“IT WAS BLASPHEMY TO SAY ANYTHING BAD ABOUT METALLICA!”
Rodrigo y Gabriela’s Gabriela Quintero on adding to their arsenal of flamenco-style acoustic ’Tallica covers
When did you first hear Metallica?
Gabriela Quintero: “For me, it was when I was around 15 years old. The tune was Master Of Puppets. My sister had a metal boyfriend, and he made a romantic tape for her of all the songs he loved – not just Metallica, Anthrax as well. When she played it, I was like, ‘What the hell is that? It sounds incredible.’ She went, ‘I don’t like it, it’s shit. You can have it.’”
Rodrigo y Gabriela have form covering Metallica songs – you’ve done Orion, Battery and now The Struggle Within…
“Back in the day, in another life, Rodrigo and me were in a metal band in Mexico – we attempted to sound like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Pantera, all of them. But Metallica were always the big inspiration.”
Can you remember when you first heard The Black Album? “Oh yeah. Back then, the only place you could hear metal on the radio was on this programme around 3am. So we waited up because they were going to play Enter Sandman. We were so nervous – like, butterflies in our stomach. They played the song and the older guys were immediately, like, ‘Oh, it’s soft, it’s pop.’ For me and Rod, it was blasphemy to say something bad about Metallica because we were such huge fans.”
Did Metallica have a big following in Mexico around that time?
“Oh yeah. They played Mexico City on The Black Album tour – several nights at this big enormodome place. On the third night, all the fans in the front went crazy and started throwing fireworks onstage. The Metallica guys freaked out, so people started shouting ‘Pelotudo!’ which is, like, bad asshole. And the band just walked offstage and there was just this silence – 14,000 people just quiet. It was so surreal. The promoter came on and said, ‘Please stop, the band need to continue.’ Then the band walked onstage with the Mexican flag, and the energy exploded in such a cool way. We were just so happy that it had come back from this dramatic moment.”
THE METALLICA BLACKLIST IS OUT NOW VIA BLACKENED RECORDINGS. THE BLACK ALBUM REMASTER IS AVAILABLE IN MULTIPLE FORMATS – SEE WWW.METALLICA.COM