Mexican music powerhouse Fuerza Regida has always delighted in coming up with unexpected stunts to promote their music and shows, from an impromptu concert on the 210 freeway near Los Angeles to a performance alongside street musicians on the Tijuana border.

This past April, when the band announced its current, 37-date arena tour – Pero No Te Enamores — the drumbeat started with the band wearing jerseys emblazoned with the number 12, and with a recurring logo of a heart with a line drawn over it popping up in Fuerza’s social media posts. On April 12 (see the number connection now?) the band announced their tour, and also unveiled a mural of the crossed-out heart, painted on the black wall of a liquor store in San Bernardino, the city where frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz, better known as JOP, grew up.

“It’s a liquor store where my father goes to buy his beer,” says JOP. “I went and asked the owner, and he said yes, como si nada.”

Engagement on social media following the mural unveiling was so high, that JOP started toying with the idea of expanding the concept for other major announcements.

Fast forward to today (July 16), when the band has unveiled 15 murals in six cities – Miami, Phoenix, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Bernardino, of course — to announce their upcoming new album, also titled Pero No Te Enamores (which translates to But, Don’t Fall In Love). Like the original mural in San Bernardino, which has been retouched for the occasion, the murals feature a giant crossed-out heart drawn inside a circle, similar to a traffic signal, with the album’s release date, July 25, and a parental warning on the side, all against a black backdrop.

“It’s a heart with the ‘Not allowed zone.’ The ‘No love zone,’” laughs JOP, speaking to Billboard about his marketing strategy. “They’ll see the murals and say, ‘S–t, he has an album and it has no love.”

That, he adds, is the whole theme of the upcoming set: “Don’t fall in love. I want to say, don’t feel comfortable where you are in life. If you have a job, don’t fall in love with that. Want more. Don’t fall in love with that drug you’re addicted to, or with whatever it is.”

While JOP wouldn’t provide details on the album itself, he says it will be radically different from anything the group has done before. “It’s not your typical Mexican music album with guitar, tololoche. We’re getting into something different, something new, something risky. That’s why we took our time to really market this, we invested money,” says JOP, noting that “this the album we’ve invested the most money on — in marketing, producing it and making it.”

This week’s murals will go up in tandem with Spotify-supported billboards in Los Angeles and Mexico that will reveal a snippet of lyrics to one of the album’s songs.

Interestingly, this is the first time Fuerza tries its out-of-the-box stunts far from California. Prior to these efforts, the group — which made history by becoming the first Latin band to top Billboard‘s Top Artists, Duo/Group Year-end Chart in 2023 — had amplified its actions on social media, but never actually done marketing actions on the ground in other cities to promote their music. But in February, after the group released the EP Dolido Pero No Arrepentido, they managed to place seven songs in the top 10 on Apple’s Latin Top Songs chart.

“I never imagined achieving that,” said JOP. “It was always one or two. When I saw seven up there, I was happy, but I also said, ‘Oh, shit. I have to do something different.”

Beyond the murals, a “crazy album release party” is also in the works, along with “lots of crazy s–t” that should shift Fuerza’s stunt-meter into high gear.

“We really pushed this album to the max,” says JOP. “But what I really like about these murals is we put them in mom and pop businesses owned by regular people. And as soon as this rolls out, our fans are gonna come and look and them and bring business to these people.”

Liam Payne has signed with CAA for representation for all areas of representation. 

In March, the former member of One Direction released a single, “Teardrops,” written with *NSYNC’s JC Chasez. It was his first new music in three years. “Teardrops is out now,” Payne posted on Instagram. “This song is born from many tears, not all mine. I hope you love it like I do and not too many of you can relate.” 

Payne has never done a solo tour, having canceled a South America outing last fall after falling ill and being hospitalized with a severe kidney infection. Of course, One Direction was a touring powerhouse. Its biggest outing was the Where We Are Tour in 2014, which grossed $290.2 million and sold 3.4 million tickets over 69 shows, earning the band the No. 1 slot on Billboard‘s year-end Top Tours chart in 2014, according to Billboard Boxscore. 

Other than “Teardrops,” Payne has been relatively quiet in recent years — though perhaps the announcement signifies the start of a new chapter. Following One Direction going on hiatus in 2015, he released his debut solo single, “Strip That Down, “ featuring Quavo, which reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017. He subsequently released several other singles, including “For You” with Rita Ora, which was on the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack and a top 10 hit in the U.K.  He released one solo album, LP1, in 2019 via Capitol Records. 

Payne also served as the first global brand ambassador for Hugo Boss in 2019 and worked with the designer on the Hugo x Liam Payne capsule collection, which debuted at Berlin Fashion Week in July 2020. 

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