Diablo Rojo

“I already bought my house on the beach in Mexico,” said Rodrigo Sanchez shortly before the Austin City Limits Music Festival last year. “I don’t care what other people say now. We play by our rules.”

At the time there was no reason to think twice about Sanchez’s comments. Rodrigo y Gabriela were on the tail end of a draining festival season, celebrating the international acclaim behind the instrumentalist duo's eponymous third album. Then the band axed their ACL appearance citing exhaustion, after previously canceling an excursion to South by Southwest due to visa issues. Third time’s a charm, right? This Saturday Rodrigo y Gabriela hit a sold-out La Zona Rosa. Erika Wennerstrom of Heartless Bastards opens. Do yourself a favor and spin Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” before heading to the show. You’ll thank me later.

Let’s rewind for a moment. Sanchez is a flamenco virtuoso. Gabriela Quintero has knuckles of steel, replicating the sound of a full drum kit with a hollow body acoustic guitar. Together they compose Latin instrumental suites that ride the lightning. After meeting in Mexico City in 1989 and trading riffs in the thrash metal band Tierra Acida, the two decided to pack up and try their luck on the streets of Dublin, Ireland.

We didn’t know anything about it or anyone there,” Sanchez recalls from his hotel room in Alaska. “We discovered once we got there that the Irish are very musical. It was all very exciting. We started busking in the streets. We weren’t looking for money or a label. It was a totally hippy lifestyle. Everything else that has happened was an accident.”

Rodrigo y Gabriela may not have been seeking success, but fellow busker Damian Rice was, and when the Irishman hit it big, he invited the couple to open for him. Within the span of a few years, the Dublin-based duo recorded a trio of solid albums: 2003's re-Foc, 2004's Live in Manchester and Dublin, and 2006’s Rodrigo y Gabriela, which was finally released in Mexico last October.

“This thing has grown up in a very natural and organic way,” Sanchez says. “We’re happy living every moment of the experience.”

That doesn’t mean they've left their metal roots behind. Their latest album features, among a handful of other-worldly originals, alternate routes to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Metallica’s “Orion,” while Quintero never misses an opportunity to hoist her devil horns in the air.

“I learned guitar because of Metallica’s Kill ‘em All,” Sanchez says. “What we do is kind of a tribute. We still are doing the metal thing but more acoustically. I feel like I’m doing some sort of crazy Latin metal shit.”