Pablo Benegas, member of the group La Oreja de Van Gogh, declared this Wednesday regarding the recent departure of Leire Martínez as vocalist of this group that “many lies have been told”, but that they are not going to go in “to deny everything”, as the comments about a possible return to the group of its first vocalist, Amaia Montero. Regarding whether the San Sebastian band plans to look for a new singer, he said: “We don’t have any plan, we have taken a leap into the void, we have nothing tied or planned, we want to rest and see what we do in the future.” These statements were made by Benegas in a talk at the international music industry meeting (BIME), which has been held since 2013 in Bilbao.
This is the first public statement from the band since the statement in which on October 14 it was announced that, “after 17 wonderful years full of music and emotions,” the trajectories of La Oreja de Van Gogh and Martínez would follow “paths separated” after having failed to “bring together different ways of living the group.”
Benegas did not want to delve into the reasons for the end of the musical relationship with Martínez, but he pointed out that it was something that had been going on for a long time: “These decisions are not made lightly. Reaching a situation like this is not a matter of two days or a month, we have had differences for a long time and we have been managing them. Out of respect for our fans, our music and the 17 wonderful years with Leire, which will always unite us, we are not going to go there because we don’t deserve it.” “When you spend 17 years together, there is wear and tear due to the different ways of approaching things,” he continued, “for us, the group is our life and passion, which keeps us up at night.”
Regarding Montero’s recent return to music, this Tuesday, with the song perfect storm, published on social networks, after six years of recording silence, he stated that “listening to it again is very exciting, because it is a great example of improvement and it is marvelous the strength he has had to come back and let us hear his voice. We wish him the best.” The group’s guitarist recalled the beginnings of the group with Montero: “First we were friends and then we shared our concerns and ways of seeing life.”
Regarding the criticism received in the media for the tone of the separation statement, he added that the text said “more things than it seems.” “When you are in a process like this and you realize how currents of opinion are generated and those media that you valued, you see how they treat what is ours, you have a tremendous feeling of orphanhood, it is very distressing. Are all these lies really coming out and all the media pushing forward without contrasting anything?”, he lamented.
Finally, regarding the usual dynamics of the group, he stressed that “there are no great leaders and the five of us talk about everything a lot”, a lapse considering that the current formation has only four members.