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There were few bands who got people in Germany racing like they did in the 1990s.
At concerts and on dance floors.
The first guitar chords of her signature song “Entre dos tierras” were sufficient.
The album went platinum, the tours were sold out, the German one of the biggest fan clubs in Europe, and there were very big ones.
Nothing about the success of the Héroes del Silencio was predictable, especially not outside of Spain.
The band emerged at a time when virtually every serious rock band was at least on their first revival tour, technopop was flourishing, and guitar music only went when it was called grunge.
But these four young Spaniards who unironically wore studded leather vests on their bare chests and had a penchant for generous hall?
And yet: Hardly any Spanish rock band has ever been so successful.
The question of why can't be answered definitively by the documentary about the band, which can now be seen on Netflix.
But it suggests that it was possibly also the indifference to this question that founded the success of the Héroes.
And that was why the band ended so abruptly, at the height of global success, especially because they lost this indifference.
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Who or what are you
This is how the film begins.
The very young band members shrug their shoulders on recordings from the eighties: “We can't say that yet.” It's the wonderful and special thing about this documentary: It is mainly told by the band members themselves.
Of the men they are today.
And of those who they once were, on partly shaky, also private original recordings since 1984.
The singer Enrique Bunbury thrilled the fans, 1993
Source: pa / dpa / Uwe Zucci
Back when the cultural frenzy of post-Frenchism hit the provincial town of Zaragoza, nine years after the dictator's death, four teenagers met with instruments.
Particularly talented teenagers, it soon became clear, Spanish observers attested them an “English style”, but their first English sound engineer simply said: I don't like the band.
That should happen to the Heroes more often.
After almost winning a competition, everything suddenly exploded for her in Spain.
But with the success came harsh judgments for years.
Albums too pleasing, the singer too attractive, the band too arrogant.
The critics loved the country's most successful band only moderately.
The alienation
From 1990 onwards she was so successful with her “Entre dos tierras” and the accompanying album that she no longer had to listen to the criticism.
She pushed abroad.
She went the hard way: from concerts in front of thousands in Spain to tiny stages in German clubs.
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The rest is history, and in a way it followed the script for rock bands: tours, huge halls, drugs, too many drugs, recordings in London, even a trip to India.
After all, the place everyone wants to be: America.
But America did not survive the "heroes".
It wasn't America, not even just success.
But above all because of the alienation between the charismatic, egocentric singer and the shy, quiet genius on the guitar.
Their story, however, does not become that of the huge professional apparatus that a rock band of this size will eventually become. She remains that of a boys' shared flat on the road, which conveys authenticity, especially in the carefree interaction with Rockpathos. It's an intimate film, a gift to fans. And who lived through the nineties and wasn't a fan of the Héroes?