Instrumental guitar music isn’t exactly a music genre that screams ”Buy me! Buy me!” to all and sundry. You don’t really expect to find the Gypsy Kings playlisted on 5fm. But then, you also don’t expect to find Rodrigo y Gabriela’s foot-tappingly persuasive blend of Spanish guitar rhythms.
As LA Weekly remarked recently, one hesitates to call Rodrigo y Gabriela acoustic guitarists, ”because the term implies feathery noodling, folkie narcissism and/or New Age muzak making”. The truth is, these guys rock — hard — and their guitars may be acoustic but you know all about it. They met up while playing for Tierra Acida, a death-metal band from Mexico City, in the 1990s.
So when the Mexican guitar-busking duo hit the big time, the record company probably thought they would sell a couple of hundred thousand CDs at most. Instead, they’re taking over the world. In South Africa, they sold 5 000 albums in just one week, getting distributors Just Music very, very excited. They’ve gathered enough fans in little more than a couple of months to be considering tour dates for June or July.
So I ask the obvious question. How did Rodrigo and Gabriela team up as a duo after leaving the band?
”It was totally an accident. [After Tierra Acida] it was the end of our relationship with the music industry. We went to the beach to play. We wanted to make music. We didn’t want a record deal or a manager. We started mixing music by accident, composing,” Rodrigo tells me.
Rodrigo y Gabriela’s music is a little like that of the Gypsy Kings, but light years ahead when it comes to the ”it” factor. ”It’s South American rhythms, not just Mexican. We are not flamenco at all. Whatever people want to call it, that’s fine, as long as they don’t call it flamenco. The Latin things are coming out of our blood,” says Rodrigo.
”It’s totally different and unique, we didn’t plan it. At the beginning I was surprised by our success,” he remarks, noting that in the United States they have achieved the distinction of being an instrumental act playlisted on mainstream radio. ”People are tired of listening to the same shit over and over.”
I’m surprised to learn that heavy-metal fans are some of the duo’s most ardent supporters. ”We have fans from 15 to 80 who are very musical people. [Metal fans find] this is easier for them to go in different directions. World-music fans, they feel special because they think they are listening to something no one else knows about. Rockers, metalheads are more open,” he tells me, explaining that music fans who confine themselves to a single genre tend to be less receptive.
Their self-titled album, the third that they have released but the first to be marketed in South Africa, is inspired by the places and the people they have met while busking around the world.
Tamacun, for example, the first track on the album, was inspired by Ixtapa’s crocodile guardian, who seems to be completely fearless when handling the enormous reptiles. ”That guy is amazing, he’s eccentric and crazy,” says Rodrigo. ”Ixtapa was full of crocs in the 1970s, because it was a resort, and they had to kill many animals.”
Construction started in earnest in the 1980s, and now just 90 crocodiles are left in the region. Tamacun, whose real name is Erroberto Piza, ”takes care of them as if they were his children and they love him like he was their croc father”, according to the album’s liner notes.
Ixtapa is a melody that pays tribute to the beach where everything started for them. Rodrigo, with evident affection, describes this resort town to me. Although their management is based in Ireland, they own a house in Ixtapa, which comes in handy when they tour in the US, as it’s just a couple of hours flying time from Florida.
And unlike the big resorts of Cancun and Acapulco, Ixtapa still has the charm of a quaint holiday town. There’s a strong emotional tie too: this is the beach they fled to when Mexico City, with its stress, frustration and disappointed dreams, became too much for them. He says I should come and visit some time. I’m tempted.