The injury that ended the magic of Heroes del Silencio

On a desk rests a charcoal drawing of a wolf.

She wanders through a snowy landscape with no other living thing in sight.

The animal walks with its head down.

Juan Valdivia painted it last night and it can function as a metaphor for what this musician represents in people's imagination: a lonely, shy guy, immersed in thoughts that, unlike other successful musicians, he has never wanted to share.

Valdivia (Zaragoza, 56 years old) is learning to paint.

He does it with YouTube tutorials.

He has bought little pots of colors and some brushes.

Little thing.

But he practices, a lot.

Everything rests on one of the tables in the living room of his house in the center of Zaragoza, about 80 square meters of housing.

Three guitars hang in the same room: a black one, with which he began professionally;

the Fender Stratocaster model with which he recorded the album

(1990), and a Gibson Les Paul that he used in the recording of

(1995), the last album of his group, Héroes del Silencio.

Next to this last guitar hangs a framed photograph of him.

He appears playing the Les Paul, with his head bowed, like the wolf he has drawn, absorbed in the interpretation.

"That was the concert in which I began to notice the pain in my hand," he points out, referring to the image, captured in 1995 at a recital of Heroes of Silence in Switzerland.

More information

Heroes of Silence: the glory and the traumatic end of a groundbreaking group

The destinies of the two leaders of Heroes del Silencio have merged again this week.

The singer, Enrique Bunbury, announced on May 15 that his voice is not good enough and that he will no longer tour.

Juan Valdivia (Zaragoza, 56 years old) had to retire from music, his profession, in 1996, when he was only 30 years old, also due to health problems.

On the 1995 Héroes del Silencio tour he began to feel cramps in his left hand.

They were like lashes.

The musician came to think that they were electrical discharges produced by a mismatch in the wiring.

But no: he was diagnosed with focal dystonia, a pathology that affects some musicians and is characterized by an involuntary loss of control and coordination of finger movements when playing the instrument.

Valdivia is clear about the origin: his obsession with playing like Slash, the guitarist of Guns N' Roses, and the effort to impress Canadian producer Bob Ezrin, responsible for the sound of records by Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper or Kiss, and that produced

by Heroes of Silence.

“I wanted to live up to the person who had produced

I felt pressured in that sense.

Also, I was listening to Slash a lot at the time.

I wanted to play like him, with sensitivity, but at the same time with a lot of cane.

I pushed too hard and that happened to me."

A process that mixes the psychological with the artistic: the guitarist understood what he was hearing and wanted to play at the same speed as his heroes.

He practiced over and over again and went far, as you can see by listening to songs like

or

But he broke.

“There was no other way out, because what I wanted was to improve.

Every musician wants to go further.

If not, you get bored.

At a time when you know how to play something it no longer motivates you.

You go for another target.

And then what happened to me happened to me.”

The story of the guitarist of Héroes del Silencio (a group whose first album, the EP

1987) is built from a self-taught tenacity.

Born in Zaragoza, when he was a few months old his family moved to Segovia, where his father, a military doctor, was transferred to work.

His mother realized the boy's fondness for his father's discography, a great music lover (a lot of classical music, but also Beatles or Cat Stevens), and bought him a Spanish guitar.

When he was eight years old his father died.

"A very hard blow that made us rethink life," he says today.

His mother enrolled in nursing.

When he finished his studies, he looked for a job to financially support the family.

He was 14 years old when his mother decided it was time to return to Zaragoza, where they had relatives and would be more protected.

Juan had already learned to play the guitar a little with the album

of Tequila.

She didn't stop until she knew all of Ariel Rot's scores.

The first time he saw an electric guitar in action was in 1982 at the Fiestas del Pilar in Zaragoza: Rosendo Mercado leading Leño.

While repeating COU he became obsessed with the guitar playing of

Dire Straits '

Almost at the end of the course the reward came: he nailed it.

He was already 18 years old and could begin to dream of being a musician.

Bands of various names arrived, until he formed Glass Juice, the predecessor to Heroes del Silencio, where he built his magical sound to which Enrique Bunbury provided the voice.

The Gibson Les Paul model with which Juan Valdivia recorded 'Avalancha' hangs in his living room.

Next to it, a photo from a concert in Switzerland, the first where he suffered hand pain.

Carlos Gil Roig

Valdivia's modesty is extreme.

There are successful guitarist

who analyze the secrets of their sound during long videos.

He explains it in a spartan way: “I think those

know what I did better than I do.

It's just that he didn't really know what he was doing.

I was going to my ball.

I was looking for a particularly deep sound.

I think the important thing is the melodies.

We liked sinister groups like The Cure, also U2, of course.

We used effects, like

,

,

.

And, nothing, you're there and a sound comes out that you like and you say: 'That's it'.

Not that I was very technical.

I would put on, and the moment I felt comfortable, I would shoot…”.

He speaks slowly, in a low tone, and his responses rarely take several minutes.

She is affable, offers beers and appetizers to journalists, and does not stop smoking roll-your-own cigarettes.

It is difficult for him to break with his reserved attitude, but on several occasions he smiles, something that the journalist receives as a great victory.

With the passage of time and the accumulation of beers, he feels more complicit.

He is honest about the breakup of Héroes del Silencio, in 1996. “My focal dystonia influenced a lot.

I had a really bad time, because I was trying to play something I knew, but I couldn't.

In a band there can be a lot of fights, but if you're comfortable playing the situation is bearable.

But when you no longer enjoy playing and there are discussions on top of that, it no longer makes sense.

Deep down, the separation from the group was a relief for me, although it's the last thing in the world I wanted.

I have been developing this idea over time, because the moment it happened I went crazy with sadness and despair”.

Since the illness broke out until Valdivia retired, he had to endure 100 concerts.

“It was a great suffering.

The last few months I smoked marijuana as a palliative and I managed to enjoy it a little more because it didn't hurt as much.

But yes, it was a very tough ending.”

After a long silence, he adds about the breakup: “There was a lot of pressure, and maybe we could have gotten along better.

There have been groups that have lasted longer because, within the differences, they have gotten along better.

But there are times when not even success keeps you together.

After the dissolution he collapsed emotionally.

“I didn't want to play or listen to music.

He even hated the Rollings”.

She tried everything.

He visited doctors, did strength exercises, underwent surgery twice, had his wisdom teeth removed (“which were barely showing”) because they believed they were connected to the nerve of the hand… But nothing.

In the end they told him that he should stop playing the guitar for at least a year, so that his brain would be free of the pressures and he would have some chance of recovering.

He accepted it and raised with the doctors the possibility of exercising with the piano.

They told him to go ahead.

“I went to a street parallel to my house and I signed up for the piano.

He was 30 years old.

I thought: 'Since I'm going to lose my way of life, I'm going to study music theory.

So one day I can be a music teacher.

I had to learn what a quarter note was, an eighth note.

The plaque given to each member of the group to celebrate six million copies of their albums sold.

Carlos Gil Roig

She laughs as she remembers that there were only boys in her class, ages eight and nine, and a rock star.

"I was very happy, really."

He studied for ten years: four elementary grades and six middle grades.

“Do you want to see the title?” he asks the journalist.

He gets up, opens a cupboard and shows it off, proudly.

That paper partially appeased the frustration for a career stopped abruptly.

When the proposal for a tour of Heroes arrived in 2007, Valdivia hesitated.

There were only ten concerts, but he hadn't played the guitar for almost a decade.

He only did it for his only solo album,

(2001), “but I recorded it pushed by family and friends”.

She performed a concert to present the album in Zaragoza and it was not a satisfactory experience: “I played five songs.

I did it very badly, fatally”.

Could he control focal dystonia on a tour that thousands of people were going to follow?

“I hadn't listened to Heroes' albums in ten years.

Then I put

and thought: how the hell did I touch this.

It took me months to interpret that again.

But I got it after much practice.

It was essential that I had strong hands after 10 years of piano”.

On that tour he changed the tone of some guitars so that it would not cost him too much and he received the help of his brother Gonzalo, who was by his side at the concerts with another guitar.

He assumes that he cannot currently play professionally.

He estimates that his left hand could handle "about ten Heroes songs, just the easy ones."

He cites a few:

“But I can't handle something complicated.

I get frustrated at not being able to do it and send it all to hell.

I have to tell myself: 'Stop, Juan, stop'.

Heroes of Silence in 1990. From left to right, Juan Valdivia, Joaquín Cardiel, Pedro Andreu and Enrique Bunbury.

Javier Clos

With Enrique Bunbury, it is already known, he has no contact.

It ended badly in 1996, on the 2007 tour they had a merely professional treatment and they haven't been in contact since those concerts.

Fifteen years of solitary confinement between the two leaders of Heroes del Silencio.

Have you heard that his ex-partner has withdrawn from concerts due to voice problems, just this week?

“Yes, I have heard something.

But I don't have much information.

I feel sorry for him and I wish him the best.

But it's better if we don't talk about it.

We have no relationship."

Later he praises the singer: “Enrique has a very good voice and I played some guitars that were good.

He is already.

I was very lucky to have a real singer by my side.

I think he is the best Spanish vocalist, of course.

When we understood each other, everything went well.”

Héroes del Silencio (1984-1996) released four albums.

Valdivia points out that the best period was that of

(1990).

Both

(1993) and

(1995) drew convulsive stages.

With the other two members of Héroes, drummer Pedro Andreu and bassist Joaquín Cardiel, he affirms that they see each other from time to time, “but we don't have a relationship either”.

“Everyone is their own.

A relationship is always a thing for two, that's how things have been, ”he says with a small voice.

And he adds: “I am very optimistic.

I never get depressed.

Well, I know I never get depressed because I got depressed when I was 14 years old, I don't really know why.

I had some declines that I did not understand and that I have not felt again.

When the hand thing happened to me I was screwed, but it wasn't a depression.

I don't usually fall, and when I fall, I get up.

A painting by Juan Valdivia hung in the living room of his house.

Carlos Gil Roig

He talks about favorite groups like the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Guns N' Roses, ZZ Top... Of the current guitarists, he highlights Joe Bonamassa, of whom he has sheet music books on the shelves of his living room, as well as blues manuals.

He leads a quiet life with his partner, Eugenia, who was the road

for Heroes del Silencio.

They were married in 1994. On the shelf in the living room are several framed photos of the couple's only son, Isaac.

He is 23 years old and works as a computer engineer in Barcelona.

He also makes music.

“Do you want to watch some video?” he asks politely.

A handsome boy appears on the giant screen playing the piano, the guitar, singing… Themes from Coldplay, Muse, the music from the

The father is excited.

"Of course I've cried seeing them, a lot."

He says that all these years he has lived off the royalties from Heroes del Silencio.

“I don't have a chalet or a boat, but I'm happy.

I don't want anything else”, he sentences.

He continues composing, but not with commercial aspirations: “I'm very demanding.

Knowing what I gave people with Heroes now I'm not going to market anything just because it's me."

Some pieces he offers for charitable causes.

There are two music schools in India called

And he goes to conventions of followers of Heroes of Silence.

In Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Zaragoza… There is a video on YouTube where he appears on a bench in the street teaching some kids the guitar chords of some classic by Heroes.

He also paints, his new activity, spends time with his wife and son, and drinks beers with friends.

A peaceful life after the storm he lived with one of the most groundbreaking bands of Spanish rock.

"I am at peace with myself, more than I ever was," he says goodbye.