Hispanic attack

There’s a glaringly obvious romantic lifeblood-link between them, and, at the same time, there’s a very siblingish, platonic, serious-minded musical camaraderie. It’s difficult to keep from thinking of the White Stripes (and yes, fyi, the Whites are divorcees) when you visit with Rodrigo Pineda and Gabriela Quintero, Spanish-guitar virtuosos, globe-gallivanting travelling companions, heavy metal enthusiasts and, as you never quite forget, boyfriend and girlfriend.

Based in Ireland these last three years, and having brought their elaborate, playfully percussive metal-jazz-flamenco hybrid round Europe and into every guitar-wielders’ haunt in Dublin from Grafton Street to the Olympia, their previous history together will please the poetically-minded as well.

Two staunchly independent spirits, each was at the helm of two different heavy metal bands in Mexico City (“Oh, yeah! And we had the hair like this,” Gabriela giggles, gesturing upward and outward) – both of which were doomed to disintegration when the pair eventually located each other. A shared passion for flamenco, jazz and metal guitar and a dissatisfaction with city life led to a decision to skip town. “I was making music for television channels,” says Rodrigo, “and Gabriela was working somewhere else, and we were tired. We were like, ‘Fuck it, you know? Let’s go. We’ll leave Mexico City. We’ll go to the sea’.” Cue a swift exit to the pristine beaches and luxury resorts of Ixtapa to busk, work the hotels and dream of heading to Europe.

Finding they had arrived in Ixtapa at exactly the wrong time – the World Cup was on, and none of the bars needed them – they then had two months on a generous hotelier’s tab to swim, watch footie and develop the Latinate finger-picking and percussive flourishes that are at the core of the music they eventually brought with them to these shores in 1999. You may have noticed them frequently opening for their good friend Damien Rice (whom, ironically, they introduced to busking on Grafton Street).

It’s intriguing to hear such accomplished players enthuse about their heavy metal influences – but you can hear the echoes on their debut album Foc, once you know to listen for them.

Surely, then, Rodrigo and Gabriela will be able to construct a case for the defence, for those of us who need help discerning heavy metal’s, eh, hidden beauty.

“Oh, yes, yes! Pages and pages of defence,” Gabriela says emphatically. “They’re amazing musicians, basically. To play heavy metal, you have to be really, really good.

“The problem is the distortion,” she reckons thoughtfully. “When you put the distortion on, if you’re not really into the thing, you just hear bwwwww (does unintentionally comic imitation of heavy metal rumble)... That’s a problem. And some bands are crap,” she adds less scientifically. “But the good ones like Testament…”

“…And the head bands of all the different kinds of metal,” Rodrigo continues for her, “thrash metal, speed metal, death metal, black metal – the main bands of all of these, are brilliant. Excellent musicians, amazing drummers, amazing guitar players.

“Sometimes in our sets,” he continues, “we’ll play, like, some Sepultura riff – Gabriela will do the percussion, trying to simulate the drums, and I do exactly the same guitar riff they do, but of course without distortion, without anything – and people like it.”

While perhaps most famously inspired by metal, the pair have equally vocal admiration for various other more traditional old masters: classical guitarists; Al di Meola; flamenco legend Paco de Lucia. Interestingly however, Gabriela’s heavily percussive guitar breaks, if anything, recall the eye-confounding speeds and elaborate syncopation of the bodhran.

“You’re totally right,” says Gabriela. “It’s exactly the same movement I’m doing with my hand on the guitar.”

As befits a band with such planet-spanning influences, and whose liner notes read like a postcard collection – the pair are grateful for their current successes, but refuse to be tethered by traditional worries of ‘making it’.

Gabriela giggles: “We’re not complaining. But once we start thinking, ‘Oh, we have to ring these people, we have to have a radio interview…’ that’s the sign. That’s the end. We’d prefer to go travelling. Two acoustic guitars can go anywhere, I think.”