El Gran Silencio emerge from the poor barrios of the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, founded by brothers Tony and Cano Hernandez in 1993. At first they called themselves "La Zona del Silencio", and had only a cheap harmonica and guitar, sing pails and trash cans for the percussion, while saving money for real instruments. After finding a cassette of band of the same name, they changed it to El Gran Silencio, taken from a song by Rodrigo “Rockrigo” González, a singer/songwriter who died in the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.