“Music will always find a way.”
The Mexican guitar duo RODRIGO Y GABRIELA have been steadily building their impressive resume and ditto career. Just a few years ago, they collaborated with Hans Zimmer on the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean – On Strange Tides’ soundtrack. In the same year, Hollywood came knocking once more and they provided their services to the ‘Puss in Boots’ film score. Lest we forget, they released five albums since 2002. Their sixth offering, ‘Mettavolution’, has just hit the retail record shops, and has been garnering rave reviews. Keys and Chords was very honoured to be able to speak to the supremely talented twosome …
Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz
Photo credit: Camila Jurad
Photo credit: J. Mimna
Photo credit: Teagan Serhan
Photo credit: Teagan Serhan
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Julian: ‘Sadly, I don’t know any Spanish. Apologies. The only Spanish I do know is from movies, actually. To start off on a light note, I prepared a small quiz. I have three Spanish quotes from movies, perhaps you guys can recognize them?’
Rodrigo: ‘Okay.’ Julian: ‘First one: ‘Si no hace un buen trabajo sera encerrada aqui con las cucarachas por dos semana, sin agua e sin comida’.’ Gabriela: ‘Hmm, no. Is that movie in English?’ Julian: ‘That movie is in English, but it contains some Spanish.’ Rodrigo: ‘‘Babel’?’ Gabriela: ‘No, because that one’s totally in English.’ Rodrigo: ‘No, there’s a bit with the Spanish woman. Well, I don’t know. No idea.’ Julian: ‘‘The Goonies’.’ Gabriela: ‘Oh, from the 80’s?’ Julian: ‘Indeed. No problem, second one. 'El astuto raíz de los mares. El mal modo barracuda. Un hombre tan profundo que es casi insondable.'’ Gabriela: ‘Hm. Is that line originally in Spanish?’ Julian: ‘It’s an American movie, but I’ve looked up the Latin-American dub. It’s not the Spanish dub from Spain.’ Gabriela: ‘They’re always badly translated, haha!’ Rodrigo: ‘No idea.’ Julian: ‘It’s from ‘Hook’, or ‘El retorno del Capitán Garfio’, from Steven Spielberg.’ Gabriela: ‘Ooh, yes.’ Julian: ‘Final one. ‘¡Bienvenido a mi último experimento! ¡Este es el grande! ¡Esperé toda la vida este momento!’.’ Gabriela: (laughs) ‘I don’t know!’ Rodrigo: ‘No, me neither.’ Julian: ‘‘Volver al futuro’, or ‘Back to the Future’.’ Rodrigo: ‘Aaah.’ Julian: ‘Okay, guys, first serious question. Do you remember the very first song you ever consciously played as a child?’ Rodrigo: ‘I was eleven, and it was a song from Status Quo. What was the name? (starts humming and stomping his feet). ‘Rockin’ something …’ Julian: ‘‘Rocking all over the world’?’ Rodrigo: ‘Yeah!’ Gabriela: ‘I don’t remember at all, because I started at a very young age. In the beginning, it was just chords. The first thing was probably a riff.’ Rodrigo: ‘Maybe a Beatles song? You always liked The Beatles.’ Gabriela: ‘Oh, yeah, totally The Beatles. That’s true.’ Julian: ‘You were both born in the mid-70s, which means you were children in the 80s. How was Mexico as a musical country in the 1980s? Was it mostly mariachi music, or did the American/British bands rule the soundwaves?’ Rodrigo: ‘It’s a good story. Something happened in the early 70s …’ Gabriela: ‘Can I say something very quickly?’ Rodrigo: ‘Sure.’ Gabriela: ‘Mexico, just as any other country in the world, is being globalized since seventy or one hundred years ago. In Mexico, we got the jazz music from the 30s and 40s. We had the same culture as the United States or Great Britain, on top of the local culture. We shared the same musical culture, the same arts, the same cinema. It may seem like we only had mariachis, but no, we did have all the other genres too.’ Rodrigo: ‘There’s a brief story that I need to tell you. In 1968, we saw a movement around the world, in which students protested against all that was wrong. In Mexico, there were mass killings. Under that precedence, three years later, there was supposed to be an event, a concert, called ‘Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro’. It was never advertised as a massive concert; it was supposed to be an event where some bands would play, but suddenly, it took a different direction. It became the Mexican Woodstock. There was a live broadcast, and the government at the time was fascist. They were bad guys that had just killed thousands of students. The Mexican rock bands were all of a sudden on national radio, and the government went crazy. Two hundred thousand people showed up. The week after this happened, the government censored all rock bands for at least ten years. When we grew up, we listened to Mexican pop. Mariachis can be compared to folk music, they’ve always been there. We didn’t have access to anything else. We could go and buy jazz albums, but not even rock albums. They were banned, too.’ Gabriela: ‘From Mexican bands?’ Rodrigo: ‘No, in the 70s, all rock albums were banned. The Beatles escaped the ban, but all other British genres, like metal, were forbidden. Until 1982, when RCA broke the ban and started bringing in the albums from American bands like Mötley Crüe. Even then, it took eight years for the first international bands to start playing and touring in Mexico. In 1992, U2 came to our country. So, it’s true we were not able to listen to a lot of music in our youth.’ Gabriela: ‘Yeah, but the way you’re telling it makes it sound like all music was forbidden. If you had ‘banned albums’ in your house, you could still listen to them. It wasn’t like the Chinese government that purged certain items and possessions.’ Rodrigo: ‘On the radio, they couldn’t be played, because the government owned most of the radio stations. Same with the TV stations.’ Julian: ‘Do you know what happened in 1982? What helped to lift the ban?’ Rodrigo: ‘Yeah, in 1982 the government started to change. We got a different president, even if he came from the same party. Young people were pushing and pushing. Music will always find a way. The bands started to play in funky places, even without the support from the mainstream media.’ Gabriela: ‘Everything developed underground.’ Rodrigo: ‘Until a couple of bands broke into the mainstream.’ Julian: ‘You’ve just done the soundcheck. Which is your favourite song to warm up to, to loosen the fingers?’ Rodrigo: ‘From our new album, there’s ‘Krotona Days’. We always play that one.’ Julian: ‘I’m going to wrap this up, because I know you’re short on time. Final question. On the latest Daft Punk album, legendary producer Giorgio Moroder says this during the bridge: ‘Once you free your mind about a concept of harmony and of music being correct, you can do whatever you want. So nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconception of what to do’. Do you agree?’ Rodrigo: ‘Absolutely.’ Gabriela: ‘Yes.’ Rodrigo: ‘He’s totally right.’ Gabriela: ‘I agree 100%. But, and I’m going to play the devil’s advocate, yes, you can experiment a lot, and free your mind, but freeing your mind means that you mastered something before. Otherwise, there’s nothing to share and express.’ Julian: ‘You need the musical foundation, before you can free your mind?’ Gabriela: ‘Not just the foundation, because that sounds too academic (laughs). Some people have great ideas, but they’re out of tune and they don’t even notice. It’s okay if they want to go out of tune when they know they do.’ Rodrigo: ‘Giorgio was talking about freeing himself, because he didn’t have the academic background. He was an insecure, self-taught musician. He still convinced himself, and said: ‘I’m going to do it, it doesn’t matter’. He came up with a style, right? But it can also be the other way around. Perhaps you want to free your mind, depending on the state in which you currently find yourself. But you probably want to free your mind before you play, before you come up with something. That’s the moment you become very creative. When you connect with the source, that’s your call. How are you going keep that going? Practise!’ Gabriela: ‘Haha, you sound like a Buddhist monk.’ Rodrigo: ‘But it’s a good question.’ Julian: ‘Thank you, guys, I wish you the best of luck tonight. Hope to see you again. When we have a little more time, I can ask some more questions.’ Rodrigo: ‘Sure.’ Gabriela: ‘Thank you so much.’ |
Julian De Backer © 2019 Keys and Chords