Spanish music lost one of its most emblematic voices this Wednesday. Robert IniestaFounder and Director of Extremedied in Plasencia at the age of 63, after dedicating a life to transforming rock and poetry into generational anthems. His work, characterized by a rough and lyrical language, has influenced several generations of musicians and listeners since the late 1980s.
Roberto Iniesta Ojea, popularly known as Robe, was born in Plasencia, Extremadura, on May 16, 1962. Even as a young boy, he showed interest in literature and rebellion, two elements that shaped his musical career. He later transferred his early love of poetry to the lyrics of his songs, in which he discussed love, freedom and social disillusionment. 1987, after a short time in the band Lethal dosefounded Extremoduro and began a career that defined an era.
Over more than three decades, Iniesta’s career has been characterized by the constant search for creative freedom and the rejection of any typecasting. Its musical history begins in a context in which urban rock served as a means of escape and denunciation for young people frustrated by their material and social conditions. This peripheral environment captured the imagination of Robe, who decided to found Extremoduro in 1987 with friends with whom he shared both insecurity and artistic restlessness.
The emergence of Extremoduro changed the rules of national rock. From the first album, Transgressive rock (1989), the band presented itself as an autonomous collective that transcended the boundaries of the industry to gain followers through word of mouth, exuberant performances and lyrics full of urban poetry. With an uncompromising speech, Robe Iniesta managed – as was rare in the scene – to combine commercial success with a radical and independent attitude.
One of the crucial moments in this development was the publication of Agila In 1996, it was considered by critics and the public to be one of the most influential albums in contemporary Spanish music. The topic I am a clown It immediately became an anthem, like other compositions, with succinct verses and musical structures that were unprecedented in the local scene. As emphasized The countrythe explosion of Agila It marked Extremoduro’s final leap into major venues and a popularity that never compromised his artistic aspirations.
In the following years, Robe Iniesta expanded his creative palette without giving up his claim to freedom, as in albums such as “ Me, absolute minority (2002) and The innate law (2008). The latter, a conceptual suite articulated as a poetic work, represented a turn toward complex structures and ambitious arrangements, with philosophical texts that approached the human condition from new perspectives. During this phase, he confessed in various media that success had not changed his way of creating: “I don’t control what I write. It’s like throwing up and then seeing what’s there,” he told El País.
Extremoduro suspended its activities after the 2014 Tour, but Iniesta’s concerns remained. This is how personal projects arise such as: What flutters in our heads (2015), Destrozares, songs for the end of time (2016) and maieutics (2021), in which lyrical rawness was combined with new musical landscapes: folk, flamenco or progressive rock. The response from both critics and supporters confirmed the validity of the proposal. Meanwhile, like songs The sidewalk through the back door And If you go… They received tens of millions of views across platforms and established themselves as an indispensable part of the popular repertoire.
Throughout his career, Robe Iniesta has been the protagonist of important media moments. The cancellation of the last Extremoduro tour, which was supposed to take place in 2020, sparked reactions across Spain. The decision, motivated initially by the COVID-19 pandemic and later by personal reasons, meant unexpected closure for thousands of fans. Although Iniesta himself stayed out of the spotlight, each announcement of new concerts or solo releases attracted the attention of the country’s cultural and mass media. Iniesta’s lyrics deal with universal themes from a personal perspective. They reflect an inner world characterized by rebellion, vulnerability, love and marginality. His line “I am not the flower you expect, I am the stem that turns” has been saved in compilations of his best verses Wally’s cornerillustrates his way of mastering the language and questioning all stereotypes.
As an institutional recognition, the Plasencia City Council initiated the process of declaring him favorite son in September 2025. According to the initiators, the award is a response to the “social, cultural and artistic impact of his career”. The death of Robe Iniesta marks the end of an era of Spanish rock in which indiscipline, honesty and poetic imagination changed the codes of popular music. His legacy remains not only in the albums, but also in the collective imagination of several generations and in an attitude to life that is summarized in another of his sentences: “I want to be free, to live my life without chains.”
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