Biography | Stormy Mondays

Stormy Mondays in 20 seconds

Stormy Mondays is a folk rock band. Hailing from Spain’s rainy northern coast, our music is a transatlantic mixture of Americana, Soul, 60’s British Invasion and Asturian folk music.

We have released 18 records, which include songs in English, Spanish and Asturian, the endangered language of our homeland. Our latest record, “Nebraska”, is an electric reinterpretation of Bruce Springsteen’s classic. And we are already working on two albums with new songs.

Our music is always slow cooked. We don’t make “fast food”. It’s not for everyone, but we are hoping it could be precisely right for you.

The ace up our sleeve is our live shows: intense, fun and always surprising, with seven musicians and more than 15 instruments onstage.

And yes, all those incredible stories you might have heard are true: Our song “Sunrise Number 1” was chosen by NASA to be played in space, aboard Endeavour Space Shuttle. We have played live with Bruce Springsteen and jammed with Slash, and, in 1999, were the only Spanish band to ever play at the Woodstock Festival.

What do we sound like?

We mix the electric sound of a rock band with all sorts of acoustic instruments, from a horn section to the hurdy-gurdy – an instrument from the 12th century that seems to come from the future.

We’ve been playing our own brand of “Americana” (made in Europe!) even before anyone came up with a name for this musical genre. When we released our first album in 1998 they called it “roots-rock”.

People have compared us to Tom Petty, Counting Crows, The Waterboys and Van Morrison – not bad! You can also find echoes of The Band, Bob Dylan and The Beatles.

We like current artists like The Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Anderson East or Jason Isbell. Oh, and we’re huge Del Amitri fans.

An electric reinterpretation of Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic classic

Stormy Mondays dive deep into the songs that Springsteen taped at home, with guitar and harmonica, on a 4-track cassette machine. Everyone has wondered how would "Nebraska" sound in its electric version. Stormy Mondays have taken the chance, reimagining these timeless songs in a band setting.

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The band

Jorge Otero – vocals, guitars, harmonica, mandolin.
Paul Bertrand – piano, organ, background vocals.
Danny Montgomery – drums.
Juanjo Zamorano – bass, background vocals.

With:
Juan Flores – sax, clarinet, flute.
Héctor Braga – cello, hurdy-gurdy, violin, bagpipes, harp.
Miguel Herrero – trumpet, flügelhorn, glockenspiel, percussion.

Manifesto: Slow Cooked Music

There’s a recent book that details the techniques behind the manufactured big hits of the last few years. We have taken that manual and turned it inside out.

They say a song needs a “hook” every 7 seconds. Really? We make music for people, not for distracted chimpanzees.

They say you need a team of writers. A dozen is not unusual. We write our own songs. And we also feel like we are part of a tradition, so we like to cover some favorite artists. We are songwriters, it’s what we do.

They say you don’t even need to learn how to play, the computer does that for you. We enjoy playing our instruments. The more, the better. We are musicians, it’s what we do.

They say you don’t need to be a good singer. “Autotune” will make you sound perfectly in tune (and robotic). We sing with human voices, imperfect by nature. And real. We are singers, it’s what we do.

They say, they say… We don’t care what they say!

We make real music for real people. Slow cooked. It’s not for everyone, and that’s alright.

Discography

Forever Young (digital single, 2021)
Nebraska (CD, 2019 – vinyl LP and USB, 2021)
So Far, So Good / 20 years of Stormy Mondays
(CD and vinyl LP, 2018)
Suitcase Full Of Dreams
(compact vinyl EP, 2017)
SantaCecilia
(live BluRay/DVD, 2016)
Wading The River / The Lay Of The Land
(double EP, 2015)
Stormy Mondays Sketchbook
(illustrated book + CD, 2014)
Tú y yo / A las 9 (vinyl single, 2012)
Dormi yá (digital single/video, 2012)
Sunrise Number 1 (digital single, 2011)
Radio (vinyl LP, 2010 – CD, 2011)
Días mejores (EP, 2010)
On My Radio (EP, 2010)
Concierto: Jardín Botánico (2009)
On The Run (EP, 2007)
París (EP, 2004)
Días de lluvia, corazones rotos (2002)
Winter Songs (EP, 2002)
Rainy Days And Broken Hearts (1998/2000)

The stories

For a band that you’ve probably never heard of, we sure have some cool stories to tell…

Rocking in Space

Our song "Sunrise Number 1" was played aboard Endeavour Space Shuttle, on its final mission in Space.

Onstage with Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nile, Joe Grushecky, Elliott Murphy, Cindy Bullens and more

Jorge has shared the stage with icons such as Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nile, Elliott Murphy and more.

Woodstock ’99 and jamming with Slash in ’92

Only Spanish band to ever play Woodstock? Check! Jamming with Slash back in 92? Check!

The name

Stormy Mondays started in Oviedo in 1991. Our first gigs were on the street.

When trying to come up with a name, we used the same trick as the Rolling Stones: we decided to take our name from a blues classic. For us, it was “They Call It Stormy Monday” by T-Bone Walker, published in 1947.

Stormy Mondays and Free Music

Stormy Mondays were pioneers in distributing their music on the internet, Copyleft, Creative Commons licenses and the Free Music movement. We resigned from SGAE (the Spanish copyright society) and we distributed our songs for free on our website, for years upon years. At the same time, we kept releasing and selling records on different formats, and many times in limited editions.

Giving our songs away took us further than we could have ever dreamt: we got to play at Woodstock ’99 festival, and our song “Sunrise Number 1” was played in Space. Sharing our music brought us a lot of oppportunities, new friends… and we even took part on some memorable TV debates.

Today it’s hard to imagine how revolutionary it was, in 1999, to offer a free mp3 download of a song. Twenty years later, it’s time to make an important change. In a world dominated by music streaming, the fight for the Free Music doesn’t make sense for us anymore. We won’t stop giving away some songs from each record, but we are coming back to the world of copyright. This time, through IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organization.

We don’t want multi-million dollar companies like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Spotify to pay copyrights that belong to us, but that we can’t receive if we are not part of the system. And we also want our songs available for being featured on films, series or ads, which is not possible if we are not part of a performing rights society.

To sum up: we have enjoyed the journey of free music, and we’ve travelled all the way until -twenty years later- we arrived at the last stop. It’s time to take another train that can take us even further.