Rosendo taught us once and for all how to make Spanish rock sound, but there was one student who surpassed the teacher. It took a few years for some to understand that Roberto Iniesta wasn’t just a guitar-strumming drug addict, but others … They knew how to see from the beginning an iconoclast ready to dynamite the cannon of emulation of the Anglo-Saxons with much more force than his predecessors who, although they gave memorable results in the sixties and seventies, lacked a true and honest Iberian feeling.
Until the arrival of ExtremeSpanish rock bands looked so outward that they didn’t quite sound Spanish. Or at most they resembled an incomplete Spain, which excluded the one who moves between the shadows of marginality. There were groups that spoke about her in their lyrics, but none managed to give her a sonic language as deep and poetic, disturbing and tender at the same time, as that created by Iniesta.
Extremoduro was discovered with a pirated cassette. A shopkeeper in the Rastro might recommend it to you or the most badass colleague in the neighborhood might give it to you, but the delivery was always accompanied by legends. Were Lumpenian tales of drugs and crime that give it an aura of mystery that becomes incredibly alluring when you press play.. How could an indomitable drug addict be so sensitive, so lucid, so original, so absolutely brilliant?
The legends were true. His first band, Dosis Letal, didn’t take off because alternating repetitions with hashish trafficking and car theft (One of its members, Zosi, was arrested several times and in 2006 it was learned that he had been arrested again for killing and walling up his sister, although he was later acquitted), and Robe had to fight his demons to get off heroin before founding Extremoduro.
During the summer of 1987, he traveled from Plasencia to Madrid to record his first demo (which he financed by selling “vouchers”, perhaps the first crowdfunding of Spanish rock), and upon returning home, he changed musicians with the aim of recording a full-fledged professional album. An appearance on TVE’s ‘Plastic’ boosted his local popularity and Robe used the opportunity to lobby the local council for a grant to cover expenses, without success.
Pekenikes’ drummer is the one who recorded their first demo, “Rock Transgresivo”.
Outraged by what he saw as mistreatment by the Ministry of Culture, Robe returned to Madrid to record the demo “Rock Transgresivo” at Duplimatic Studios, where the band placed itself under the orders of its owner, Felix Arribasdrummer for Pekenikes, ultimately producer of Extremoduro’s first published work, released in January 1989.
The cassette circulated everywhere and it was then that the Avispa label decided to bet on them to release their first LP, ‘You in your house, us at the bonfire’. They recorded it in a week with very few resources, and when it was released in December 1989, all fans of “local rock” saw clearly that Their songs brought something new, different from the urban rock of Leño or Asfalto..
Rosendo and Ariel Rot, his first famous fans
When Extremoduro recorded their second album in 1991, “We are some animals”, something incredible happened: Rosendo Mercado himself appeared in the studio with his guitar and sang and played on two songs. Robe was already part of the club.
The same year, the group took the step they so desired. signing for the DRO label, which just around this time was acquired by Warner Music, so that they can finally have decent working conditions and start making a living from music.
During the recording of “Deltoya” in 1992, the one who stopped by the studio to do a collaboration was Ariel Rot, another devoted man who fell in love with the rawness of Extremoduro. But the following year the group fell into discouragement due to weariness, the formation separated again and Robe took refuge in the creation of one of the most special projects of his career, the album ‘Pedrá’, recorded with musicians from several groups including guitarist Iñaki ‘Uoho’ Antón, from Platero y Tú, who little by little became more and more involved in Extremoduro until becoming a full member of ‘Agila’, the album that changed everything.
With “Agila” we had to accept that Robe was not destined to stay underground
Released on February 23, 1996, “Agila” is the album that broke down the wall between the “underground” and the “mainstream”, bringing these hairy people into collectible rags his first gold record and monopolizing hours and hours on Los 40 Principales with ‘So clown’. There was some split with old fans (Robe sensed it and showed up in costume in the music video to provoke), but there was no choice but to accept that Roberto Iniesta was not destined to stay underground.
We could say that “Canciones Interdictes” (1998) and “Yo, Absolute Minority” (2002) were Extremoduro’s last albums. Because, even if they are signed with the name of the group, ‘The Innate Law’ (2008), ‘Defective Material’ (2011) and ‘For All Audiences’ (2013) can be considered as the trilogy of a Robe who was already seeking to break with everything take another path.
At the dawn of his fifties, Iniesta dissolved Extremoduro, tired of having to respond to an image and a sound with which he no longer identified. And the most surprising thing is that His bucolic and precious reinvention left us four indisputable masterpieces“What floats in our heads” (2015), “Destrozares, songs for the end of times” (2016), “Mayéutica” (2021) and “Se nos transporte el aire” (2023).
Roberto Iniesta He left at 63 and sure enough, it seems soon. But to discover how many reinventions he could have surprised us, to discover how much he could have given us, ten or twenty more would not have been enough. Because Robe lived in an eternal spontaneous combustion of creativity, in an incessant combustion of songs.
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