Rodrigo y Gabriela
The duo originally met in Mexico City. Both
played in a thrash metal band called Tierra
Acida, but their frustration with the narrow
range of music being followed in the area
led them to pack up and head for Europe.
They eventually settled near Dublin, Ireland,
where they spent countless hours busking
on the street. Naturally, their electric
instruments weren’t really suited to the task,
so they adopted the simple setup of two
acoustic guitars. Over time, Sanchez and
Quintero’s distinctive sound came together
as a natural result of struggling to make the
guitars communicate the dynamics of their
eclectic backgrounds.
jazz, with a lot of rock from the ’60s. We’ve
also been listening to a lot of metal, which
we genuinely love. So when we listen to
those forms of music, we like to adapt those
rhythms to make our own music more diverse.
I think, in the end, what we really play is rock
music—because we aren’t jazz or classical
musicians, but we try to take those influences
and add them to our own music.
great that when we combine that style with
ours, it works out really well.
What are some of the challenges of making
sure key aspects of that metal feel translate
to two acoustic guitars?
What prompted you to move to Ireland?
Since then, Rodrigo y Gabriela’s popularity
has exploded. They’ve made appearances on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late
Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and at press
time their version of “Stairway to Heaven”
had nearly six million views on You Tube. Their
latest album, 11: 11, serves up 11 jaw-dropping
tunes, including “Atman,” which features a
guest appearance by Alex Skolnick (Testament,
Trans-Siberian Orchestra)—who was a major
influence on Quintero and Sanchez’s music.
We recently caught up with the duo during a
tour run that was so hectic that we only had
limited time to spend with Quintero (who’s one
of the nicest people we’ve ever interviewed,
we might add). Here they discuss with us their
inimitable songwriting, their new signature
Yamaha acoustic guitars, and the intricacies of
their playing styles and techniques.
Sanchez: Our heavy metal band, Tierra
Acida, didn’t succeed and we figured our
chances of getting a record deal were over.
We were tired of chasing after one, and
the only thing that we knew for sure was
that we just wanted to play music. It didn’t
matter if we were playing background music
or bar music. So we moved to Europe.
To make the move easier and lighten the
load, we decided to sell all of our electric
instruments and travel with two cheap
Sanchez: The structure of the pieces is
already kind of based in a standard rock form,
so the standard layout of the intro, bridge,
melody, and solo weren’t things we really
changed up that much. It might be hidden
to some people, but for others that might
be why it’s so appealing to them. They’re
instrumentals, but the melody takes the
place of where the vocals would normally
be. Gabriela also had to develop her rhythm
style on her own, because she didn’t have any
formal training. She didn’t have the chance
to learn from somebody with flamenco
experience or study with someone who knew
South American rhythms that are centuries
old. Since we didn’t go to any sort of music
Sometimes you need to detach
yourself from chasing a goal
that you’d die for. Then you
can focus on and enjoy what
really made you want it in the
first place. —Rodrigo Sanchez
A lot of people confuse your music with
flamenco. What do you say when they make
that assumption?
Sanchez: I can understand why some people
confuse our music with flamenco. I mean,
they see nylon string guitars and they just
automatically make the assumption. What
we do is a mix of rhythms that we have put
together in a very organic way, something
that we didn’t really plan originally. While
we were playing on the streets of Europe,
we started to compose music that was more
naturally suited to the instruments we had. Yet
we felt like we couldn’t just forget all of the
years we spent playing metal. So we adopted
rhythms from that style of music into what we
have now, and I don’t think that even I could
tell you what it would be called [laughs].
Quintero: Most of the music we draw from is
just music we love to hear. Lately, we’ve been
listening to a lot of reggae, classical, and
acoustic guitars. We were much younger,
and we did that for about four years before
we came back to Mexico. It was great! We
made a good living, and then our music
started developing more naturally. I suppose
sometimes you need to detach yourself from
chasing a goal that you’d die for. Then you
can focus on and enjoy what really made you
want it in the first place.
Do you think stripping down your rig
challenged you to write better material
than you had before?
Sanchez: Well, a lot of the riffs that we play
could actually be played with distorted
electric guitar. What happens, though, is that
a lot of people don’t notice that—because
not very many people really understand heavy
metal. The metalheads definitely get it, and
a lot of our crowd comes from that world. It’s
school, she just came up with her style on her
own, out of the need to keep the feel that
we were still in a full band. She felt the need
to take care of the drums and bass, while I
covered the guitar and vocal parts. It just took
off naturally at that point. There was never a
moment where we said, “Okay, let’s play this
metal thing here and translate it into Celtic or
whatever.” The whole sound just came out of
necessity, because of the style of music that
we knew how to play—and loved playing. It
was kind of accidental, actually.
What’s one of the biggest misconceptions
of your style of music?
Sanchez: The biggest is definitely the
flamenco thing. Another one could be that we
play traditional Mexican style, which it isn’t
either. It’s far from it. We kind of understand
now that people will think or believe what
