Though they are often pigeonholed with another high-energy acoustic guitar music, Strunz and Farah respectfully discourage the F-word: flamenco.

"There's a lot of misunderstanding about what flamenco might be, outside of its own culture, which is Spain," Strunz says. "Flamenco is a European, Spanish art form that was developed by the Gypsies and the Andalucian people.Rhythmically and technically, it's a super-complex form. We tell people we are not flamenco guitar players, or 'nouveau flamenco' guitar players, and neither are people who call themselves 'nouveau flamenco' guitar players, flamenco guitar players. They are simply taking advantage of a term that's easy to hang on a music that would be hard to describe otherwise. I can see the convenience of it, but that doesn't make the flamenco community very happy."

Of Strunz And Farah's eight albums, the last two, Heat of the Sun and this year's Live were released on their own Selva label. "Everything bad you've heard about the music industry, it's happened to us," Strunz says. "We're both happy to say that it's been far more satisfying from the business side of things to do it this way."

Strunz and Farah have worked together, as musicians and now business partners, for 17 years. While most rock bands could have formed and broken up many times over in that time, Strunz and Farah have been too busy making music to even question their longevity.

"I don't think we've had a moment to catch our breath," Strunz chuckles. "My wife said to me, we haven't taken a vacation in 17 years....The work itself is stimulating, gratifying, artistic, and there's plenty of it, so we're just following the river, the flow."

Originally published in 1997.