Rodrigo y Gabriela

Acoustic guitarists Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero fuse the flash, power, and speed of death metal with the passion, soul, technique, and discipline of nuevo flamenco. Quintero’s syncopated, hooky, percussive rhythms and rapid-fire strummed vamps surround Sanchez’s incendiary, melodic single- and dual-string leads, creating an expressive and virtuosic sound that has carried the pair from intimate clubs to major concert halls and international festivals. Their self-titled 2007 release reached the top of the Irish charts, while subsequent projects such as 11:11 and 9 Dead Alive entered the upper reaches of the Billboard 200. In 2019 the sixth studio album, Mettavolution, received a Grammy, and four years later the duo issued In Between Thoughts...A New World, an extended single-movement work that incorporated electronics and orchestral textures for the first time.

Long before they became the most prominent acoustic guitar duo on the global stage, Rodrigo y Gabriela met at age fifteen in Mexico City and discovered a shared devotion to heavy metal. After issuing their independent 1997 debut—containing interpretations of material by Tito Puente, Dave Brubeck, and Metallica, their principal inspiration—they embarked on an itinerant career that found them sharing bills with indie-rock and metal acts, orchestras, jazz ensembles, and vocalists. Their recordings explore multiple idioms, ranging from spare nylon-string duets to electro-acoustic sessions with leading metal guitarists, including a contribution to Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean score, the 2012 collaboration with the C.U.B.A. orchestra on Area 52, and the 2014 experiment 9 Dead Alive, which returned them to an all-acoustic yet rock-oriented approach. These releases have sold several million copies worldwide.

Earlier the two had performed together in the Mexico City metal band Tierra Acida, working the city’s most demanding venues. Although they tracked material, the group never secured a release. Sanchez and Quintero therefore devoted themselves to expanding their guitar vocabulary, giving lessons by day and performing bossa novas in hotel lounges by night. Dissatisfied with limited prospects in the Americas, they relocated to Europe.

Arriving in Dublin on the promise of lodging from a friend, the musicians—still without English or substantial funds—discovered the arrangement had fallen through. They began busking on Dublin streets, an activity that built their local following and generated key connections. One new acquaintance, fellow street performer Damien Rice, invited them to join his touring band. By then Rodrigo y Gabriela had assembled a broad catalog of original pieces; they documented this repertoire on the 2003 international debut Re-Foc, followed a year later by the concert recording Live: Manchester and Dublin.

The pair quickly established themselves on the world-music circuit, celebrated for their agile fingerstyle technique and unusual history, given that few flamenco guitarists trace their roots to metal. Their third album, Rodrigo y Gabriela, appeared in 2006 and entered the Irish charts at number one, displacing Arctic Monkeys. Continued touring took them to Japan, documented on Live in Japan, and across North America. The 2009 studio album 11:11 expanded their catalog, yet Quintero’s hand injury forced a touring pause in September 2010. Early the next year they joined Hans Zimmer on the soundtrack for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, released that May, and later issued Live in France, a record of the 11:11 tour that juxtaposed their nylon-string work with electric guitars.

Since forming, the duo had long intended to record in Cuba. They enlisted pianist and arranger Alex Wilson to prepare charts during a three-day session in Mexico City; Wilson then assembled a band in Havana. From June to September the pair tracked the project with Wilson and the Collective Universal Band Association under producer Peter Asher, joined by guests including Anoushka Shankar, Carlos Benavent, John Tempesta, Le Trio Joubran, and Samuel Formell Alfonso. Area 52 emerged in January 2012, after which Rodrigo y Gabriela toured extensively. An Alejandro Franco documentary, For Those About to Rock: The Story of Rodrigo y Gabriela, premiered at SXSW in March 2014, coinciding with the April release of 9 Dead Alive.

Following additional global tours and prominent media appearances, the musicians took a hiatus before reconvening in 2016 to compose and road-test new material. In February 2019 they performed the title track of their fifth studio album, Mettavolution, on Jimmy Kimmel Live, supported by dancers choreographed by David Byrne and Annie-B Parson. Conceived and written at their Ixtapa studio on Mexico’s Pacific coast, the record was tracked late the previous year in Los Angeles with producer Dave Sardy. Issued in March 2019, Mettavolution contained six originals rooted in the duo’s thrash-metal background plus a twenty-one-minute reinterpretation of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes.” The album reached the top ten of the Billboard World, Folk, and Rock Albums charts and won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.

They documented the ensuing world tour, planning further dates in 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic intervened. In October they released Mettavolution Live, a double album preserving complete performances of the Grammy-winning set—including a twenty-two-minute “Echoes”—alongside earlier material. Once restrictions eased, Rodrigo y Gabriela resumed international concerts and began exploring sonic expansions. In February 2023 they announced In Between Thoughts...A New World, describing the self-produced, spontaneously composed work as an attempt to evoke the expansive consciousness experienced during its creation. Recorded at their Ixtapa studio, the album introduced electronics and orchestral elements; it appeared in April.