Although there are always some teenagers at school who dream of being a rockstar, in 2003, the year the group Don Tetto was born, this phenomenon was much more frequent than now. Rock bands could be played on commercial radio stations not specialized in this genre, young people preferred alternative sounds to urban music and we had the largest music channel in the world called MTV. Blessed MTV.
When there were still two years left before the birth of YouTube, MTV (and to a lesser extent Play TV, on Channel 13) was one of the few spaces where you could watch music videos. According to bassist Jaime Valderrama, the members of Don Tetto not only liked rock, but they were fascinated to see how the musicians lived their dream and also became friends in the process.
It was also the time when the channel began to pay more attention to the Colombian rock scene and independent artists such as Pornomotora, Superlitio or Sonorama could see how their new videos appeared within the channel’s programming.
Don Tetto was trained in a school, between scratched desks, as journalist Andrés Angulo Linares points out in an article, and without knowing that they would become the most famous band in national punk, one of the most important in Colombian rock. The only one that manages to sell more than 10,000 tickets to a group of fans who love them both for their heartbreaking ballads and for the rock songs that helped them survive adolescence and that, for many, were the first approach to this type of music. sounds.
Because punk is that genre of rock that talks about rebellion, youth, growing up and although Don Tetto is much closer to Blink 182 or the rest of California punk than to La Pestilencia or the Sex Pistols, in recent years Twenty years have found a lot of boys, both adolescents and non-adolescents, who made songs like “Don’t say I’m sorry” or “It’s happened again” the soundtrack of their complicated lives.
It is no coincidence that the most famous song by another artist that the Tettos make is “Auto Rojo” by Vilma Palma. Another group with which both millennials and centennials have identified.
Millennials and centennials, from different parts of the continent, who have connected with Don Tetto’s lyrics, because they feel that they speak about their realities. Not only do they break it in Colombia, but they have also performed in countries such as the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Peru.
The Radioacktiva contest that gave Don Tetto his first boost
To understand Don Tetto it is essential to mention some Californian punk bands, which were niche at the time, and which it was impossible to think would be an influence for one of the largest rock groups in Colombia: No Use For A Name, MXPX, Blink 182 (the most famous of that patch) or Millencolin, although the latter is European.
Probably, several of the above were among those that inspired Diego Pulecio, Carlos Leongómez and Alberto Marenco, Juan Baratto – these last two, members of the first stage of the band – to put everything into the project that Jaime Valderrama would soon arrive at. and Jaime Medina. In order to form what is now mentioned in networks as the first official formation of Don Tetto.
But as Valderrama explains, Don Tetto not only sounds like the international rock (which also includes groups like Metallica, Kings Of Leon or Slipknot) that educated them in the beginning, but also like the salsa or merengue songs that they listened to with their parents.
With the new formation, months later they entered a contest on the Radioacktiva station, where among 300 bands, they managed to stand out among 12 finalists. Three years later, without having yet released their first album, they performed at Rock Al Parque 2006, at four in the afternoon and in front of 60,000 people.
It is true that the largest rock festival in Colombia is free, but also that not just any group gathers so many people at that time. As if that were not enough, they played after División Minúscula, a successful group that had been presenting their album Perfect flaw with songs like “Sismo”, which played all day on the MTV channel.
Just a year later they released their debut album What you didn’t knowproduced by Quindiano Jorge Holguín (Pyngwi), who was then becoming one of the most recognized rock producers on the Colombian scene and was beginning to stand out for the authentic style he gave to the bands he worked with, including The Black Cat Bone, El Sie7e or The Mills.
With it, the Don Tettos presented an album that remembers classics such as “It Happened Again,” “Failed Attempt” and “Addicted to Pain” (Lágrimas).
They also began to define a sound that would deepen with their second album lie to me promise mealso produced by Pyngwi, who has the hit with the most numbers on Spotify called “Don’t say sorry” and other memorable songs like “My mistake” or “Bad girls”, which was included in the soundtrack of a famous teenage series the time, also broadcast on MTV.
That sound that they have maintained for so many years is, for them, the reason for their success. Chasing trends may be valid, but Don Tetto believe it can also be a recipe for disaster and that when the sound goes, the fans go.
The other dream of making a profitable living from music and the birth of the Día de Rock festival
Don Tetto has had two Latin Grammy nominations, three awards from MTV’s Latin network and two more in the channel’s European awards, eight Shock awards, 4 Nuestra Tierra awards and an award from Nickelodeon, the children’s channel par excellence, which they won. in 2015. Which helps to understand that Don Tetto not only thinks about his current audience, but also about the little ones who could accompany them in the future.
But, even so, making a living from rock being South American is truly a feat and it is possible that this is the reason why the band invented their own Día de Rock festival several years ago, which has worked for them both to generate income and to remain current in rock or become a platform for other Colombian bands or emerging talents.
Furthermore, as Valderrama explains, they have their own rehearsal rooms in the north of Bogotá and handle different types of business with clients or other independent bands.
They also have their own professions that they have tried to promote alongside the band: Diego Pulecio is mainly a musician, but Carlos Leongómez graduated as an engineer, Jaime Medina works as an architect and Jaime Valderrama is an international business administrator.
In recent years, they have had ups and downs, like every independent rock band, but being clear about when to stop has helped them grow as musicians and as people.
So when his fans least expect it, Don Tetto announces a show somewhere on the continent or a new album; as happened when in 2022 they launched their Sand castles or in 2023 their live acoustic concert. That is another detail to take into account, Don Tetto has three live albums that are authentic relics that cannot be found if a new wave fan wants to buy them.
Don Tetto is a band that sells out concerts, sells out albums and, as a consequence, also sells out; but only for a while. They are clear that they can make a living from music and are going for twenty more years in their career.
They also know that, although they are not slaves to numbers, with songs like “Entre el norte y el sur”, which in post-pandemic times – and increasingly adverse for rock – exceeds one million views (Spotify), their fans will always be firm to continue fooling her. Or Tetteando.
