For more than 30 years, the norteña music group Intocable has forged a dream career: Grammy and Latin Grammy awards, millions of records sold worldwide, international tours, sold-out concerts, a star on the Walk of Fame. This year, the group performs on Tuesday, September 15 at the Plaza de la Constitución, known as the Zócalo of Mexico City, for the celebration of the 216th anniversary of Mexico’s Independence; on the same day, the vocalist, accordionist, and one of the leaders and founders, Ricardo Ricky Muñoz, celebrates his 52nd birthday.
“September is a month with strange and emblematic dates,” said the musician in an interview for the podcast Qué es la música, hosted by Javier Paniagua, in 2024. “One of my dad’s brothers died in an accident on the 13th and I was born on the day of the funeral; the other brother passed away on the 1st and was buried on his birthday; then my grandfather died on September 22 and later we realized that my dad died on the same date,” Muñoz recounts. The years in the events change, but September weighs heavily.
Intocable was founded in 1990 by Ricky Muñoz and René Martínez, drummer. Both are from Zapata, Texas, a very small town bordering the State of Tamaulipas, separated by the Rio Grande. So small that according to the website of the Texas State Library and Archive Commission, the population census that year was 9,279 people; by 2010, just over 5,000 inhabitants lived there.
Muñoz began playing the accordion at age 10. “My grandfather sold one of his cows and with that they bought me the instrument,” he said for the program Historia engarzadas, broadcast on television more than a decade ago. Destiny played in his favor: Despite the few inhabitants in Zapata, Beto González, accordionist of the regional Mexican music group Conjunto Falcón, also lived in the town and was his music teacher.
Co-founder René Martínez fell in love with the drums after attending a wedding with his parents; he was also 10 years old. “We didn’t have money, so at night, after my mom finished cooking, she would take the pans to my room and I practiced there,” he said on the same program. The boys were introduced because they had mutual friends and because they both shared the same love for Ramón Ayala, singer, composer, and icon of regional Mexican music.
By 1993, Juan González, Juan Serna, and Ismael Arreola joined the project, and they recorded their first demo, Simplemente. Some songs reached a radio station in McAllen, Texas and were included in the programming. It didn’t take long for the EMI Latino label to hear them and sign them. A year later, under the production of José Luis Ayala, brother of Ramón Ayala (the idol), they released their first studio album, Fuego Eterno.
During the 90s, Intocable released five albums and, with them, singles that are still acclaimed by the public, such as ¿Y todo para qué?, Fuerte no soy, Coqueta, Alguien te va a hacer llorar and El amigo que se fue; the latter is a tribute to José Ángel Farías and Silvestre Rodríguez, band members who died in January 1999 in a traffic accident: the group was traveling to Mexico City in a van when one of the tires blew out and the vehicle lost control.
Intocable pulled themselves together and moved forward. After the accident, they have released 10 studio albums, won more than twenty awards, reached number one on the Top Latin Albums chart by Billboard magazine with at least three albums, and earned their star on the Walk of Fame. Just two years ago, they released their latest album, Modus operandi. “We all get nervous. I always say: ‘This is probably our last album,” Muñoz said to the music-specialized magazine after the release.
“The presentation comes at a pivotal moment in Intocable’s history,” reads a statement. This summer, the group became the Latin band with the most Diamond certifications within the Latin program of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), reaching six recognitions and ranking second among all Latin artists, only behind Bad Bunny.
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