Iñaki ‘Uoho‘ Antón (Bilbao, 1964) may not like the title of this article. He avoids talking about Robe, Iniesta, of course, because there is no … more Robe in this country. Perhaps because he keeps that wound open, that of his death on December 10, like the fresh scars that he hides behind the black shirt from the six operations – heart, lung, kidney and three others to fix problems – that he has undergone in the last two months. The ‘perfect’ culmination of two and a half years bedridden suffering from persistent covid. But Uoho seems eternal and with his body crushed by surgeries he rises from his ashes and faces the premiere concert of Rebrote at 61 years old and with an enviable physique. It will be next Friday in Madrid with everything sold out. Also in Bilbao, where there is already a second date at the Kafe Antzokia (May 1 and 3).
There is no set list yet, he says, but they will play the entire new album and there will be some from Inconscientes, from Platero, from Extrechinato… Not songs from Extremoduro, because he still can’t face them: “It’s all very recent, my body tells me that I don’t feel like it, although we’ll do some winking.” The members of that band who are in Rebrote agree on this point: José Ignacio Cantera (drums) and Miguel Colina (bass). In addition, it is made up of Jaime Tejedor (guitar), Iñigo López (piano and backing vocals) and Jaime Moreno, singer, guitarist and composer half with Uoho of the first Rebrote album. They both attend the Bilbao native’s home-studio in Sopelana, with orange trees, a dog (Happy) and cats (Tina and Monchito), about forty guitars and a handful of basses, a baby grand piano, an instrument he studied at the conservatory… Well, Uoho is a classically trained man, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer. Philosophy reader and many more things. The original sign of the late Umore Ona, a bar on Esperanza Street home to rockers, hangs from the entrance door to the recording studio, where Rebrote is rehearsing around the clock with a view to the imminent gigs after time lost due to illness.
Jaime Moreno.
Yvonne Iturgaiz
Uoho says that Jaime Moreno had a “very beautiful song that ended up becoming a longer, more elaborate thing, which is ‘When you are not here’.” He sent me a piece and the first thing I did was put it together with some music and send it back to him. And that is where Regrowth begins. That song lasts 9.40 minutes and from the first listen it has that something that makes a song transcend. It can be heard on YouTube while watching a photo of Robe and Uoho in full performance with their hair flying in the wind. It was hung on that fateful December 10 and there is evidence of this with a message that can still be read: ‘Wherever you are… We hope you like it.’ It already has 123,400 views.
And there, on an amplifier, a DIN-A3 size black and white photo of a very close-up of Robe. After a bit of insistence, Uoho reveals the story of the dedication, conceived when he was being carried on the stretcher on the way to the operating room for heart surgery, shortly after his friend Fito Cabrales gave him the bad news that had occurred a few hours earlier: «It was a very strange thing, your brain has a hard time thinking that all that is happening is true. And waking up is even weirder, because you’re all high. The word is strange. They were taking me to the operating room and I told them ‘wait a moment, please.’ I asked my wife, María, ‘could this be it?’ So I called Jaime to ask what he thought and he told me that he thought it was pertinent, appropriate. I called Fito, I asked him if he thought people were going to misunderstand him at that moment, because of course, what was he going to say? I’ll see what I have to say and I’ll say it to myself, because at a time like that I had nothing to say to the world. But the dedication did seem cool to me. We called the people who brought us the nets and told them ‘please play this song and look for a photo of Robe and me.’ And that’s it. It was that simple. That’s why there’s that song with that photo on YouTube. Because it’s already there… and we’re not going to remove it. And well, okay, okay.
Iñaki ‘Uoho’ Anthony.
Yvonne Iturgaiz
So, back to the title, it’s justified. Many people were left stranded without Extremoduro’s farewell tour, which was expected for 2022 after delays due to the pandemic and which never occurred. Circumstance that seems to be at the center of the disagreements and breakup of the two friends, moreover, brothers Robe and Uoho. So most readers will like the title for its reunion.
«Privileged instrument»
But we have to talk about Regrowth. A German luthier, Didier Gölsdorf, advised Uoho to listen to Jaime Moreno. «He told me ‘this is going to be very good for you.’ I was very tired, out of orbit due to the covid, and I still listened to him online (his group, The Electric Alley). We contacted and understood each other very well and quickly. I didn’t even plan to put together a project until I felt better, but finding Jaime, in addition to being constructive, was therapeutic. Lying in bed for so long, Uoho thought “that he would never set foot on stage again”: “I saw people taking a bike ride with their children or the postman doing his job and… do you know how envious they made me? The company of family and friends on the phone helped me. When he could talk, of course. I went to all the doctors possible. But look, since I had heart and lung surgery and they removed the kidney stone, it seems that Covid has said ‘either I kill you or I leave’.”
Uoho and Jaime.
Y. Plumber
Jaime Moreno attends to him, calm, knowing that Uoho has a lot to tell. He defines Jaime’s voice as “a privileged instrument that has been played by a guy who handles it very well.” The singer looks at him and smiles. From another generation, I listened to Platero, Extremoduro, as a kid, and now it’s here. “In the last 13 years I have played in Euskadi a dozen times,” he says, and now he spends a third of his time at Uoho’s house: “I live with my second family and I am delighted because they treat me extremely well.” Moreno explains that they have worked side by side in the composition of the songs and thus they are signed in an album full of rock and roll that can now be purchased (the vinyl is white): «We work together on the music, the arrangements, the lyrics… It can be understood that Iñaki dedicates a much higher percentage to arranging and producing, to filling the sound spectrum with colors and little flowers, with winds and hurricanes. And I have focused on bringing the brutes, the growling, the barking, the crying… And he has given it harmony, color, shape, life…”
