MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: If you've heard the music of Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero even once, you'll know it when you hear it again. It's explosive.
(SOUNDBITE OF RODRIGO Y GABRIELA'S "HANUMAN")
MARTIN: It's distinctive.
(SOUNDBITE OF RODRIGO Y GABRIELA'S "TAMACUN")
MARTIN: Acoustic guitar born of their mutual roots in Mexico City, infused with the heat of their first musical love, heavy metal, but then honed by the pressure of making their way without a safety net, busking far from home on the streets of Dublin.
GABRIELA QUINTERO: This pressure, it was like a espresso machine. It was (imitating espresso machine), you know?
MARTIN: (Laughter).
QUINTERO: So it's completely out of our comfort zone.
RODRIGO SANCHEZ: And that's probably how and why the - you know, the sound just became quite unique.
MARTIN: But in the quarter century since, the duo, known as Rodrigo y Gabriela, have lived and toured all over the world, contributed to film and TV soundtracks, won a Grammy, even performed for world leaders at the White House, which has given them some time to consider what all their travels have taught them, and they're sharing it in their latest album, "OurHome." It begins with the title track, which shows the band's gentler side.
(SOUNDBITE OF RODRIGO Y GABRIELA'S "OURHOME")
MARTIN: What was the inspiration for that song?
QUINTERO: We have a studio at home, and we had a rescue kitty cat and her name was Pelusa (ph). And I rescued Pelusa and the veterinarians told me she was - it was best if I put her into sleep because she had no cure. And I didn't want to, so we kept Pelusa at the studio for five years more. She passed. We had to let her go, and we were super, super sad, and Rod went home and he wrote a melody. And we had a piece, like, in a day or two, and that was the detonator that activated this whole album.
MARTIN: It's an album that explores the meaning of home from several angles, which is fitting, considering the many places around the world that Sanchez and Quintero have, between the two of them, called home - Ireland, Denmark and Spain. Also Norway, Portugal and France. For the album "OurHome," Rodrigo y Gabriela also found inspiration in a favorite tour stop - Japan.
SANCHEZ: We hadn't been to Japan since before the COVID, and we used to go every other year. Every time we would go there, we fell more in love with the place, with the country, with the culture, with the people. So we told our management, can you just book a tour in Japan, Australia, just to - you know, to refresh our minds a little bit? And we need to reconnect with that really makes us feel alive.
MARTIN: Japan obviously inspired a number of songs...
SANCHEZ: Exactly.
MARTIN: ...On the album. Well, just tell me about one of them - like, "Akatsuki."
(SOUNDBITE OF RODRIGO Y GABRIELA'S "AKATSUKI)
QUINTERO: I was watching this show called "Naruto" - it's a Japanese anime manga - and Akatsuki is a group of criminals on the story. But it has so many layers. So when we were recording it, I convinced Rod to watch it and then we can both name this piece "Akatsuki."
(SOUNDBITE OF RODRIGO Y GABRIELA'S "AKATSUKI)
QUINTERO: I love comics because I love drawing. And my mom used to do comics mexicanos - which they used to call historietas mexicanas - for many, many, many years. So I grew up watching - my mom was the writer of the stories.
MARTIN: What were some of the stories that she wrote? Do you remember any of them?
QUINTERO: Sometimes she adapted, like, classic stories from literature in its comic form. Like - I don't know - "The Odyssey" or whatever.
MARTIN: Oh.
QUINTERO: And also romantic little novelas (laughter) and things like that. And my mom always brought in her stories a lot of - like, a social justice and things like that.
MARTIN: OK, I have to ask about one of the songs that's definitely a departure - "Somos Como Tu."
QUINTERO: Yes.
MARTIN: I think this is the first song that you've written together with lyrics. Do I have that right?
QUINTERO: Yes, yes.
SANCHEZ: Exactly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMOS COMO TU")
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA: (Singing in Spanish).
MARTIN: The lyrics are not soft. I mean, it's, alone, looking for a destiny. Alone in the middle of the sea. We are paying sentences for being born in an illegal land. Look through your stuff for what I'm missing. I don't want charity. I want to work. You got the luck, but you need to remember I didn't choose to be born here. Rodrigo, will you tell me about it?
SANCHEZ: Yes. I mean, it - I - that was in 2015, and it was probably me being traveling. I was living in different places back in the day - in Norway and France. When you go to Europe and you see the - especially in France - the African immigration situation, it was actually escalating a lot. And I guess watching and being there and being part of that society at the time made me just write these lyrics one day. I think it's - the message is more relevant 11 years later, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMOS COMO TU")
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA: (Singing in Spanish).
MARTIN: You've lived all over the world, and you draw inspiration from so many different places, so many different influences. You're at a point in your lives where you could live anywhere, and, in fact, sometimes you kind of do. What is home to you now?
QUINTERO: Like, well, for me, home is where my family is. I like to be close to my family after being all over the world. But also, I think finding home is finding that place within you where you feel safe, where you feel inspired.
SANCHEZ: It's not a country, it's not a house. It's that feeling of being safe, of being free, of being you, not pretending anything. That's home to me.
MARTIN: Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero - Rodrigo y Gabriela - thank you both so much for speaking with us.
QUINTERO: Gracias.
SANCHEZ: Gracias.
QUINTERO: Gracias.
SANCHEZ: Gracias, Michel.
MARTIN: Their album "OurHome" is out Friday.
(SOUNDBITE OF RODRIGO Y GABRIELA'S "MONSTER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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