They're the acoustic guitarists with a heavy-metal fanbase, the duo who may or may not be a couple, the Grafton Street buskers who are now on the brink of fame. Louise East meets Rodrigo y Gabriela
Buzz is the Holy Grail of record companies. Buzz made the Arctic Monkeys the most hotly-tipped act of 2006 long before their album was released, and buzz pushed The Arcade Fire's meditation on the not-so-buzzy subject of family death, Funeral, to the top of 2005's best-of lists. Of course, not all buzz is created equal; there's the Nutrasweet buzz created by marketing departments and then there's the real-deal, organic, acacia-scented buzz, the kind that is heard loud and clear without anyone being able to put their finger on where it's coming from.
Right now, that's the kind of noise coming off a pair of Mexican guitarists and former Grafton Street buskers called Rodrigo y Gabriela. Their blistering live performances were the talk of last summer's festival circuit; David Gray asked them to play support on his sell-out arena tour of the UK and Ireland; and, on going to press, five US record companies are vying to sign their forthcoming album, Rodrigo y Gabriela.
There are more amorphous signs of buzz, too. On the internet, die-hard Metallica fans are swapping downloads of the pair's flamenco-tinged cover of heavy-metal track, Orion. Buskers, in Liverpool and Dublin are banging out interpretations of R y G compositions. The department head of a Mexican music conservatoire wrote offering his compositions for use on the next album. Ironically, the same institute once refused to take the pair on as pupils because they used plectrums during their audition.
On a cold January afternoon in Paris, Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero are unfazed by all the fuss. A striking pair with matching ponytails, and accents that hover somewhere between Rathmines and Mexico City, they talk the way they play guitar - simultaneously and with great good humour.
"Our main idea when we came to Europe wasn't to find a record label, but to give up on that whole idea," Gabriela says, shaking her head. "When we finished with our band in Mexico, we were so sick of . . . " she pauses, and Rodrigo jumps straight in: "Trying to make it." Gabriela nods vigorously. "We just thought, 'Ah forget about the business, let's just go to Europe and travel.' Sometimes in life, just when you stop expecting it, you're given what you wanted before."
Musically, Rodrigo y Gabriela almost defy description. Heavy metal riffs lurk in there somewhere, but they're laced together with Latin rhythms, flamenco ruffles, jazz meanderings and classical fingerwork. Watching them convert David Gray's cashmere-sweater crowd into fans (this is their first ever gig in Paris) is an education.
Initial bemusement at the sight of two acoustic guitarists perched on plastic chairs quickly turns to fascination as Rodrigo and Gabriela let fly, their knuckles hammering, their hands blurring with speed like a hummingbird wing. By the end of their half-hour slot, the crowd is clapping along and whistling and the merchandising stall sells out of CDs.
"Although we're just two guitars, we play as a band," Gabriela explains. "Bass, drums, percussion; that's why the playing is so demanding. We're trying to fill all those gaps to make a full sound."
Born to middle-class families in Mexico City, they both left school early, Rodrigo at 17, Gabriela at 14.
"Not a good thing to do," Rodrigo says ruefully. "Listen to our crap English." As fellow members of a thrash metal band called Tierra Acida, the pair fell in love and made very, very loud music together.
"As teenagers in Mexico, we didn't want to play traditional music," Gabriela says. "It's beautiful, but we saw it as restaurant music - you go to a restaurant with your family, drink a lot and the mariachi troupe arrives. We didn't respect it because we wanted to be in an American band." She grins. "When you're young, you're not interested in culture, you're interested in rock 'n' roll."
From 1990 to 1998, they toured Mexico, always on the verge of making it but taking on dead-end jobs and running up debts while they waited. "I worked in an office," Gabriela says, rolling her eyes. "One day, one of the drivers called in sick and my bosses asked me to fill in. I couldn't drive, but I thought to myself, I need to get out of here. I got into the car and went, 'Jaysus, what am I doing?'."
That they ended up in Ireland was, as Rodrigo puts it, "a bit of destiny". Spain was "too obvious", London and Paris were hardly a draw after Mexico City, itself home to 25 million souls. A Mexican friend recommended Dublin, the city that has been the crucible of their success and their home for the past six years. Back then, though, its principal draw was that it was relaxed about buskers.
"I know loads of musicians who won't busk, but we promised ourselves we wouldn't do anything but music to earn a living," says Gabriela. "Busking slams your ego. You think, 'But I'm a musician, I can't play on the street.' But once you do it, there you go. It's your job."
Unquestionably, busking fed into their music. Not only were they forced to go acoustic but the punters wanted to hear a nice bit of Santana and some bossa novas, and the pair were forced to dust off the Latin rhythms they'd discarded as teenagers. Soon busking sessions were earning them three times what they earned for a bar session, and the rewards weren't purely financial.
"Because Dublin's small and Grafton Street's so central, we started meeting musicians immediately. That's how we really got started," explains Rodrigo.
Damien Rice was an early supporter, offering them support gigs, and since then, they've opened for everyone from Salif Keita to Will Young. Rubyworks, a young independent label with links to industry giant MCD, took them on, and in 2004, their second album, Live Manchester and Dublin debuted in the Irish top 10, the first live instrumental album to do so.
It hasn't all been plain sailing. Their obvious strengths - their bravura live performances and their unique genre-bending style - are also their weaknesses. In the stratified world of the record shop, where world music lives up on the second floor next to folk, and rock music hangs out with dance downstairs, there's a danger that Rodrigo y Gabriela could be left hanging about in the stairwell. And those hammering hands and spiralling live energy are hard to translate to an MP3 file.
With the new album, simply called Rodrigo y Gabriela, the pair may have nailed the problem. When the record company sent out demos of their new work, several producers wanted to get involved, and in the end it came down to John Leckie, the producer behind the Stone Roses and Radiohead, or Chris Street, who is better known for world-music acts such as Gypsy Kings and Norah Jones.
"In the end, we went with the rock music producer, because the gigs last year veered more toward the rock side of things and rock is more where we're at now," says Rodrigo. "We didn't want a nice, polite sound." With Leckie's agreement, they insisted on recording each song all the way through, several times over, before they picked the liveliest one. "We really wanted the album to come across as live even though it's a studio album, so all sessions were like, one-two-three, let's go," explains Gabriela.
The result is an album which is more focused and self-confident than any before, the edges of it hard and sharp without losing its internal swing.
"We're not denying we have Latin rhythms or that we're influenced by flamenco," Rodrigo points out. "But at every gig, more and more metal and rock fans turn up."
In 2005, Rodrigo y Gabriela spent so little time at home in their Harcourt Street flat that when a Luas cruised by they had no idea what it was. This year looks busier still, with a tour of Ireland and the UK followed by dates in Europe, Australia and finally America, where they have just signed with one of the largest booking agencies.
The prospect of constant touring pleasesthem both. "The challenge is being just two guitars in front of loads of people," says Gabriela. "I think it gives us that vitality. We keep wanting to do something different every single night and at the end of the tour, boom, you're flying. You're focused. You see life differently."
Yet they're only too aware of the pressures of being in a band. Asked whether they're still a couple in life as well as work, they look vague. "Sometimes," they both say.
So is a relationship difficult to maintain on tour? "As long as we don't try to maintain it, it keeps us together," Gabriela sighs. "You need to keep in mind, look, I'm an individual, you know? We spend a lot of time together because musically, we are excellent partners.In the past we were a couple in the band but we were fighting all the time. Now we're friends, and you know, one day, we might be more than friends, but on another day, it's a nightmare. You think 'Agh, I'm on tour and we're rowing.' "
"You can't live with that shit," Rodrigo says, shaking his head.
"At least we are agreed on that," Gabriela says cheerfully.
"It's an important one to agree on," Rodrigo laughs.
Now, with the buzz growing ever louder and their work getting better by the day, the only hurdle Rodrigo y Gabriela have left to face is fame itself. Do they think they're ready to step up to the plate? "I think it will be up to us," Gabriela says firmly. "If we start trying to get more popular, it'll be less effective in the long term. All this has happened really naturally, so we're not afraid if it doesn't work out. We love travelling and playing and we know we can do that any time we want. It's like, if it happens, cool, if it doesn't happen, well that's cool, too."
Rodrigo y Gabriela play the Spirit Store, Dundalk, Feb 15; Ten, Waterford, Feb 17; Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Feb 19 (sold out); Black Box, Galway, Feb 21; Dolans Warehouse, Limerick, Feb 22; An Grianán, Letterkenny, Feb 24 and Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Apr 2. Tamacun, the single, is out now and the album, Rodrigo y Gabriela, is out Feb 17