Today we write so as not to start drinking and crying. Like him, we will try to do it without gum, certain that we will fail in our endeavor. We are from two different generations, with different musical tastes, even contradictory if that is possible, but we share our love for composing lyrics and we know that with Robe’s we have learned to justify, to rebel against police states and to burn bad dreams.
Few musicians and lyricists have been more imitated than Roberto Iniesta Ojea. Since Extremoduro attracted attention in his native Plasencia in 1989 with his first demo Transgressive Rock, followed by three rushed albums, a whole new musical wave was born in Spain, with groups like Marea, La Fuga or Silencio Absoluto as great exponents. And everyone wanted to write the poetry that came from the magic fingers of Extremadura.
“Amor Castúo” is an important Extremoduro song. It appeared at number 4 of their first studio album, which Robe were not happy with, but then it was the one they chose to open their first live album, “Goros todos a pollo a culo”, with which they devoted themselves to the cry of “what a disgusting false hope”. Theirs and ours.
“I spend hours without eating, I paint life without paper, I fly through the air without a motor. First I break the heart of a world that we cannot see, then I return to my corner“, read the first verses of the anthem, which demonstrate that in Iniesta the complement “street” in no way minimizes the poet’s nickname.
In the first stage, Extremoduro acquired the legend of a cursed group. During the so-called “Age of Chaos”, the band’s concerts were simply chaotic, in part due to the consumption and abuse of alcohol and drugs by the leader, who could barely complete the fifteen hour concert without having to stop.
“I don’t care, I’m going to get sick without stopping. I don’t care. I’m going to turn around and I don’t really know why, break up, right away.”
The beginning of the 90s was, however, a period of great creativity for the group. Extremo has consolidated itself into an eclectic and signature hard rock, sometimes inspired by Spanish folklore and flamenco, other times more inclined towards classic rock and roll and, sometimes even inclined towards more metallic and hardcore sounds. But it probably wouldn’t have been valid without pairing it with lyrics related to teenage rebellion in the ’90s.
Installed in Rubí (Barcelona) first, then in Biscay, the leader of Extremoduro noticed that he was tired of being a man, also of his skin and his face. But it also happened to her that her day would be brightened if she saw the sun drying her panties. Because if there was one thing Robe had, even in the darkest of times, it was a little star, tiny but firm.
Like no one else, Robe mixed love and desire with drugs and marginality, anger and sadness with a comical and carefree halo about life, the most austere and animalistic sex with some concessions to corniness that are touching.
“I don’t need wings to fly, I prefer LSD. I don’t need to see you to know that I won’t forget you»
In Spain, Iniesta has always been a weirdo, an unclassifiable lyricist. However, from a more international point of view, the leader of Extremoduro appears perfectly incardinated in the current of dirty realism, alongside Charles Bukowski or Raymon Carver. None of these were his references. And yes, however, the Spanish lyrical tradition existed, particularly among 20th-century Spanish-speaking poets, from Lorca to Miguel Hernández. May Serrat forgive us, but no one better than Robe set Machado to music when he recited:
War Plains and Ascetic Wastelands
Wasn’t the biblical garden across these fields?
These are lands for the eagle, a piece of the planet
Where the shadow of Cain wanders.
The careers of Extremoduro and Iniesta took a turning point in the first decade of the 21st century, when commercial success had already transformed them into stars. “La ley innata”, from 2008, reached the top of the charts and the tours began to be massive. After a fight that has never been well explained, came the separation and the solo career of a Robe who stood out in his most intimate side. We follow him, not always completely convinced, but we would have been wrong if, having become “birdmen”, we had not allowed ourselves to be drawn into his ramblings. We were the usual ones, those from Extremoduro, and those who joined us at that moment to prevent him from being carried away.
Robe is gone and with him go the best years of a generation that grew up drinking kalimotxo and yearning to know beauty. In closed rooms and in these bottles that have transcended us. The best poet that Spanish rock has ever produced and the one who dictated the way lyrics should be written for three decades. As he wrote for the poet Marcos Ana, They will only judge you for your mistakes (not me). But we think we should be happy because, like Jesus Christ García, Robe had specified the date of his death with Satan, only the leader of Extremoduro could never completely deceive him.
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