

But I’ve been meditating a lot. It’s been a new thing I’m doing. I feel his energy, and I feel him closer than ever.

I feel like now he’s with me always.

So, it’ll be cool what comes out, when I really start getting in the room and writing. Because I think his influence will be like really, really into it.

Writing in his legacy will be really, really cool and different.

I appreciate you asking because I do love to talk about him as much as I can.

Voice, Vulnerability, and Personal Growth

Adar: No, I love that perspective, honestly, because like you said, people could be awkward about talking about things like that because it’s so personal. But you actually welcome it because it makes that person live forever, rather than something to be ashamed of or something you have to hide. And I think there’s power in that.

And to be honest, through this conversation, I’m gathering that you’re aiming for this new chapter of your life to be your most authentic.

When you look back at your earlier singles like Leave Me Wild or Name on My Phone, how do you see your voice evolving for Cowgirl Complex? Like, I guess, literally your ‘voice’ voice and metaphorically as in your message?

Kat Velasco: Leave Me Wild is probably one of the closest things I can say to like Cowgirl Complex. I was on the brink of it.

But the difference in my voice. Leave Me Wild is a pretty high song.

It’s not really my range.

You’re going to hear a lot more rasp. You’re going to hear a lot more of my range and where I’m comfortable.

So, you’re going to really get to hear my voice in these songs.

And then also kind of what you touched on, just authenticity, and you know, I just think my message is I’ve gone through a lot of really hard stuff as a 28-year-old girl.

I want it to be real, raw, and whoever connects to it is my fan base - I guess you would call them “fans.” I don’t really like that word, but like listeners, people who support me.

And I always just want to be a real person, and I never want that to change.

I don’t want to just be like a doll on a shelf in a store.

I don’t want to just be this ‘country music singer.’

I want to be a space for people to connect to.

My message overall is be yourself as much as you can, and we have to welcome in the hard stuff sometimes, and we’ve got to be sarcastic about it.

So, it’s just me, you know.

I’m excited to see the feedback and just hope it resonates as much as possible.

Visual Identity, Independence, and Looking Ahead

Adar: Let’s lighten it up a little bit before we end. Since your visuals and fashion have a Western pop identity, you switch it up every now and again. How involved are you in crafting that visual narrative? And how does it tie into the themes of like freedom and self-definition?

Kat Velasco: I’m definitely a little bit edgier than most country girls.

I’m very involved with crafting my looks. I don’t have a stylist, and I pretty much style everything.

It really just is based on how I’m feeling.

But I’m definitely edgier than most.

I’m a little bit of a control freak when it comes to my brand, and that’s why it’s always been hard for me to have a stylist or a branding manager.

Because the last thing I would ever want is to get signed and then have to work backwards.

Like, “Okay, now I want to be myself. How do I do that?”

Why don’t we just start being myself, you know?

Adar: For those who are about to hear Show Pony and the rest of Cowgirl Complex, what do you hope listeners take away about who Kat Velasco is today?

Kat Velasco: Yeah, everyone who’s going to hear Cowgirl Complex, I hope you take away that I’m real.

I’m honest.

I am a little bit messy.

I am willing to put it all out there to connect with people.

I hope that they just enjoy it. I hope they connect to some of the songs. I hope that they actually get to know me through the songs. And I hope they get to know themselves a little more, too. And then one day, I hope to hear them singing it back to me on stage so I can cry my eyeballs out because I just can’t wait for that moment. I hope it’s through this body of work, and if not, it’ll be the next one or the next one.

So yeah, I’m just looking forward to everyone hearing it.

But I’m really looking forward to just seeing how people react and hopefully loving it as much as I do.