No Prophets in Their Own Land - Rodrigo y Gabriela

For today's #mondaymusic (admittedly it could almost be #tuesdaytunes) I want to present a guitarist duo from Mexico City, who have not received any recognition in Mexico, even though they play some amazing flamenco-ish acoustic metal crossover. If the names or even the description of the music doesn't ring a bell, try listening to the tracks. You are bound to recognize them, or at least get a familiar feeling, that you may have heard it somewhere before.

image source

From a Headbanging Background

It was back in the 90's when two young guitarists met in Mexico City. Both Rodrigo and Gabriela were big metal heads, mostly fans of Metallica, long with Megadeth, Slayer, and others, and were keen on expanding on their own ideas of metal. Interestingly, that included playing the songs on acoustic guitars.

Just like many kids at that time, they joined to form a metal band, which were as numerous as sand on the beach, back then as they are today. As you could probably guess, they went from playing in garages and bars to more garages and bars, before giving up on the metal scene of Mexico City, and continued performing in bars (and presumably garages) in Mexican beach towns.

Embracing the World, and Being Embraced by it in Return

In 1999 they decided that if they were to keep playing in more garages and bars, it may as well be in other parts of the world. So they went to travel around Europe, and eventually got stuck in Dublin, Ireland. They had some awesome bars there (not sure about the garages) and what's more, people just loved their sound! Pretty soon they managed to make themselves a name, met some influential people to help them along, and before they knew it they were famous.

What followed was the usual string of album releases, topping the Irish charts, and live tours, taking them way beyond their scope of Europe. Pretty soon they got to appear on David Letterman's Late Show, as well as Jay Leno's Tonight Show, and their songs were featured in crowd-pleasing films and series, such as Pirates of the Caribbean IV, and the pilot episode of Breaking Bad.