CityLife

Rodrigo y Gabriela traded metal for Latin

Rodrigo y Gabriela

IT’S only 10 short years since Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero – two young Mexican metal musicians with a wanderlust – opted to leave their home country behind and “busk for beer” in the streets and bars of Dublin.

So warmly received were the duo now better known as Rodrigo y Gabriela that they soon ended the busmen’s holiday to become professional performers.

Having only recently put to bed their third studio album 11:11 – 11 songs inspired by the 11 artists that inspired them – the duo return to Manchester tomorrow night for the first time in the three years.

That they’re now playing the fairly sizeable Apollo shows just how well the surprise deviation in their road-trip has turned out.

“This is something which just happened,” insists Rodrigo Sanchez, the duo’s lead guitarist, speaking to CityLife down the line from Dublin.

“We lived together and left Mexico and decided to travel around Europe.

“The music was just a way of making a living while traveling – even if it was playing in a bar for beer.

“We didn’t have any expectations and certainly we didn’t have any plans to sign a record deal.

“We were living quite a hand-to-mouth existence but as a musician you learn a lot: busking is the best school.”

Acknowledging the part that Manchester played in that amazing turn of events (a live album was even partially recorded here), Rodrigo adds: “Manchester is a place for us that got the message early in our careers, when we were first living in Ireland.

'Freshness'

“We went there a few times early on.

“I don’t know whether the promoters were into it or something, but people obviously reacted to it.

“We can’t wait to come back and perform again.”

Punters at the Apollo tomorrow should expect to see a performance with a little more in common with the duo’s Mexican Metal band roots.

Ninety per cent of the set-list will be drawn from 11:11 – which respectfully tips a sombrero to household names including Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and Pink Floyd alongside lesser known heroes such as Paco De Lucia, Michel Camilo and Dimebag Darrell.

Rodrigo says that they’ve also decided to leave their chairs at home.

“We play 80 per cent of the gig standing,” he adds.

“We’ve come from the rock scene, so after a few years of sitting down, we couldn’t do it any more.

“We felt we had to move around the stage as we used to do in Mexico. It’s still acoustic but the new album has brought a little more freshness to the music we were doing.

“It’s a little more metal influenced in some parts but all the Latin stuff is still there.”

Another perk of being surprisingly successful has been being granted an audience with the musicians who inspired Rodrigo as a young metal fan in the first place.

'Weird screaming'

He famously met Gabriela when they played together in the Mexico City thrash metal band Tierra Acida.

One thing they took away from Mexico with them was a love of Metallica, whose repertoire was given a Latin acoustic guitar makeover.

It was partly that fresh approach to heavy metal which earned Rodrigo y Gabriela their cult following in the first place.

Coincidentally, the guitarist only recently had confirmation that he’d made the right choice – a meeting with his hero James Hetfield. “A month ago, we were in Chicago and Metallica were in town and they got in touch with our management.

“We went to the show and jammed on stage and we got to meet James Hetfield.

“For me, he is the reason I play guitar – it was crazy actually talking to him for an hour.

“He told me we were great. And it was that that told me I didn’t have to keep doing my metal to keep rocking.

“I knew that I didn’t have to have my metal band and to electric guitar and to do the weird screaming that I used to do when James Hetfield himself respects what you do.

“It’s childish in a way because I wanted to be like him.

“For me it was a very important moment.”

Rodrigo y Gabriela play Manchester Apollo on November 28, 2009.