La Ley

Few Chilean bands have gone as far as La Ley. A Grammy, two Latin Grammy awards, stadiums all over the continent, a place of honour in the history of Latin American rock. But what makes their story unforgettable is not the prizes, it is how they got there: at the moment when death took away their main creator, when any band would have fallen apart, they carried on. And the song that ended up opening the continent to them had been written by him before he died.

Santiago, the eighties and a new idea

La Ley formed in Santiago in 1987, in the last years of the dictatorship, when a new generation was looking for more modern sounds. The creative heart of those early years was Andrés Bobe, guitarist and songwriter, the mind that gave the band its sonic identity, elegant and forward-looking. Alongside him were Rodrigo Aboitiz on keyboards and singer Shía Arbulú, to whom the group owes its name: she took it from a song by the Spanish band Radio Futura.

Arbulú left in 1988, after the first cassette. That same year bassist Luciano Rojas and drummer Mauricio Clavería came in, and shortly afterwards a young Chilean raised between Caracas and Montreal took over on vocals: Beto Cuevas. With that line-up they recorded Desiertos in 1990, Doble Opuesto in 1991 and La Ley in 1993, and by then they were already big in Chile.

The death that almost ended them

In the early hours of 10 April 1994, coming back from a benefit concert in Conchalí, Andrés Bobe lost control of his motorbike in La Reina and hit a tree. He died of a head injury despite wearing a helmet. He was thirty-two.

The band was losing its main creator in the middle of its rise. It was the kind of tragedy that usually marks the end of any group. But they decided to go on, partly as a tribute, partly because they felt the story could not finish that way. They brought in guitarist Pedro Frugone, who had already been playing with them as a sideman, and with Beto Cuevas taking on more and more of the leadership, they went into the studio.

The song written by the dead man

In 1995 they released Invisible, recorded in Los Angeles with Chilean producer Humberto Gatica and put out by Warner Music México. It was the record that took them out of Chile. It carried "Día Cero" and, above all, "El Duelo", which played all over Latin America and turned them into one of the most important bands in Spanish-language rock.

And here is the detail the usual account tends to skip. "El Duelo" is a composition by Andrés Bobe. Four of the twelve songs on Invisible bear his name: they were songs he had left behind before dying. The song that took La Ley international was written by the man whose death came close to ending the band. It is not a metaphor about mourning; it is literally that.

Golden years followed, and more hits — "Aquí", "Fuera de Mí" — and a shower of awards. In February 2001 they won the American Grammy for best Latin rock or alternative album for Uno, the first won by a Chilean group. Then came the MTV Unplugged, recorded in June of that same year, with a version of "El Duelo" as a duet with Mexican singer Ely Guerra that is the one almost everyone remembers; that record gave them a Latin Grammy in 2002, and Libertad gave them another in 2004.

The goodbye, the return and the other goodbye

Like so many great bands, they ended up worn out. In September 2005, in Buenos Aires, La Ley broke up, and Beto Cuevas went on to a successful solo career.

That was not the end. In October 2013 they announced their return, played at the Festival de Viña del Mar in February 2014, toured the continent and released a new album, Adaptación, in 2016. That same July, Cuevas announced the definitive split. Since then they have only come back together for one-off dates, such as the Festival Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, in December 2023.

What to remember

La Ley is one of the peaks of Chilean and Latin American rock, but their true greatness lies in how they faced adversity. When death took Andrés Bobe from them, instead of giving up they turned that pain into the fuel that carried them to the conquest of a continent, and they gave Chile its first Grammy.

"El Duelo" — "The Mourning" — is not just the name of their great hit: it is the exact summary of their story, and it is theirs in a sense almost nobody tells. The band that went through the deepest mourning came out the other side singing a song the dead man had left written for them. Rarely does an entire career fit so neatly into a single fact.

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Sources

La Ley is a Chilean rock band formed in Santiago in 1987 by Andrés Bobe (guitar and main songwriter of the early period), Rodrigo Aboitiz (keyboards) and vocalist Shía Arbulú, who proposed the name, inspired by the song "La ley" by the Spanish group Radio Futura. Arbulú left the group in 1988, the year bassist Luciano Rojas and drummer Mauricio Clavería joined; Beto Cuevas took over on vocals shortly afterwards. They released "Desiertos" (1990), "Doble Opuesto" (1991) and "La Ley" (1993). Andrés Bobe died in the early hours of 10 April 1994, aged 32, after losing control of his motorcycle in the district of La Reina, Santiago, on his way back from a benefit concert by the band in Conchalí; he died of a head injury despite wearing a helmet. Pedro Frugone, until then a support musician, joined as guitarist. The album "Invisible" (1995), recorded in Los Angeles with Chilean producer Humberto Gatica and released by Warner Music México, took them international; it included "El Duelo" and "Día Cero". Four of the twelve songs on "Invisible" carry songwriting credits for Andrés Bobe, among them "El Duelo". Hits such as "Aquí" and "Fuera de Mí" followed, both from the album "Uno" (2000). In February 2001 they won the Grammy for best Latin rock or alternative album for "Uno", the first Grammy obtained by a Chilean group. Their "MTV Unplugged", recorded in June 2001 and included on the album of the same name, contains a version of "El Duelo" as a duet with Ely Guerra and won the Latin Grammy for best rock album by a duo or group with vocals in 2002; "Libertad" won another Latin Grammy in 2004. The band broke up in Buenos Aires in September 2005. It reunited in October 2013, performed at the Festival de Viña del Mar on 26 February 2014, released the album "Adaptación" in April 2016 and announced its definitive split on 29 July 2016. It performed again on a one-off basis at the Festival Bésame Mucho, at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, on 2 December 2023. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, La Tercera, Emol, Cooperativa, grammy.com and other coverage.