Rodrigo y Gabriela tastefully blend influences including Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer with an authentic classical guitar sound to create beautiful textures and impressive melodies. It’s near impossible not to become entranced by a duo of musicians who love what they do, and are great at it to boot. Speaking with one of the best artists in the world can be intimidating, however interviewing Gabriela Quintero, one half of the duo, proved quickly that this wouldn’t be one of those instances. The radiant classical guitarist was graceful and expressive, and her charm is as magnetic as her music.
Smile Politely: Can you give me some insight on how you got your start working with Rodrigo?
Gabriela Quintero: Originally the music started with a band in Mexico. Eventually we quit the band, to just play more guitar and be more independent… just playing music and travel and no expectations of being famous or anything like that. At that stage we lost hope to become famous with our metal band, so we decided we love music anyway so to play guitar was the best thing for us. So we stopped playing in Mexico, and we got a very good life there playing covers and stuff like that arranged in acoustic guitar. Then we got bored. It was too beautiful and too easy, so we decided to go to Europe. The first place we picked just randomly was Ireland. Ireland is just a musical country that has a tradition with their own music, their own Irish music. It’s an incredible scene. Irish people are very musical they love music, so it was a good place to go. We didn’t know that until we arrived there, and we were playing in the street. We lived in Dublin for a few months, went to Barcelona, Denmark, and then eventually we came back to Ireland. And that’s where we met our manager and made a record deal. And it kind of came to us…all of those opportunities. Along this period, we decided to do our own music on the acoustic guitar and that’s it. Now we are still playing.
SP: You have a heavy metal background and you mentioned being in a metal band that didn’t work out. How do you use metal influences to shape the music you play now?
Quintero: We both loved metal. More because of me…I loved it. Then I listened to different things that he kept listening to…a lot of metal. I think it comes across naturally in our music because that’s our setup; we learned to play in a metal band. Our own music has really influenced the structure of the pieces and the approach and all of that. So I guess all these influences really come up organically, without intentions to make it happen. I think if we push it like that, and we try to rule like that, it wouldn’t be natural. As we listen to a lot of music, somehow, we humans… we are born of music. That’s my analogy. It’s filtering all of this music and then it stays with you. But when you start to do your own music, all of the symptoms start to kind of show up naturally. So what you do is allow them to go out naturally and see if they fit what you are doing.
SP: Aside from touring, do you have any plans for a new album?
Quintero: We always come back to the basic thing, that the way we started to play was very organic. It has to surprise us too. So once we feel like we are surprised, and we really like what we are doing, that’s when we feel the album or any piece is ready. But it comes from the music itself. If we don’t feel surprised, we feel it’s not ready. So hopefully, we’ve got all this material we’re working on, but we keep playing every day. We keep playing every day. We bring in a lot of ideas. Luckily, I have this really lovely little guitar that’s not so big, and I can carry it all around while on tour. This instrument is very helpful because I can keep playing. I have a lot of little notebooks and I do my checklists. And say I have to do a little bit of arpeggios, then a little bit of scales [and] a little bit of improvisation. When we are on tour we have a great time. We also work a lot in the dressing room, too and then we both sit down and we just jam together. So the ideas start to come in and we just keep it very creative and inspired and when the moment comes and the planets align we will be ready to record a new album but we don’t know yet when that time is going to be.
SP: Sounds like playing guitar, and music in general is the root of your soul and it’s visible watching you play. You’ve worked recently with Hans Zimmer among other incredible artists. Do you have any experiences you’d like to share?
Quintero: Each one of them have been incredible. Hans Zimmer was very amusing for us to do because he’s done most of the major films’ music. To work with him and his team of different composers… it was like a mind blowing experience. It was very, very interesting and we learned a lot. Another incredible musician we played with is a jazz piano player called Alex Wilson. He is one of those musicians that me and Rodrigo would love to have with us. Its just fantastic. We can say, we can come up with.” He [plays] jazz piano, but he can play funk. He can play absolutely anything on the piano, any genre. For us, it’s incredible.
SP: You have a unique, percussive style. Can you explain what it is and how you do it?
Quintero: Originally that style came about because me and Rod had the balance in our heads. When we were playing just the two guitars, unconsciously, there was something missing, which for me was the drums and the bass. Because we didn’t study proper music or proper classical or jazz guitar, I felt it was needed…some sort of rhythm. But not just rhythm guitar but actual percussion, and I knew a lot of traditions in music like flamenco or other styles. They make their instruments do a lot of percussive things, but I didn’t know how to do any of those at all… but I knew it was possible. So, I said we can play the style of covers that do the drumming. It was more unconscious, rather than me pretending I’m gonna do this. It was very sobering trying to make the song work this way. That’s the way I started to play something that I thought was like those rhythms. Every time I saw any of those players playing a gig or something, I realized I never got it the way they played it. I always got it wrong (laughs). I was always practicing the wrong way. But at the same time, I was creating a new rhythm, you know. There was no time for me or any possibility for me to take lessons as an older musician. I realized that me and Rod were in such a situation. Sometimes in Europe we were playing for survival, so we had to come up with the best we could to make it work. And that’s it. That was the process over the years. Eventually I started to play more and more of the rhythm and bass lines and drums. At the very beginning I used to play a lot of leads, but eventually I started to play the drummer role, especially when we started to play rock festivals. So then people were going crazy. I love the way a lot of the things sound, rhythmically speaking, and I think it’s an interesting different proposal and I’m going to keep playing. Every day I discover a new rhythm, a new color.
Catch Rodrigo y Gabriela as part of ELLNORA Guitar Festival at Krannert Performing Arts Center on Saturday at the Colwell Playhouse, 9:30 p.m.