Arde Bogotá is a Spanish band that in the few years it has been founded has caused an impressive stir. It may be because their rock has airs of classic rock groups from the eighties. Or because its members did not have great pretensions when they met and began playing together in their native Cartagena, Spain.
Yes, although it may sound confusing, it is a group that was born in a Spanish city that has the same name as a Colombian city. But the name Arde Bogotá was inspired by the Colombian capital. It was in that place where the singer’s friends, Antonio García, heard a demo of the band’s song “Antiaéreo” for the first time.
In 2017, in a bar in Cartagena, someone introduced Antonio and Daniel Sánchez, who already had a rock group together with José Ángel Mercader (drums) and Pepe Esteban (bass), but needed a singer. Antonio was the perfect addition.
“Without much pretense we got together and spent a lot of time making songs, trying to discover what music we wanted to make, what we wanted our rock to sound like,” Antonio said in a recent conversation.
Two years passed, “until we finally had a song in our hands that we were proud enough to publish,” said the singer. It was coincidentally the first song the group had composed, “Antiaéreo.”
This cut was the spearhead for the quartet. From that song, Antonio and Daniel describe the trajectory of Arde Bogotá as frenetic; that despite the interruption of the pandemic.
“Every day, every month, things have happened to us that have vitalized the project,” said Daniel, the group’s guitarist. “And he has made what we do reach more people.”
Currently, the group is promoting “Cowboys de la A3”, an album—the second of their career—that has served not only as another element for the consolidation of the band in the world of rock, but also for their music and Your name leaves the borders of your country and is known on this side of the planet.
For now, they are still in disbelief over the two Latin Grammy nominations they received, one in the category of Best Rock Album, for “Cowboys,” and in Best Rock Song, for “Los Perros.”
The band’s most recent album narrates the experiences, reflections and vicissitudes that the band went through while doing their first tour. It was the moment that changed their lives.
“It was when we stopped being all the things we were before being musicians and started being just musicians,” said Antonio, who like Daniel, was a lawyer. Pepe worked in an inn and José was an English teacher at a university.
“All those experiences were linked to the roads, to the paths,” Daniel explained. “We discovered that we were a rock band without complexes, without fear, with energy and honesty, with the desire to make rocking and passionate music.”