Los Angeles-based Venezuelan-American artist Kat Meoz is back on the radar thanks to stunning new single “Back for More.” Meanwhile, she’s preparing for a live streamed gig, and there’s an EP on the way. We chatted about all that and more…

L.A. WEEKLY: The new single is “Back for More” — tell us what that’s about…

KAT MEOZ: The idea was that I’ve been working in the music industry for a while — you get a lot of nos, you get a lot of maybes. There’s a company that I really wanted to work with, that kept telling me to send my music but also kept passing on what I sent them. I went into that writing session thinking I was going to come back for more.

How has your sound evolved, particularly since the LA Don’t Love You EP?

Oh gosh, a lot. Actually, I owe a little bit of my past to L.A. Weekly. In 2011, I worked at L.A. Weekly for three or four weeks, and then they had a bunch of cutbacks. I had been working in recording studios for years, and I wanted a change. I had a friend that was working at L.A. Weekly and she got me a job there. Then there were cutbacks and I lost my job.

I went on unemployment and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna start a band and see what happens.’ That’s when I started my garage rock band — the one that plays on LA Don’t Love You. I did that for a few years. I was playing garage rock for five or six years, doing more cowriting towards the end of it. I’ve always written all types of music, it just happens that my band was garage rock. But when I started getting more into co-writing, I just was writing more pop-rock and was enjoying the way the sessions and production was turning out. I wanted to put it out, so decided to take a little bit of a shift, and start releasing pop-rock and rock. I took down my garage rock, mostly because it was on social media under the band name Grit. So when I started putting out pop-rock, it was so much more produced than the garage rock stuff obviously, that it didn’t make sense having it out anymore. So I’ve just been on this swagger rock, pop-rock vibe for a couple of years now. I feel like it’s doing better than the garage rock. I miss my garage rock band and playing out, and I hope I’ll be able to get back to it one day.

How has the lockdown affected the rollout of material for you?

I’m sitting on a lot of songs right now that aren’t fully done because I’ve had a lot of remote sessions and the workflow on that is different. I feel like the sessions are much shorter — people don’t want to be on Facetime or Zoom for as long as they would have happily sat in a studio or at each other’s house coming up with music. So it does interrupt the workflow, and everything takes longer because I can’t really see the people that I’m working with to impose a sense of urgency. It’s hard to get stuff done.

Is there an album on the way?

Yeah, I’m working on an EP right now, so I’ll probably put “Back for More” on it and call it the Back for More EP. I’ve got three songs done, and I’m trying to get a few more done. I’ve been quarantining in Las Vegas. I was just actually in L.A. all of last week for the week. Luckily a couple of producers that I know are also quarantining in Vegas, so I’m waiting for one to get back from a trip he’s on right now and then we’re going to track some vocals. So yeah, I’m definitely putting out an EP this year and I’m excited about it.

What else do you have planned for 2020?

On August 14, I’m doing a livestream for Blackstar Amplification, so I’ll be going live off of their Instagram and Facebook page too, and I’ll be playing songs I’ve put out in the last year, and talking about guitars and amps.

Kat Meoz’s “Back for More” is out now via Cloudkid.

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