La Oreja de Van Gogh returns with Amaia Montero

BarcelonaAfter months of rumors, the group La Oreja de Van Gogh has officially announced that Amaia Montero, the first singer of the San Sebastian group, is back in the band. Montero's return comes after the group announced the surprise departure of Amaia Montero in October 2024. Leire Martínez, the band's vocalist for almost seventeen years. In addition to announcing the singer's return, La Oreja de Van Gogh also announced the departure of one of the group's pillars, Pablo Benegas, the band's guitarist. On Instagram, the group posted a video of a rehearsal in which Amaia can already be seen singing with her bandmates.

Through a statement on their website, the group has confirmed news that had been expected for months: La Oreja de Van Gogh is returning to its roots, rekindling its relationship with Montero, the vocalist with whom they enjoyed their first successes. "Right now we're looking at each other and, without saying anything, we're all thinking: it's happening. The emotion we feel in front of you cannot be explained with words. It's been a year here, in San Sebastián, our hiding place from the world, writing new stories and also remembering all the previous ones," says the text signed by Ál Amaia Montero. "From our friendship and passion for music, La Oreja de Van Gogh was born and, with both of us totally renewed, we begin another stage in our journey," they add.

The statement is accompanied by a current image of the group, now without Pablo Benegas, who is leaving "temporarily," according to the band. "Pablo, for his part, although he remains part of the group, has decided to step back for a while in order to focus on his family and explore new professional challenges, which we will obviously be following closely. Until we meet again, we wish him all the best," they explain. La Oreja de Van Gogh began its career in 1996, when Pablo Benegas met Amaia Montero at a dinner with friends and suggested that she audition to be the vocalist for the group he had started with San Martín, Fuentes, and Garde. Two years after Montero joined the group, they released their first album, Tell the sun, which allowed them to begin a path as one of the most popular Spanish bands.

After eleven years as a vocalist, Amaia Montero announced that she was leaving the group to begin a solo career that, ultimately, was not entirely successful. Faced with this situation, La Oreja de Van Gogh looked for a new singer and chose Leire Martínez, who had been a contestant on X Factor, he talent show from Cuatro. Martínez was in the group for seventeen years—longer than Montero—but she always had to face comparisons with the original singer.