Interview with Cristian Machado of Ill Nino
By Tiffany Beaty
Crave sat down with Frontman Cristian from Ill Nino recently during
Rockfest for a chat about the new album, the writing process and well, your
just going to have to read on to find out.
Crave: You just started touring with Disturbed; how were the first three
shows?
Cristian: The first three shows were very cool. They’ve been very helpful to
us in regards to all the technical stuff coming in, into there tour
basically with our production you know needing to take up time doing the
sound check or whatever, and they’ve been all along in the process of
touring with Disturbed all the members in the band were all really cool to us and wanted us to be able to tour with them. We thought it was a great opportunity. You know we have kinda known them for a little
while. We just never got set up properly on tour together sometimes the
powers that be don’t work it out that way. But this time around Dave our
drummer who is managing the band you know worked it out with the band on more of a personal level. Like hey let’s go on tour guys, come on.
Crave: Do you guys guy ever pull any pranks on each other while touring?
Cristian: With Disturbed not yet. We just started touring with them. We
don’t want to get kicked off the tour. (Laughing)
Crave: Any plans after the tour?
Cristian: After the tour were going to be doing a really small maybe
two-week really cheap low budget show tour where the fans can come see the bands for really really cheap. It’s kinda like an idea we’ve been trying to build up. Kinda like small club really cheap tickets. The money will hopefully come from our record company. It will give the fans a chance to see the band headline once before we go on to Europe because we want to be there for a little while.
Crave: Your new album “One Nation Underground” How would you say it differs from your last album Confessions musically and lyrically?
Cristian: Well it’s just a more precise interknit and in-depth record.
I think that we were able to toy a lot more with the styles of music we grew
up with and everything that we have actually listened to being metal heads,
but yet coming form a different culture so I think it’s just the most
precise Ill Nino record. You know that is who Ill Nino is. We’ve always been
a real aggressive heavy band. Our last record was great it had a lot of
aggression but on this record we could just approach the aggressive tribal
essence of Ill Nino a little bit different and we had a lot of fun doing it.
Crave: It is an awesome CD buy the way!!
Cristian: Did you get to hear it?
Crave: Yeah I’m reviewing it. I love it! I listened to it over and over. There’s no crap in the middle or anything like that.
Cristian: No it’s just straight up songs, song after song. That’s what we
wanted to concentrate on basically just defining Ill Nino. We don’t want to hear genre things you know we do whatever we want in the song whether it is metal or whether it’s Latin or not. Lyrically it is very different from the last two records.
Crave: Yeah I think there are some really obvious differences
Cristian: On the last record kinda before the touring cycle was done I
figured I no longer wanted to write about myself from such a personal point
of view, but I wanted to write about my thoughts about culture in society in
general, and I thought that it would be really interesting being that I was
always reading you know always very into the news. I’m just like one of
those news freaks. I want to know what is going on in the world. There is
some people that don’t really care they don’t want to turn on the news you
know. I just felt like I wanted to make a personal record about where people
stand in society today in general as a whole and I thought that it was way
more interesting then trying to tell a story of my own cause I could
actually like look at a topic or think of a subject and really say “Hey how
can I speak about it”? The song De La Vida is about my little fish.
Crave: Great song!! Cristian: My little Japanese fighting fish you know he’s alone by himself
always and that is his death. No oceans will come for him to confess and you know I was just like ok how do I make a song like that, how do I lyrically
make that really interesting. It was cool
Crave: Were all of you very involved in the song writing process on this
album?
Cristian: Absolutely all of us every single person in the band. More involved
then our last record. I mean obviously anyone who knows the band knows it
was made a little bit separated. On this record, I think that Arhue just came in and Ahrue, Jardell, Laz, Dave, Danny and I just kicked ass we were like fuck we got to write this, This is got to be our record lets make this our record you know lets make our fans be like “fuck you! Stop, look, listen! Go stick a finger up your ass; I’m an Ill Nino fan!” We wanted to make a record that not just for us to be like this is something we our proud of, we fucking busted our asses on it.
Crave: What’s your favorite track? Cristian: I have different favorite tracks like as far as the heavy heavy
track my favorite is probably “My Resurrection” and I like “La Liberacion of Our Awakening” a lot and “Corazon of Mine” and “My Pleasant Torture” is a pretty song It’s kinda like the closest thing we have to “With You” except we made it so that it had a different style.
Crave: The song “This Is War” is a very powerful song I was wondering if you could tell me a little about it?
Cristian: Well musically, it’s like just Ill Nino on eleven you know
except fuck it musically we just wanted to go off epically Dave I think he
took that song to home he totally came off in having been in so many old
school metal bands you know he was able to like do a song that totally
worked. Lyrically it really just a basic simple song It’s not about military war or anything like that. The lyrics are precise to the point, about losing a loved one, its basically about losing someone you love to society. The consequences of living in an extreme urban atmosphere at all
times whether it’s like in our personal case you know Laz lost a nephew to a
very urban atmosphere and we all have. It could be about Dimebag Darrell it could be about anything you know it could be really be about any person that you have ever lost and how everything is so fucked up and so messed up literally war on society, but you can’t really give up you know. Societies
war on people and civilians but you just got to try to everyday pound it out
and say you know no matter what life deals me at the fucking moment I’m just not going to give up.
Crave: Do you guys think you guys have accomplished what you set out to
accomplish as musicians?
Cristian: On this record I think so. I think we were able finally to be the
band that we’ve should have been. You know but obviously maybe we didn’t have the right people in the band at the beginning and wrote a record. The second record there was some commotion going on. As far as what members that were here and there and on this record we were just able to leave all the bull shit behind and write songs. Write dope songs.
Crave: What is the perfect day off for you like?
Cristian: hmm let’s see well we had a really cool day off in Venice once. We took a boat and went on a little site seeing expedition, but everybody’s likes to do different things on our days off.Some guys like to just hang out on the bus watch some TV and drink a beer. Some guys like to go out and site see. Some guys like to play video games and stay in the hotel room, um me personally I always bounce back and forth. If I’m going to travel I might as well see something, walk out of the bus and take some pictures. Why not carry a memory you know, rather then being so confined all the time.
Crave: What is your best childhood memory? Cristian: best childhood memory. Hmm I always had this memory of when I got my 1st play toy motorcycle it’s like my 1st memory of when I was a kid, but I remember when me and my mother went back to Brazil to visit some of her friends and they bought me this little motorcycle that you turn on the
button and it went by itself. Whatever. (Laughs) That’s like my first memory
there’s plenty of them one time, the 1st time I ever got on a plane my Uncle told me you know why we are delayed you know why were waiting for this plane? it was because there were screws’ missing from the
wing! So that was the most horrible plane ride I thought I was going to
die. But yeah there are a lot of weird memories I have like that.
Crave: What is in your CD player right now?
I was rocking the Sparta record a lot, Not there new one but the one prior to
that. I bought that record and the Mars Volta record. I was a huge At the
Drive In fan when Sparta and Mars Volta come out I was like yes! Thank god those guys are doing something.
Crave: If you could give any advice to a band starting out in the business
what advice would you give them?
Cristian: If you’re staring out in the business definitely think for the
best interest of your band. See who you are as musicians and see what you do musically and try not to make the wrong decisions as far as maybe what label to be represented by or having perhaps a manager that doesn’t understand your style of music or recording at a studio that wouldn’t understand how to record your music. Getting a producer that doesn’t understand your music. So it’s all you know basically I would give the advice to understand your band for the music that it is, and make the right decisions with the people you want to work with.
Crave: What’s your favorite city to play? Cristian: I love playing in Amsterdam, Puerto Rico was great though. We just played there and that was fun, but I like Amsterdam I like to be able to take a day off there go to the local hash bar and be able to smoke a joint socially among people it’s cool. I love it there, because it’s so free and independent.
Crave: Any final words you would like to say to any of the fans out there? Cristian: One Nation Underground drops September 26th if you’re an Ill Nino fan you’re going to be proud. And if your not you’re going to become one. Hopefully.
