Amaral

Amaral is a music group from Zaragoza, Spain that has sold more than four million albums worldwide. The band consists of Eva Amaral (vocalist) and Juan Aguirre (guitarist), who write their songs together. Eva and Juan met in 1992 in a bar in Zaragoza. She played drums in a local punk rock band called Bandera Blanca and also sang with Acid Rain. Aguirre was playing with a band called Días de Vino y Rosas at the time. Soon after they met, the two decided to play together and perform their own material. In 1997, they moved to Madrid and signed a major deal with EMI. Amaral's musical style is often called pop rock, but it is often fused with Latin beats, folk rock, synthesizers, complex poetic lyrics, and in particular, traditional Spanish folk music. Their distinctive style was described by Juan as folk, "and the person who has heard a lot of folk and traditional music will listen and understand, but I think our attitude to life is rather that of a rock group."Juan Aguirre was born in San Sebastián (also known as Donostia) in the Guipúzcoa province of Spain. He spent his childhood in the town of Gros and currently resides in Zaragoza, while Eva originates from Zaragoza. The inspirations for their songs include cinema, friends, and literature. Amaral have won numerous awards including the MTV Europe Music Award for their 2002 album Estrella de mar, which was nominated for 5 other categories, and are one of the best-selling Spanish groups of all time. As of 2019, they have released eight studio albums, one (double) live album, and two live DVDs. According to Eva, they are "a libertarian group that doesn’t think of music as a conquest or a competition... We chose music as a way to break a lifestyle that we didn’t like and a society that we don’t understand."