After 17 years, Leire Martínez (Rentería, Guipúzcoa, 45 years old) has stopped being the singer of La Oreja de Van Gogh. The band announced this Monday in a statement released through social networks in which all parties assure that it has been “a hard and difficult decision” that has been made “after a long time of reflection and deep conversations in the that we have not managed to bring together our different ways of living as a group.” In this way, the second stage of La Oreja de Van Gogh closes after the first years with Amaia Montero at the helm as vocalist.
Two women have led the San Sebastian band that released its first album tell the sunin 1998. The two said goodbye in the same way, with separate statements in which everything, apparently, seems to have been decided with the greatest of cordiality.
This is the chronology that separates and intertwines Montero and Martínez’s passage through La Oreja de Van Gogh.
– 1996. A group of friends from the university formed La Oreja de Van Gogh and after a few rehearsals they released their first album, tell the sunin 1998. It shipped almost a million copies and was placed at different musical number 1s for several weeks, such as on the Top 40 list.
– 2000 a 2008. In eight years they released three more albums and sold more than six million copies. Everything seemed to be going well, until a few months before the release of At five at the Astoriatheir fifth album, the band announces that Amaia Montero is leaving the band.
– 2007 /2008. Relations between Montero and the rest of the band were not as good as they seemed. Then they published this statement on the band’s blog announcing the separation: “We wanted to tell you that a few weeks ago Amaia decided not to continue with us to start her solo career,” explained the four boys in the group. “Although we would like Amaia to continue with us, we wish her all the luck in the world in the new stage she has decided to take.”
– Amaia Montero’s response. “It is the most difficult decision of my life to this day. The 11 years that I have spent with LOVG and everything I have experienced with them will always be in my heart and my head, but I have felt that it is time to begin a new stage of my life, embarking on a solo career, which “It produces both excitement and fear.”
– September 2008. The album is published At five at the Astoria already with the voice of Leire Martínez, a 27-year-old young woman and participant in the television contest that Factor X. La de Rentería premiered with its first tour on March 1, 2009 in San Sebastián and sold out.
– 2008 a 2020. La Oreja de Van Gogh publishes three more albums, the last one in 2020 A whisper in the storm. Although their works no longer achieve the same sales as in their previous stage, the band does not stop touring throughout Spain with these new songs and does not stop playing those from their first albums that also made them famous in Latin America.
– 2008 a 2018. In parallel, Amaia Montero releases four albums, in the first two she uses her name for the title and also to reaffirm her brand as a solo artist. The singer continued to sell millions of copies, but controversy did not stop pursuing her.
– 2018. His fourth solo album, titled Born to believedebuted on the Spanish sales charts at number 1. A success that came at the same time that he received criticism for his physical appearance. What remains to be remembered is: “He called me fat and that’s it,” which the singer said after Malú assured in an interview, after being asked, that Montero was not thin.
– 2019 a 2022. Then came the punishments for failures in concerts with comments as lapidary as: “rooster recital”, “embarrassing” or “pathetic”. On one occasion, he forgot the lyrics of a song while performing live. All these problems always received the same answer: “she is a drunk”, “she likes alcohol a lot”. Montero weathered the storms the way he could. He came out to defend himself and described all these trials as “sexist.” “I feel like crying more than anything else,” he confessed on one occasion.
– 2022. He left that year after posting these messages on his social networks: “If hope is the last thing to die and I haven’t lost it yet, what good is my life?” “I need to heal.” Shortly after, her family made it public that the singer was suffering from a “strong case of stress and anxiety” that led her to be admitted to a clinic specializing in mental health.
– July 21, 2024. Amaia Montero appeared by surprise at the second concert that Karol G gave at the Bernabéu in Madrid. The Colombian artist interrupted the setlist of songs he had prepared and said: “Today I have a little person there who hasn’t been on stage for two years and is nervous, but they are going to give him one of the best nights of his life.” Montero told Rosasa song from 2003, when she was still the singer of La Oreja de Van Gogh. The next day, at the airport, the singer assured the press that she would not play with the band she created again, she did announce that “relatively soon” she would return to solo music.
– September 2024. “That it is said that Amaia returns to the group does not matter to me, it does not affect me at all. What I don’t like is that people ignore me when that is said,” Martínez said in an interview on Navarra Televisión after rumors of Montero’s return were triggered after her appearance at the Karol G concert that she herself had denied. “There has been some interest in focusing on us. She was there, she did very well. She is a super charismatic and wonderful girl. He left and I came in. The story doesn’t go any further. I am surprised that they are still trying to feed these problems,” Martínez concluded.
– 2024 a ? For now, a period of reflection opens to decide what the future of Van Gogh’s Ear will be like.