idea to form their own group

The origins of La Pestilencia can be traced back to 1986, when Héctor Buitrago was a DJ on a Bogotá radio station, playing the punk records that a relative had brought him from the UK. Dilson Díaz, a fan of the show from Medellín, contacted Buitrago to meet up in Bogotá and show Buitrago the punk records that Díaz owned, which developed into an idea to form their own group. The pair soon recruited guitarist Francisco Nieto and drummer Jorge León Piñeda, and began practicing in the house of Buitrago’s mother in the working-class Bogotá barrio of Restrepo. The group’s early concerts featured cover versions of Spanish and Brazilian rock bands, but they soon began to write and develop the songs that would form their debut album, La muerte… un compromiso de todos (1989). Although the band members themselves were strongly against drugs and violence, the fans at their gigs often caused chaos and damage which the band were forced to pay for, and this, plus a despondency that the album would never be noticed, caused the original line-up to split soon after the album’s release. Buitrago went on to form Aterciopelados with Andrea Echeverri , while guitarist Nieto formed Neurosis and then La Derecha, both successful rock bands within Colombia. León left La Pestilencia after the recording of their second album and joined Aterciopelados for a short while, before forming his own bands Excalibur and Estrato Social.