HÉROES DEL SILENCIO: the gloomy rock
Héroes del Silencio, well known as Héroes or HDS was a Spanish rock band from Zaragoza, Aragón, Spain, formed by guitarist Juan Valdivia and singer Enrique Bunbury. The lineup was completed later on by bassist Joaquín Cardiel, drummer Pedro Andreu and guitarist Alan Boguslavksy.
The beginning
It all starts in 1984, in Zaragoza (Spain),where it was being welcomed a unusual celebration of years of contained contemporary culture called Muestra de Pop Rock y Otros Rollos and also known as “La Movida Zaragozana”, where music bands showed their songs. Héroes del Silencio wasn’t even a group as the members went to the contest separately (each one with their then current band): Joaquín played along with Tres de Ellos and Edición Fría, Bunbury played with Proceso Entrópico, Juan with Zumo de Vidrio and Pedro with Los Modos.
Matías Uribe, a music critic wrote in the newspaper that Zumo de Vidrio had been the best of all bands playing at the contest. The members of Zumo de Vidrio in that moment were the brothers Valdivia (Pedro y Juan), who were joined in 1984 by Enrique Bunbury playing the drum and singing. The music they started creating (post punk influences) wasn’t too much resembling to the sound style the band had been doing before so they decided to close that stage and relaunch the group. Joaquín Cardiel and Pedro Andreu joined the band and Pedro Valdivia left to focus on studying.
The name
One day on their way to Radio Zaragoza to promote a demo tape they realized there was no official name so, one of them suggested “Héroes del Silencio” (one of their songs’ name) and the others instantly liked the idea. From that moment on, the band was known just like that.
After 1984
After that promotion, the band won the Festival de Benidorm, contest that helped them to start being followed by record producers. After opening for artists like Alphaville, La Unión and El Último de la Fila, Gustavo Montesano (producer and guitarist from Olé Olé) went to Zaragoza just to watch them live and recommended the band to EMI (the fourth largest business groupand record label conglomerate in the music industry and one of the “Big Four” record companies by that time).
The label let them record a four songs EP that reached a record in Spain of thirty thousand copies sold. Apart from the recorded music, they proved their powerful live on tour.
The end
In 1995 they released their fourth studio album, “Avalancha”, and made anextensive tour of more than four months throughout Europe. The relationship between the members of the group was not good even before recording “Avalancha”, so they released their live album, called “Para Siempre”, as a farewell.
The success of Héroes del Silencio did not cease despite their separation, andthat is why in the years after their breakup albums continue to come out (collected, rarities, etc).
The logo
The original logo represents the mix of silence and rock, strength and tranquility, geometry and asymmetry… It even pretends to look like a symbol, an identity people want to be part of. It’s simple and clear, it’s understandable.
The logo remake tries to show the sensitivity plus the roughness of their sounds. There can’t be silence if there isn’t noise. The remake gives the “H” all the attention as they are commonly known as ‘Héroes’. It is also simple and easy to remember. It could be drawn with a pencil. It could be tattoed on the skin.
