Remember the Heroes: Jesse Pintado

English version only 

The man, the myth, the legend. The guy, who is credited with coining the term Grindcore, albeit I feel like many other people also claimed to invent this word as well...

While Mr. Pintado was born in Mexico as Jesús (yup) Ernesto Pintado Andrade, when he was a kid, he moved to California with his parents, where he grew up. His first important band was of course the legendary Terrorizer, a band formed with future Morbid Angel drummer Pedro Sandoval, Oscar Garcia (also in Majesty, Nausea) and Alfred Estrada, who soon got in prison, which is why he was replaced by David Vincent, when the band reunited to record cult classic "World Downfall", as their swan song.

But his biggest claim to fame was his longterm membership in Napalm Death, during their turbulent years, when the line-ups kept changing radically from album to album.With them he recorded numerous classics, like "Harmony Corruption", "Utopia Banished" "Fear, Emptiness, Despair", or "Enemy of the Music Business", which was actually his final material that he recorded with the band, even if he was credited in the booklet of their next two albums ("Order of the Leech", and "Leaders Not Followers: Part 2").

Jesse offically left Napalms in 2004, and afterwards he moved to Netherlands, where he revived Terrorizer with whom he wrote and recorded his final album, "Darker Days Ahead", which received rather mixed to negative reception.

He also participated in Lock Up side-project, and contributed to Brujeria's "Brujerismo".

He died in 2006, from complications relating to a diabetic coma, namely liver failure.

Pintado's style was pretty iconic as he had this trademark, grinding riffs, with a lot of groove in the rhythm. Over the years, he focused more on groove mid-tempos, rather than speed assault, much to the chagrin of the audience, who way too often prefers blunt brutality, over nuanced rhythms. For me, he was one of the greatest riffmeisters, nobody could grind like him. Maybe his bandmate Shane Embury comes close, alas... Next year there will be 30th anniversary of Pintado's death.

 R.I.P. JESSE, WHEREVER YOU ARE, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.