In a place known for its artistry, it’s no surprise that musical talents like Mônica da Silva and Chad Alger have found their rhythm in Napa Valley. Together, Mônica and Chad create music that transports listeners with its international flavors, blending Brazilian bossa nova, classic ‘60s sounds, and electronic undertones. Their studio projects, Mônica da Silva and Complicated Animals, explore genre-bending music—mixing indie, electronic, and retro Brazilian elements into what they call indie nova. Their music has graced film, TV, and ad campaigns, including a notable feature in the Oscar-nominated film Lady Bird.

I recently had the chance to sit down with Mônica and Chad to discuss their journey, the inspiration behind their unique sound, and the art of weaving global influences into their music.

You can enjoy Mônica and Chad’s work on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.

Joey Wołosz: Tell me a bit about your musical beginnings. What first drew you to the stage, and what’s your background?

Mônica da Silva: I’ve been playing music all my life. I was in a band with my sister and brother and we toured around the country. Then I moved to Chicago. I was playing music there, writing and recording, and I met Chad. We became a couple and started playing music. 

JW: What brought each of you to Chicago, and what was the music scene like when you got there?  


MS: We were both there for music, to perform. There are a lot of venues, great venues. Chad had been studying jazz. He was focusing on drums at that point, so he moved to Chicago to play the clubs and get more involved in jazz. 

Chad Alger: I grew up in northern Florida, and then I moved to Chicago because my cousin split up with his fiancée. He had a three-bedroom, and he knew that I was looking to get out of Jacksonville. He offered that to me. I moved there. 

MS: Chad and I became a couple and started playing together. We both had side jobs, but at one point, there was a layoff. They let him go. That was a blessing in disguise because we took music full-time and started touring around the country, focusing on our original stuff. 

JW: Your music has such a unique blend of influences—what’s your process for exploring these different sounds, and how do you decide what style or language to work in for a given song?


CA: We try to keep the moniker, Monica da Silva, for the solo stuff, more international, different languages, and sort of Bosonova style or 60s style. I collaborated heavily, but I wasn’t singing. We have another project called Complicated Animals. It gives us a way to separate our different styles. Complicated Animals ends up being everything else.

MS: We have new stuff that we’re working on right now, new Complicated Animals music that’s coming out. We have released one track already. 
They’re making an EP for Complicated Animals. Then we have a whole album we’re going to release under both our names. So we are Monica da Silva and Chad Alger. 


The first album we released under just my name because I’d already released an album and it was a lot of Portuguese and English, so it just made sense, we thought, to release it under my name. 

With Complicated Animals, we’ve released everything from more acoustic stuff to a song that was inspired by 1980s, to what you’d call electronic or synthisized music. It is another way to release the music so it makes sense. With Monica da Silva, people know they’re getting this international fusion, and with Complicated Animals it could be more acoustic or synth-based. On the new stuff we’re both singing.

JW: Monica, you grew up with one foot in the U.S. and the other in Brazil. How did that shape you?

MS: I was born in the United States. 
I was born in Michigan. I was raised going to school in Michigan, but we would spend every summer in Brazil. My mom’s from the Belém, Brazil up on the Amazon. It’s a city of about a million or more. 

It was weird going from basically Grand Rapids, Michigan to Belém, Brazil. They were the polar opposite of places. We went back and forth and I was always drawn to the Brazilian culture and felt a part of it. I don’t know, my mannerisms, my ways.

JW: When did you start to collaborate? 

MS: That was 2008. 
Since then, we’ve been doing music full-time, performing and licensing our songs for film, television, and advertisements. We had a song in the movie Lady Bird, a Patrone Tequila ad, a Tory Burch campaign, a Netflix movie, and a bunch of other placements. 


JW: How are they finding you? 

MS: All different ways. During the World Cup, when it was held in Brazil, ESPN reached out to us because they were looking at Brazilian music and they guy thought we would be a good fit.

I had submitted music to a company in London for Tory Burch. They place music for film and ads. Even though Tory Burch is an American designer, I submitted to London, then the company sent it back to the United States to Tory Burch.

JW: If you could spend it however you wanted, what would it look like?

CA: Probably working on music. We get so tied up with just mundane tasks, that can be a little frustrating at times. 

MS: We feel accomplished when we actually finish a song or make headway on a song. We’d like to carve out more hours of our day to do that. 
That’s the ideal as a working day, but the not working me would be going to the beach, just chill and drink wine. 

JW: Who are your biggest influences—artists who inspire you or have shaped your sound? 

CA: The Beatles obviously. John Lennon. His stuff is just experimental, more edge to it.

MS: I grew up with Brazilian music. Most of the music I listened to came from Europe. 
I love everything going back as far as the 60s: Françoise Hardy, Serge Gainsbourg, and other old French artists. Then Brazilian music. Everything older, like João Gilberto to Sue Jorge. I like newer stuff too, but I guess I’m more attractived to older stuff. 

JW: How does food and wine play a meaning role in your lives? 

MS: For all my life, I’ve always loved good food and eventually wine. I always have loved to eat. 
Traveling really set me up for loving all types of food. As soon as I moved on my own, I knew I loved to eat well, so I started to cook. I love to cook, trying to make different things. I guess it just kind of made sense that we were moving to Napa Valley because it aligned with everything.

CA: Wine, food, and, music can be uniforms of expression. They’re all an art form. I think early on, we realized that our music went well with wine and the types of places where people can just relax, have a glass of wine, and just enjoy music. It’s about the artistry more than the industry. 

JW: How did you make the transition to the Napa Valley? 

MS: We were living in the Los Angeles area. We kept touring from there. We came into contact with more of the wineries. 
We started playing everywhere from Ojai and Santa Barbara County, Los Olivos, and the Central Coast. We discovered all these different music venues and wineries that we could work with. We started expanding our thing across California and then once we came up here, we loved the beauty and everything about the artistry. People were like, what are you guys doing next week? Can you play this event? 
It was kind of organic, it just kind of happened. We were paying for our place in LA plus and the hotels on the road. We switched and got got rid of our place there and moved up here. 

CA: Yountville was by chance, we were just looking to be in this area of Napa 

Valley. 

MS: 
We found this place for rent, which was like a little cottage, a cute house, but at the same time, it was a good deal. 

CA: It just needed to be spruced up a bit. We saw the potential.

JW: Other than music, what are some of your other creative outlets? 

MS: Cooking. Chad is actually the jack of all trades. He grew up on cooking and woodworking. He can do everything from build this place to a car. He likes to take everything apart and put it back together, repair stuff. He’s always doing projects, improving things. For me too, I would say cooking and I like having a nice place, so I guess we’re always working on improving what we have. 

CA: Yeah, trying to make it nicer. We like designing a place.


JW: If you could share a meal with any two individuals, who would you choose and what would you serve?

MS: John Lennon. Coco Chanel would be cool. Usually, when we have people over we try to do something that we know we’re good at, like beef bourguignon, something that’s a one pot, but really nice. 

CA: it’s nice to do something with a bunch of herbs, that doesn’t take a whole lot of finesse, that way you can hang out with people.

JW: Do you have a personal motto that keeps you grounded or inspired? 

MS: 
Mine has always been Carpe Diem. You just have to live your life, you’ve got to seize the day and take advantage of each opportunity. I feel like a lot of my life has been led because of opportunities. Different things have come my way because I said, yes. I went with it and that’s kind of guided me.

CA: Mine is the golden rule. 
Treat others how you want to be treated. Because I think if more people did that, then we’d have a lot fewer problems.