Even when I was very young I remember that I loved listening to my father's music, it was music that today seems from another era, something very distant for millennials, but The Beatles, ABBA, Queen, and Pink Floyd were my first references as well as the classical music I listened to with my mother, especially Beethoven and Vivaldi, which have always accompanied me.
Like any child, I had pianos, guitars, and toy drums, but one day I went to a friend's grandmother's house and there was a piano, a wall piano that I remember seeing as something gigantic. At that moment I discovered the connection with the natural, real sound of an instrument. I signed up for music theory with the excuse of playing the teachers' pianos, but that's where it ended.
Later, when I started my adolescence I started to listen to "harder" music (as that term has evolved) Europe, Héroes del Silencio, Bon Jovi, Brian Adams, REM, etc., but one day by chance, and without warning, I discovered music that I didn't know existed, I listened to Iron Maiden! Fear Of The Dark (almost nothing). My mind wasn't able to assimilate what was going on, nor was I able to understand what each instrument was doing, but I remember that the sound of those solos opened Pandora's box inside and I decided that I wanted to get to do the same (at that time I didn't even know what a guitar was). That was the first metal album I ever bought in my life.
The absolute confirmation of my new musical journey was when they left me a Metallica tape with some songs from And Justice For All on one side and the Black Album on the other... what can I say... that day changed my life completely, I still remember it as if it was yesterday if I close my eyes and listen to Sad But True or Wherever I May Room the regression is absolute.
And I can't forget one of the best "failed" gifts of my life, I will be eternally grateful to my parents the day that thinking they were buying me a QUEEN album, they gave me the fantastic Queensrÿche Rage For Order, I couldn't stop listening to it!
It took me a long, long time, not to say that I had to negotiate a lot with my parents! However, at the age of 14, I managed to buy my first guitar. I signed up for private lessons, and when my parents saw my dedication, they understood that my passion was here to stay, and the following year they gave me a real guitar, a Jackson made in the USA with a good Marshall amplifier.
During those first years, I went to different teachers, I studied incessantly on my own, I also went to the Municipal School of Music, I started to play the classical guitar and I even bought a drum set and went to lessons for several years.
From that time I have a collection of very interesting riffs, but it was still too early to compose complete songs, but with some friends, we entered a competition and were awarded an honorary prize for a poem set to music which we played in public.
At last, I was ready to play in a band, but the illusion quickly faded away when I found few people with my musical tastes. The first one was a bass player called Alan and at some point, my friend Ángel Rios joined me on drums, with him I think I've played in almost all the bands I've been part of.
After numerous attempts to form bands, the first stable band, Aquilonia, finally arrived. In those years we listened to Blind Guardian, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Edguy, Impellitteri, etc., so we ended up getting closer to that style of music and recorded the demo The Day Of The Storm (1999).
After leaving the band, I decided to go in a slower and more powerful musical direction and so RainInMind was born for the first time. My first self-produced demo was called Borned From My Dreams (2001), after which I started looking for musicians.
Finally, after adapting my songs to new musicians and friends: Angel Rios (drums), Diego Javier (vocals), and Alberto Collazo (bass) the name of the project was changed to Cold Breath. At that time we loved bands like Iced Earth, Symphony X, Dream Theater, and Nevermore. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to record a demo, the preparation of "The Domain Of Pain" (2003) fell by the wayside.
At the same time, I started working with Luis Massot from the band Taifa, with whom we recorded three demos: "Taifa" (2002), "Taifa" (2003), and "Fe" (2005), the last two self-produced. It was a flamenco-metal band, but even though it seemed out of my comfort zone, I really liked that music.
At that time in my life, I was very determined to do something, I was making songs to create a band with female vocals that I wanted to call "Serenity" (2005). I also entered the world of 7 string guitars and composed some songs for a new project "Confluens" (2006) with Diego Javier to get closer to death metal bands like Death, Soilwork, Nevermore, or Machine Head. And RainInMind was always latent, all the ideas, riffs and new songs ended up in that project.
After so many band attempts I decided to disconnect and leave music for a while, it almost got out of hand, I even had at some point the idea of selling everything.
Years later I decided to try again, there were many more band attempts, I was composing music aimlessly, I had no goals, there is nothing worse in life than that, not having a purpose, an end, a goal... not only in music but in any area of life.
The winds of change came from my friends, whom I have to thank for always reminding me that it was a pity I didn't finish all the music I had composed for so many years.
At that moment in my life, several drastic changes happened that caused a change inside me, I was aware that I loved music and was happy in my way, it was time to get back on track....
These last years have been above all a path of learning to overcome my limits, those chains that bind you and don't allow you to go further, that door that you manage to open to evaluating the next unknown space...
Now I had a clear objective, to revive RainInMind to finish and publish in albums the songs composed during so many years. The challenge I set myself was to make 10 albums of 10 songs... foolish apprentice of Ulysses without the help of the gods.
Nobody should underestimate the work of his bandmates, to do it all oneself is a titanic task, very rewarding but always walking a tightrope bordering on the limit of patience.
Along the way, there were classes and studies of guitar, piano, singing, English, music theory, harmony, recording techniques, mixing, mastering, thousands of videos and reviews of plugins, and purchases of new material to set up a home studio powerful enough not to capsize with the ship with which he had set sail. The moral of this story is that, unlike the genre, we mortals have to work hard to achieve personal success.
RainInMind - The Awakening (2021) will be released soon, I wanted to give it this title to express this second chance, my inner rebirth, but also because it is the first album of this new stage of my life.