Bongo Botrako is a Spanish alternative rock band formed in Tarragona, Spain in 2007 by lead vocalist and songwriter Uri Giné. The band released their first studio album, Todos los días sale el sol, in 2010; it featured their most notable hit, "Todos los días sale el sol" (also known as "Chipirón"), which peaked at #12 on the Spain Songs chart. In 2012 they released their second studio album, Revoltosa, leading to extensive tours across eleven European countries. The band's first and only live album, Punk Parranda, was released in 2014. In October 2015, Bongo Botrako announced an indefinite hiatus and a six-date farewell tour, performing their last concert on December 26, 2015.
History
Early years (2007–2009)
Bongo Botrako frontman Uri Giné joined punk rock band Extracto de Lúpulo as its guitarist, backing vocalist and songwriter in 2003. Some of the songs he wrote didn't fit in the genre of the band, so he kept them apart. In October 2007, Giné decided to create his own band with all those songs and named it Bongo Botrako. He recorded a ten-track demo at his small home studio, programming the drums and performing all the rest of instruments himself. After passing the demo around, Giné quickly recruited eight more musicians: Nacho Pascual on guitar, Xavi Vallverdú on keyboard, Marc Vallverdú on bass, Gorka Robert on drums, Pitus Siles on percussion, Xavi Artiol on trumpet, Àlex Huguet on trombone and Mercè Verge on backing vocals. They started rehearsing in January 2008 and they performed live for the first time on March 20, 2008 in their hometown, Tarragona.
There were some line-up changes in 2008 and early 2009: Mercè Verge left the band, Xavi Latorre replaced Pitus Siles on percussion, Xavi Barrero replaced Xavi Artiol on trumpet, Juanhito Saez replaced Àlex Huguet on trombone and Oscar Gómez joined the band as saxophonist.
In February and March 2009, the band recorded a self-produced seven-track demo, called La maketa, in their rehearsal space. A few days before the expected release date for the demo, Uri Giné wrote the song "Todos los días sale el sol" while being in Granada, Spain. 500 CD copies of the demo were already being produced at that moment, so they had no time to include the new song. The demo La maketa was released on May 5, 2009 and the band sold the CD copies in their concerts. The song "Todos los días sale el sol" was premiered live in Lleida, Spain on May 7, 2009 and it became an instant success in every concert of their catalan tour, despite not being included in the demo.
Uri Giné left Extracto de Lúpulo on September 24, 2009 to focus entirely on Bongo Botrako. After almost two years running both bands at the same time, Bongo Botrako had become way more successful than Extracto de Lúpulo and many gigs started to coincide, so Giné felt the need to make the move.
In late 2009, there were some more line-up changes that finally set the current line-up: Juanhito Saez and Xavi Latorre left the band, and David Garcia replaced Marc Vallverdú on bass.
Todos los días sale el sol (2010–2011)
As a result of the buzz created by the song "Todos los días sale el sol", the band caught the attention of Joni Sahún, an A&R rep for the independent record label Kasba Music. They recorded their debut album Todos los días sale el sol in La Atlántida Studio in Barcelona and released it on September 27, 2010 in Spain on Kasba Music. The album was later also released in France, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Japan.
The band's first headline tour started in October 2010 and took them to many sold-out indoor venues across Spain. During spring and summer of 2011, they played well-received sets at festivals in Spain and France which helped add to their growing fanbase.
Bongo Botrako released the music video for the album's first single "Todos los días sale el sol" on June 23, 2011. The song became very popular in Spain after the men's national basketball team, including Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol and Ricky Rubio, took the habit of singing it before every game in the EuroBasket 2011 Championship, which they eventually won. In September 2011, "Todos los días sale el sol" peaked at #12 on the Spain Songs chart and #2 on the iTunes Spain Songs chart. The song accumulates more than 31 million streamings on YouTube and more than 31 million streamings on Spotify, which ultimately makes it Bongo Botrako's most popular song by far.
In October 2011, after attending a live show, Germán Quimasó of Sonde3 Producciones became the band's manager, a role that Uri Giné had played until then.
Revoltosa (2012–2013)