Grupo Exterminador

Grupo Exterminador has ranked among the most resilient acts in the norteño circuit throughout Mexico and the United States ever since 1992. Primary vocalist Juan Corona, who launched his career at age nine by winning a televised children’s contest, relocated to Los Angeles with his brothers and launched Los Hermanos Corona that same year. The outfit performed rancheras, romantic ballads, corridos, and conjuntos while grinding through weddings, neighborhood parties, and festivals across the next couple of years. Although members juggled daytime employment and scant performance pay, the band rapidly built a name for its stage command. Before adopting the Grupo Exterminador identity, they issued multiple self-produced recordings and two small-label projects sold exclusively at shows. EGO Records then signed them, yielding the lone 1994 release Dos Plebes, Vol. 2. The group forged a three-part repertoire of stark corridos chronicling Central and Latin American news events marked by tragedy and violence, vintage rancheras and bandas, and lyrical romantic ballads. Fonovisa extended a long-term contract in 1995 that generated fifteen albums, among them the 1996 titles Dedicado a Mis Novias and Corridos Perrones 1, Narco Corridos, Vol. 2 in 1997, Contrabando en los Huevos in 1999, A Calzón Quitado in 2002, Narco Corridos, Vol. 3: De Parranda con el Diablo in 2003, and Adicto a Ti in 2007. The Fonovisa association concluded after Duelo de Valientes: Corridos Endiablados appeared in 2008. That span brought both commercial and critical success as the band became the foremost exponent of the updated narco-cultura 2.0 sound. Following an extended international tour, Skalona Records granted a one-album agreement that delivered La Fiesta in 2010, Vamonos de Fiesta in 2011, and El Punto Exacto in 2012; the latter two returned the group to the charts. At the end of 2012 the band moved to Vene Records for the charting Pachangón en el Infierno, its most explicit and refined set to date, which traces outlaw and narco themes from the Pancho Villa period to the present.