Gerard Quintana

Gerard Quintana i Rodeja (born 27 November 1964) is a Catalan singer, songwriter, poet, novelist, actor, and radio and TV personality.

The influences on Sopa de Cabra's style included classic rock (the band's name was in homage to the Rolling Stones' 1973 album Goat's Head Soup), reggae, and blues, but the combination of the Catalan language and the creative originality of Quintana and his colleagues (Josep Thió, Joan 'Ninyín' Cardona, Francesc 'Cuco' Lisicic, and Pep Bosch) ensured that the band's sound was unique: authentic rock music and yet distinctively Catalan.

In the mid-1980s, Quintana was a member of a group of young musicians, writers and artists based on a squat in Girona.

His role was initially more as a writer, both of poetry and in the journalistic sphere of producing fanzines, than as a singer and performer.

He first came to prominence in 1986-2001 as the lead singer of the rock band Sopa de Cabra.

Sopa de Cabra was one of the leading bands of the rock català genre.

He was involved with the bands Hasta los huevos de Mili and Ninyin's Mine Workers' Union band before the formation of Sopa de Cabra in the summer of 1986, when he became the new group's lead singer, as well as the most prolific writer of lyrics for its original repertoire.

The years from 1989 to 2001 saw the release of 14 singles and 11 albums as well as regular concert tours.

By the late 1990s and with a change of record-label, the band was again at a peak of popularity, but other circumstances, notably the grave illness of Joan Cardona, led to the decision that the group would retire at the end of 2001.

The songs were all taken from the existing, classic repertoire of Sopa de Cabra, and the line-up was almost the same as that of the late 1990s, namely Josep Thió, Cuco Lisicic, Pep Bosch, Jaume Soler and Eduard Font.

There was one addition; the guitarist, singer and songwriter Xarim Aresté, leader of the band Very Pomelo and representative of a younger generation of Catalan rock music, joined Sopa de Cabra.

In the late 1990s, while Sopa de Cabra was still actively touring and recording, Quintana also worked with Jordi Batiste, a respected Catalan musician of a slightly older generation, on Catalan covers of the work of Bob Dylan, one of Quintana's own major musical inspirations.

In 1991 Sopa de Cabra, along with three other leading Catalan bands, Sau, Els Pets and Sangtraït, took part in a major concert before an audience of 20,000 at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona.

This event is still regarded as a seminal moment in the popular music and culture of Catalonia.

For two or three years after the release of the album Mundo infierno in 1993, Sopa de Cabra lost some popularity, chiefly as a result of the controversy surrounding that album, which was recorded in Spanish rather than Catalan.

The sensitivities concerning language in Catalonia are such that the use of Spanish angered and alienated many Catalan fans, without gaining Spanish-speaking ones.

As 'Miralls de Dylan' ('Mirrors of Dylan'), they released two albums (in 1998 and 2000), and in 2012, the collaboration continued with a series of concerts and a third CD.

Since the dissolution of the band in 2001, Quintana has pursued a successful solo career.

Cardona was able to make a brief appearance on stage in the final concert that was held in Barcelona in November 2001, but he died of cancer in the following January, aged 42.

Since the planned dissolution of Sopa in 2001–2002, Quintana has continued his career as a musician, writer, poet and actor.

The concert was recorded and released on the 2002 CD/DVD Bona nit, malparits.

The title (roughly, 'good night, bastards!') had long been Quintana's opening catch-phrase in live performances.

As a singer-songwriter, he completed five albums between 2003 and 2010, together with three in collaboration with Jordi Batiste, and a recent album (2014) with Xarim Aresté.

He also writes and publishes poetry, and has written regularly as a journalist for online Catalan newspapers and journals.

He appeared in the short film Diogenes, the dog.

His first solo album was Senyals de fum ('Smoke signals'), in 2003.

This was followed by another four successful albums and by many public performances, all in a personal and poetic style that contrasts in many ways with the traditional pop/rock music of Sopa.

He has worked with many significant figures in Catalan music, including Francesc Bertran, Quimi Portet, Albert Pla, Pep Sala, Amadeu Casas, Pascal Comelade and the group Gossos.

Indeed, in a magazine interview published in 2010, Quintana revealed that in spite of his lifelong deep love of music, his initial youthful ambition was to be a writer, because as a child he was too shy to contemplate performing in public.

His 2010 album, De terrat en terrat ('From roof to roof') amounts to a personal musical portrait of the city of Barcelona and its lively, multicultural ambience.

During the temporary reunion of Sopa de Cabra in 2011 to celebrate 25 years since the band's formation and ten since its final appearances, Quintana returned to his original rock-star style of singing and performance, and the concerts were based solely on the band's extensive existing repertoire.

In March 2011, the surviving members of Sopa de Cabra announced a single anniversary reunion concert on September 9, 2011 to celebrate 25 years since the founding of the band, and ten years since its dissolution and final performances; the demand for tickets resulted in plans for a full tour of seven concerts, three in Barcelona, one each in Palma and Tarragona, and culminating with two, on 30 September and 1 October in the band's home town of Girona.

The tour sold out in all seven venues, and was a resounding success.

Quintana demonstrated that he had lost none of his rock-star charisma during the years performing in a more quiet and intimate style.

The CD and DVD El retorn, which is the record of the 2011 tour, was released in December 2011, and the same year saw the release of two other CDs that chronicle the history of Sopa de Cabra, Re/Ebullació, bringing together all the group's singles releases from the 1980s and early 90s, and Els millors cançons, a 'best of' collection.

Since then, the band has reformed and released two albums of new songs in 2015 and 2020.

Quintana is also a well-known figure in Catalan culture quite apart from his musicianship.

In recent years he has expressed his personal political and ideological views, including his support for Catalan independence.

He is currently the President of the Acadèmia Catalana de la Música, an organisation dedicated to the interests of musicians of all kinds in Catalonia.

Since the publication of his first novel in 2019 he is also establishing himself as a serious novelist.