La Guardia (band)

La Guardia
La Guardia in concert
Background information
Origin	Granada, Spain
Genres	Pop rock, country rock
Years active	1983–1997 2003-present
Labels	Tubo Escape Records Blanco y Negro Vale Music
Website	http://www.grupolaguardia.com/
Members	Manuel España Jean Louis Barragán Javier Cano Paco Villamayor
Past members	Carlos Gilabert Enrique Moreno Joaquín Almendros Emilio Muñoz

La Guardia is a Spanish pop-rock band. They were especially famous in the late 1980s and early 1990s, although they are still active today (after a hiatus). They have sold more than 2 million records.

The group was founded in Granada in 1983 by Manuel España (voice), Enrique Moreno "Conejo" (bass guitar) and Carlos Gilabert (keyboard), with the initial name of "La guardia del Cardenal Richelieu" ("Cardinal Richelieu's Guard"). They were only teenagers and they adopted this name because they used to rehearse in the afternoons after they watched Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds on TV.

Under this name they released a first single with techno and mod sounds. After this, Gilabert left the band, and Joaquín Almendros (guitar) and Emilio Muñoz (drums) joined it, giving birth to the band's most famous line-up. They moved to Madrid, where the Movida was still ebullient, looking for broader success, and in 1985, they recorded an EP, now as La Guardia, after winning the Villablanca pop-rock festival in the town of Fuengirola.

In 1986 they travelled to London to record their first full album Noches como esta; but it's in 1988, with the album Vámonos, when they achieved major success, thanks mostly to the hugely successful single "Mil calles llevan hacia ti", which reached #1 in the Spanish 40 Principales chart in 1989, and which became the band's signature song. Manuel España said he had written the song while walking through the streets of the Albayzín in Granada to his grandmother's house. Vámonos went on to become a multi-platinum album, selling over 250.000 copies, and the band performed on a tour with more than 100 dates.

In 1990 came their second album, Cuando Brille El Sol, with its same-titled and successful single, which kept them at the top of the Spanish pop-rock scene.