Probably the world's most famous (and best-looking) boy-girl guitar duo working in the genres of Latin, jazz and corpse- grinding death-rock, Rodrigo y Gabriela have wandered south of the border from Mexico way to delight Dublin (and now the world) with their unique sound. They talk to Kevin Courtney
This you don't see every day. Two good-looking young guitar virtuosi from Mexico, he a ponytailed heartthrob, she a dark-haired beauty, both living in Dublin, performing heavy metal instrumental music on classical guitars, and touring the UK with TV-manufactured pop idol Will Young. Is this some kind of spoof South American acoustic metal band, perhaps? Mexicallica, maybe? No, it's Rodrigo y Gabriela, probably the world's most famous boy-girl guitar duo working in the genres of Latin, jazz and corpse-grinding death-rock. Unique? You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
Rodrigo Pineda Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero Lopez arrived in Ireland sometime in the late 20th century, leaving their native Mexico behind and setting out in search of fame, fortune and a few English-speaking lessons. They weren't fleeing poverty or oppression - they were simply a young, adventurous, middle-class Mexican couple who wanted to see the world, and reckoned that their talent for superfast guitar playing would help pay their passage. And so they left the sprawling megalopolis of Mexico City (population 25 million) and fetched up in the blooming city of Dublin, arriving right in the midst of the Celtic Tiger boom.
Swopping smog-covered Mexico City for smug-covered Dublin, however, wasn't quite the ticket to prosperity the pair were hoping for. This journalist recalls many a Friday evening at the Sugar Club, watching the supremely talented pair warming up for the evening's main attraction, playing blinding guitar lines in front of a half-dozen or so cocktail-quaffing office types who had arrived early only to secure their seats before the late-night crowds arrived.
"We left Ireland soon after, and went off to Denmark and then Barcelona," says Gabriela, recalling the pair's first, disappointing year in Ireland. "Crazy travelling, very intense. Because Ireland was an unknown place to us, we didn't know anybody. But when we were here, doing the Sugar Club, even though it was empty, we were happy, because we were getting money, getting to play our own music, and we were getting to travel. At some stage, though, winter came along, and that made us shiver, so that's why we moved to Denmark - just shows you how confused we were!"
We are in the Expresso Bar in Ballsbridge on a slightly cloudy midsummer's morning. Rodrigo and Gabriela have just returned from their British tour supporting the aforementioned Mr Young, and they're having a traditional rock 'n' roll breakfast of yoghurt, honey and peaches. They're back living in Dublin again, only this time, instead of heading down to Grafton Street to busk for their supper, the couple are preparing for the release of their latest album, Live Manchester and Dublin, an album that recaptures the magic of this singular duo in concert in Manchester Academy and Dublin's Christchurch Cathedral earlier this year. The CD follows their two acclaimed studio releases, Foc (meaning Fire) and Re-Foc (Relighting the Fire). The new album could be called Setting the Place on Fire, since it neatly encapsulates the incendiary chemistry between these two hot-blooded, nimble-fingered Latin troubadors. The setlist includes their original compositions, plus a cover of Metallica's One which seques nicely into the Dave Brubeck jazz standard Take 5. Eclectic acoustic music indeed.
Rodrigo and Gabriela first met in Mexico City. Rodrigo was playing guitar in a local heavy metal band; Gabriela was playing in an all-girl rock band. Neither remembers which came first, the musical or the physical attraction, but soon they were an item and playing together in the same band, blissfully trading ear-bleeding electric guitar riffs and making googly eyes at each other across the moshpit. Before long, though, the couple were also weaving intricate acoustic guitar lines borrowed from such masters as Paco De Lucia, Strumz & Farah and Eric Clapton, and adapting their old heavy metal riffs into individual-sounding original compositions. When they decided to head for Europe, they left the electric guitars, distortion pedals and other band members behind. They also left their families and their beloved Mexico City.
"It's a great city, we love it," says Gabriela. "It has everything. It has pollution but it's great. I miss it, it's a great place and it has the cultural life. Mexico is a country of great traditions and all that. People have a wrong idea of the city in Europe, they think it's polluted and horrible and dangerous. It does have certain areas like that, but just the same as in Dublin, some places are really bad. But Mexico City is a great city.
"We were living here for a year, but we weren't trying to get attention. When we were in Mexico in the heavy metal band we were trying very hard to get as much attention as possible. And it was empty in the end because we didn't focus on the music, we just focused on getting promoted. When we arrived here, we were more into . . . we changed the country, we changed the language, every day we were like, wow, we're living in Ireland, what is this all about?"
They spent that first year busking on Grafton Street, playing for the chattering cocktail classes at the Sugar Club, and providing acoustic ambience at weddings. When they returned to Dublin following their sojourns in Copenhagen and Barcelona, they decided to take control and promote themselves a bit more aggressively.
"We recorded a demo CD and started busking again, because it was summer," says Rodrigo. "And we were selling a few CDs, and then this guy came up to us from Tower Records, and he told us, hey, Tower Records supports independent artists, so why don't you put some of your CDs in our shop, that would be fine. So that very day we ran into Damien Rice, who we had met before with Juniper. By that time he was playing his own gigs. We had met him before when we were busking, but when we came back we found out he was going to put out his own album. So he was going to do an instore in Tower Records on the same day we were going to, and Damien said hey guys you want to do a support for me, and we said yeah, but we didn't know anything about the music scene here, we were still busking. We didn't even know where Vicar St was." "We were like, no problem," adds Gabriela, "'cos we did a support for Damien in Cornucopia café, so Vicar St could have been another café for all we knew."
When they arrived at Vicar St, however, they found a very receptive audience of around 1,000 Damien Rice fans, and realised they could make the transition from the coffee-shop to the concert hall. Their first headliner was at the Sugar Club, only this time, instead of a half-dozen, or even a dozen punters, they were pleasantly surprised to find a couple of hundred people had turned up to see them. Plus another hundred turned away at the door.
"At first I was really scared," recalls Gabriela, "'cos it was really scary to think there were lots of people coming to see us. So for me in my head, I had to say to myself, just play what I play every night, and I didn't speak, I just went, fuck it, just play."
The most nerve-racking part of playing their own gigs was not the promotion, or hiring the venue, or even getting up on stage, it was how to thank the audience with only a smattering of English at your command.
"It's funny when you're busking, you don't have to say anything, you just have to play," observes Rodrigo. "But when you're playing a gig, although you know that people like it and that's cool, you have to talk to the audience. We were used to doing it in heavy metal bands, but we couldn't speak good English, so it was very hard." Their English now trips easily off their tongues, but it's also laced with an ever-thickening Dublin brogue (Gabriela pronounces it "Dooblin").
Before long, the pair were playing gigs in the Temple Bar Music Centre, and eventually headlining their own gig in Vicar St. They started touring the UK and Europe, and found audiences were just as receptive. Support slots with such luminaries as Buena Vista Social Club, Salif Keita and Courtney Pine raised their profile, and helped their confidence to grow. They played Ronnie Scott's and the London Jazz Festival, even though their music isn't strictly jazz; they played WOMAD, even though they're not strictly roots; but they also performed at Glastonbury, just the sort of place you'd expect to hear their brand of acoustico Latino extremo. The touring has taken its toll on their personal relationship, but it has strengthened their onstage chemistry and deepened their musical telepathy. "We've been playing together for so long, we don't even have to see each other, we know exactly what we're going to do," says Rodrigo.
One day, a call came from Will Young's people, asking them to support the fey Pop Idol winner on a tour of the UK, stopping off at the Royal Albert Hall along the way. At the same time, another call came in from The Gypsy Kings, inviting them to travel around Europe with the ageing troubadors. What to do? Around England with a vacuous, effete crooner whose appeal may not last past Friday week, or a Europe-wide jaunt with bona fide folk legends who have become household names from Toronto to Timbuktu? They went for Will.
"To be honest, we don't like to be related to Gypsy Kings, because they play Spanish style, and we are Mexican, and we hate it when people confuse our music with flamenco, because we don't really play flamenco. We play heavy metal riffs, so we wanted to get out of the Latino thing, and Will Young is completely non-Latino."
But, far from performing instrumental acoustic music to a bemused audience of kiddiepoppers, Rodrigo and Gabriela found themselves playing in front of a crowd whose average age was 25 to 40. "We learnt a few things about the Pop Idol thing," says Rodrigo. "Gareth Gates got all the kids, and Will Young got the older crowd. We were very surprised, we didn't know until we got onstage what was going to happen. And we were very scared on the first night in Cardiff. And then the lights go down, and they're waiting for Will Young, and suddenly there are two Mexicans playing music on classical guitars."
They would, however, like to get their music into the mainstream without having to tour with cheesy crooners. "Rather than everybody gets to know us, I would rather that all the people who like this kind of music would get to know us," says Gabriela. "I'll be happy with that rather than be invading other people's spaces."
So, if you rather fancy a bit of Mexican death metal played with dazzling speed and dexterity on classical guitars by two people who are most definitely better looking than anyone in Metallica, then head down to Crawdaddy next Monday and Tuesday. If you can't wait till then, head to HMV today at 5 p.m., where they'll be doing a free instore performance to launch the album. They'll also be touring the country in July and August, culminating in a show at the Dún Laoghaire Festival Of World Cultures. They're also writing new tunes together, and working diligently on their death-metal stylings.
"We'd love to do a Metallica tribute on acoustic guitars," says Rodrigo. "We've asked Metallica for permission, and they said we can do it, but only as an EP, so we might do that soon."
Live Manchester and Dublin is out today on Rubyworks
