Leire Martínez (Rentería, Guipúzcoa, 45 years old) still has an active phone on his mobile phone called ‘Lodvg’ (Van Gogh’s ear). It is formed from 2008 to 2024 the five components of the San Sebastián group. She has not left that chat, nor have they thrown it out. He remains without messages since October 14, 2024, date on which a statement was made public where his services were dispensed with in the Donostiarra group where he served as a singer. 17 years ventilated in eleven lines. Six months have passed, a media frenzy as she has rarely lived in Spanish pop, and the artist takes up her musical life with the song My name (On all platforms this Friday 11), a full -fledged adjustment of accounts where you sings: “You broke everything when I was almost perfect. / I was never yours, look for someone to replace me.” The theme is the advancement of what in a few months will be his first solo album. Leire carries fire hair color, is quiet and kind, and speaks slowly, making pauses to think about the answers. The appointment is in Madrid. An hour and a half of talk remains ahead.
Ask. His departure from Van Gogh’s ear communicated on October 14, 2024 and caused, to call him gently, many misunderstandings. The management of this rupture was clearly improvable. How would you have done it?
Answer. I would have closed the cycle differently. I think we all deserved a better closure. The stories begin and sometimes nothing happens. But I think how these stages are closed, things make for the future.
P. How would you have closed it?
R. I would have liked to say goodbye to the people, the group … we owed that to each other after 17 years. I don’t know, one last album, one last tour, a last concert … a farewell from a musical language. Why not celebrate it.
P. Why didn’t it become like that?
R. If I’m sincere, I don’t know. Because I didn’t decide.
I would have liked to say goodbye to the people, of the group … we owed that to each other after 17 years ”
P. Is it normal for a group to be made up of five people to make important decisions excluding one of them, the singer in this case, the one who shows the face on stage?
R. I understand that it is not normal. But sometimes the ways of working of a group are changing and adapting to circumstances. I arrive at a group that is already created, where there is a certain way of working. And I enter and respect what there is. Until I stopped respecting it … when I entered I didn’t put limits, but at a certain moment I learned to set limits, and this did not like. I understand that this would not like, because they were not accustomed. Is this someone’s fault? No, but that makes relationships break. What has detonated all this: a cluster of things. We did not understand the group in the same way.
P. “We want to announce that Leire’s professional trajectories and Van Gogh’s ear will follow separate roads.” That says the statement. As written, it seems even that you It wasn’t Van Gogh’s ear.
R. I have felt that it was part of the project and I have believed that we had something cool, interesting and powerful. Then everyone has their things, but you can live in diversity and reach agreements. I have believed until the last day in the project.
P. It seems that it was something unequal: four against one.
R. It was not always like that, but in some moments it has been so. But I understood it, because I joined the band with the machinery in progress, where many decisions had already been made. So there were already established roles. And I never like to impose. I always like to share my opinion, but I do not live well with the impositions. This is not about good and bad, and I don’t feel comfortable there. The five are responsible and we have had to do with the good and in the bad that has happened. And that is called coexistence.
P. So what happened?
R. What happened is that there were not only personal motivations: there are business interests. And here each one had their priorities.
P. What it means is that the business reasons have prevailed more than the artistic so that you do not continue in the group.
R. What the heart tells me is that yes.
P. I understand for his words that there was someone in the group who believed that with Leire was and with another singer (he has long talked about the return of Amaia Montero), he could earn more money.
R. Ummm. As much as in the group, I don’t believe. I think it’s more … there came a time when we talked about different languages. And the majorities tend to win. The fact that we spoke different languages had distanced us. And that can be added … I don’t know how to call it … a business advice that can lead you to consider other alternatives. I have no evidence, but my feeling is that.
P. Was you not from the company?
R. Van Gogh’s ear is a company, and I have been part of that company, until I stopped training it. And Van Gogh’s ear with Amaia was another company, not the same. But I don’t think you have to explain all this …
P. Do you leave Van Gogh’s ear or do they throw it?
R. The contract runs out.
P. Would you have liked to renew it?
R. Probably not. I say this now, of course. But at that time I would have wanted to fight for the project. I would have done things differently. In fact I tried …
P. As?
R. Well, I tried that the group would consider what was not working and that we put a solution. I gathered them and told him. But they didn’t believe there was that need.
P. Of the four albums published by the group with you of you only participated in the composition in Comets for heaven (2011). Why didn’t he do it more frequently?
R. I think I could have intervened more in the compositional part, but it was a personal decision to stop doing it. I didn’t feel comfortable and I decided that I was not going to participate. I did it voluntarily. I didn’t feel comfortable in that process.
Question: When do you notify you? Answer: 15 or 20 days before. I knew the temperature in the group, but I didn’t think it was going to manage like this ”
P. When do they notify him?
R. 15 or 20 days before. I knew the temperature in the group, but I didn’t think it was going to manage so. I felt a lot of disappointment and grief, but the world did not come to me. In life there are many worse things.
P. You were just living a sweet moment …
R. Yes, the group made an interesting leap in interest and on the last tour the doors opened, for example, of the festivals, and there we demonstrated to many people the good live we had. We are playing as never before.
P. How were those three or four last concerts, when I already knew I was not going to continue?
R. I set out to enjoy them, and I got it.
P. The last recital was October 7 in Zaragoza …
R. I couldn’t suppress crying anymore. It was complicated, complicated …
P. He received some sample of affection from some member of the group, maybe a hug …
R. Group people, no. The technicians, yes. In fact, I got the technicians to the stage and said goodbye to them. It was my way of saying goodbye.
P. And the musicians, nothing. A little sad right?
R. Yes, but … what else gives. No one is perfect. No one has moral authority to tell another person how things should be done. We have all put the leg on more than one occasion and we will put it back.
P. Has it been a slab always to live with the presence of the comparison with Amaia Montero (first singer of the group, from 1996 to 2007)?
R. It has not been so much, because I have not wanted it to be. I have stayed on the sidelines and I have not wanted to read more than the account. I have never understood why I have to talk about Amaia. I have never understood. Amaia will be Van Gogh’s ear all her life and I understand that her figure is there. But I do not fit in my head that this occurs from the rivalry, from the war. I don’t understand that language, I don’t share it and I don’t like it. I don’t care if someone prefers Amaia’s voice. I do not understand free virulence and hatred because you like one person more than another. I do not understand that these mechanisms are activated.
P. Have you had any communication with any of its four ex -companions of Group?
R. None.
P. And with Amaia Montero?
R. Neither.
It is a claim and talk about enjoying the here and now and looking for what makes us happy. It is a vindictive album towards my person “
P. Did they travel together in the van?
R. Yes, we always did. That has been until the last day. After the last day of Zaragoza I returned in a van with them.
P. Did something talk to them on that trip?
R. Not the same as other times, but more or less.
P. And when he arrived, he ended up and is over.
R. It was nothing special. Like a normal day.
P. What did your son, Lucas (nine years old), when he learned of the break?
R. Well, that day I took school to school and when it left it scared because it was affected. But we had spoken at home and knew that could happen. When we talked about it, he asked me if I thought it was going to be better for me. I told him that I did not know, but that life is so. And then he told me: “Well very well, mom, because that way you will be at home longer.”
P. Your new song, My name, It is about his exit from Van Gogh’s ear. Is the entire album on the same theme?
R. No. Yes it is a claiming album and I talk about enjoying the here and now and looking for what makes us happy. It is a vindictive album towards my person. There are songs dedicated to me, my son …
P. Tell me Spanish artists who take away …
R. I take off my hat against Lola Indigo. Perhaps his musical proposal is far from what I would do, but the speech, how he lives his career … with how young he is. I envy. Envied women so autonomous. He has fought it as a junction in a world of uncles. And Rozalén flies my head. It takes into account diversity at all levels, exposes what he wants as a person, how he imagines the place where he lives and with an almost old language, without having to say “bro”. It reflects super good a world of emotions.
P. If Van Gogh’s ear returned with Amaia Montero de singer, would it surprise him?
R. I would not be surprised. No, no … I don’t see many alternatives, really.
P. Will you play songs from Van Gogh’s ear in your new stage?
R. Yes of course. I did my entire ear repertoire. Apart from that I have not composed many of those songs, my songs have also been: I have felt them, I have suffered them, I have danced them, I have taken care of them, I have protected them … Everything. They are part of my life and my professional career. I think I’ve earned you to sing them.