CRISTIAN MACHADO of ILL NINO
Starland Ballroom, NJ, 10.01.05

Ill Nino looks good; healthy and happy. Maybe this wouldn't be as noteworthy if it wasn't the complete opposite of how they'd seemed to me in prior run-ins.

The short version of the story involves the departure of two unhappy band members, some well publicized bad blood, touring with a previous band member's new band, stories of physical confrontations, not finishing the aforementioned tour and gutting out a new album.

We covered all of that and a whole lot more with Ill Nino front man Cristian Machado.

Cristian is lifting free weights outside his tour bus when we arrive. A beautiful day, we grab a couple waters and take a seat against a fence at the edge of the parking lot.



S&T: So you’re working out. I saw (drummer Dave Chavarri) a couple weeks back. He looks fit and trim. Everybody’s looking fit and trim.

Cristian: Yeah, you know. We’re getting older, man, so you gotta try to keep up with your body, I guess, at least your health or your health will catch up to you.


S&T: How long were you off between touring the last album and just going back out recently?

Cristian: Um, we had off about, I’d say almost about a year, man. I mean we did like three shows during December or... realistically the last tour that we did was last September. That was at least the last tour we were on and we really just did like a couple of local shows around the area and we were just concentrating on writing most of the material for (new album) One Nation Underground. So I’d say we had off realistically about a year even though we did a couple of local shows.


S&T: Right, but that's easy ‘cause you just go from home.

Cristian: Yeah, I mean we didn’t even need to get on a tour bus to do those shows or anything like that.


S&T: I'm a little bit of a health freak and I saw you working out and I was thinking how hard it would be for me to stay in shape on a bus. What kind of things do you do now say that’s different than three years ago when I met you?

Cristian: Well, I have a routine now. I think that the older you get the more you become accustomed to routine and the more that you actually feel the need for some sort of routine, a daily routine. Especially being out on the road when every day you’re in a different city, every day you have different surroundings, every single day you meet different people. The one thing that you can rely on that is consistent is whatever routine you make for yourself. So usually, I think since the last time we did an interview, I’d definitely say working out is part of my daily routine.

I realize that I’m getting older and, you know, I’m gonna start going insane just constantly touring unless I build myself some type of regular daily schedule. I’m gonna wake up at this time and I’m gonna grab my toiletry bag and go clean myself and I’m gonna work out, then I’m gonna maybe eat something, then I’m gonna sound check, then, you know, then at least you kind of feel like you have some type of control over your daily schedule. It’s something that makes you feel like not everything is dictated to you, like sound check at this time, play at this time, leave at this time, show up at this time. When you’re in a band and you’re going from city to city touring usually that’s what it really is. You know everything is dictated to you by your tour manager and the one thing that you can do is just make up things for you to do on a daily basis. Working out is one of them, some of the guys in the band like to play Playstation now, you know, that’s something that they didn’t use to do and for me it’s just pretty much that; wake up, work out as long as I can to try to make the day go by as quick as possible and try to eat right, try to be a healthier, older person.


S&T: Eating right has gotta be hard.

Cristian: It is when you’re constantly surrounded by pizza. (laughter) And pizza being obviously my favorite food in the whole world, I realize that the one thing that will make me stay healthy is if I just don’t have that initial first slice of pizza. If I don’t have that first slice I’ll keep eating, you know, like sliced turkey, broccoli, and stuff like that and salads. But as soon as I get that first bite of pizza it’s all over, man, it’s like I become a complete fuck-up, you know, I start eating everything.


S&T: You know what you are, bro? You’re a pizza-holic.

Cristian: I am a pizza-holic. It’s ridiculous. It’s to the point where some of the naturally thin guys in the band like Danny and Ahrue, you know, they’re just naturally thin. Danny will drink a case of beer every single day and eat 10 slices a day and he’ll never gain a pound.


S&T: He’s got that metabolism.

Cristian: Yeah, and the same thing with Ahrue but um, it’s like to the point when they bring pizza around me I’m like, “Man, why do you do this to me?” I mean even just having it on the bus and me smelling it is like torture.


S&T: That’s hysterical.

Cristian: So I am a pizza-holic I guess (laughs) and that’s the one thing I said to myself, “Just don’t look at it, don’t taste it and a salad will be just fine.” And that’s how I’m trying to stay healthy, you know, just working out, doing a lot of situps, a lot of benching, a lot of back exercises and warming up before the show is like a ritual and it kinda just makes you feel like you have some type of control over your daily schedule.


S&T: Yeah, because you take control of a chunk of your schedule it also brings a little bit of like normalcy to it, like you’re home.

Cristian: Exactly, you don’t feel like you’re away and you feel like, okay, this can be home as long as I have this, you know, all these tasks that I assign myself daily. It makes you feel like, okay, this is home. As long as I have somewhere to work out, as long as I get some type of healthy food in my body and as long as they keep pizza away from me.


S&T: Our first interview was three and a half years ago and one of the things you said in that first interview was, “New Jersey needs to open up an Irving Plaza, a really good showcase venue.” You think (The Starland Ballroom) is it?

Cristian: I think it’s definitely an upscale venue compared to the Birch Hill. I mean the Birch Hill was an amazing venue, it was like home to the New Jersey bands but I would definitely say that the Starland Ballroom is a better venue to come see a band. The sound is better.


S&T: They did a good job.

Cristian: Yeah. It’s very open. It’s not so leveled and everybody could easily see the show. It’s definitely a step up from where the Birch Hill was at and I think that they did do a great job of making it a better showcase/national act venue. So I think for the local bands, for the bands that are coming out of New Jersey, yes, it’s gotten way better. The Starland Ballroom is a better place to say to your friends or the music industry, you know, “Come see my band at the Starland Ballroom.” It’s better than saying, “Hey, come see me play at the Birch Hill Nightclub,” which was a great venue and a lot of great bands went through there but it just... How long did it exist for? Years. Years and after years of so many different bands rolling through there you can only expect the PA to get beaten and everything else to get beaten, you know? And the dressing rooms are much nicer here. The toilets are actually not falling apart, (laughs) which is good.

That’s another thing when you’re on the road, that’s the one thing that you would like is consistent toilets (laughter). You know, like at least one clean, private toilet in every venue.


S&T: There was... I don’t remember who we were talking to but they were saying that they had a whole rating system for clubs based on the toilets. So like if you went in, if you had just a toilet with like no stall doors it was like one rating and then if they had walls but no door it was a two...

Cristian: Wow, I wonder how they rated CBGBs? I mean it’s a classic club...


S&T: Yeah, but that’s a place where it’s like the reputation is better than the reality, you know what I mean? Like the legend of it...

Cristian: But it’s also the location, you know? I mean CBGBs is just located in the center of the punk slash rock, New York City scene and the Birch Hill was kind of like the middle of nowhere and at least if you’re gonna have a really big venue in the middle of nowhere at least have some nice toilets in there.


S&T: (laughs) So what’s tonight, the last date of a throw together tour?

Cristian: Tonight is just basically the end of a couple of weeks that we were doing of just Ill Nino headlining after the Disturbed tour. We came off the Disturbed tour and had some time off and Roadrunner Records really wanted us to do some headlining shows just because the single had done so well the first couple of weeks charting at number one most added and then number two most added and then number two most added again. They didn’t want us sitting home not doing anything so...


S&T: You’ve gotta capitalize on it. You gotta get out there.

Cristian: So they said, you know, “Please at least, at least do some small shows, you know, get out there and do some headlining shows. It would really help us out in the promoting of the record,” so it was something that just kind of got put together last minute. Most of the headlining shows that we did didn’t even have two weeks promotion time, you know, and...


S&T: And the fan support was still there?

Cristian: And the fan support was still there... except for Atlantic City. Atlantic City was the House of Blues in Atlantic City was...


S&T: Yeah, which I heard is gorgeous, I haven’t been there yet...

Cristian: It’s an amazing, beautiful club but, you know, they need to either build the scene around Atlantic City or only bring huge acts there and when I say huge I mean, you know, the Godsmacks, the Disturbeds, the Fallout Boys, I guess, you see their video every two minutes on the TV. So for a band like us who really is dependent on our own fan base and we do well at radio but it’s not like we’re, you know, we obviously don’t get the same love that other bands do like Fallout Boy or whatever. So the House of Blues was kind of, yeah, there was 500 kids there but it’s a 3,000/2,500 capacity venue in Atlantic City. You know, I always thought of Atlantic City as that’s where Frank Sinatra would play, you know, when he was alive or that’s where the Temptations reunion would happen. Not an Ill Nino concert. But they opened up a House of Blues there and I’m sure that slowly but surely they’ll build up the reputation in the club to where all the fans are gonna wind up wanting to take the drive to Atlantic City from wherever they may be. Newark, New Jersey, Wildwood, New Jersey, you know Seaside Heights, I don’t know. But the venue is really beautiful, amazing, the sound is amazing. They just opened it up so they need to build up the reputation a little bit.


S&T: Right, now how about geographic fan base, is there a geography to it, can you pretty much go anywhere? If you do a tour in the United States can you pretty much hit anywhere and you’ll see the same kind of response?

Cristian: We, yeah, we’ve been lucky enough to actually have great responses all over the country. Even in places, to be honest with you some of the best responses that we’ve gotten are some of the places where we’ve only been there once or twice like when we played in Fargo, North Dakota, we had... I don’t think we ever played in Fargo, North Dakota, you know, and when we were on tour with Disturbed we did a show there with them and the response was just amazing. There was like 3,000 kids that absolutely wanted to see our band and were just dying to see the band. The same thing with Oklahoma City, you know, we’ve maybe been there twice and we got to play in front of 5,000 people for Disturbed and every single one of them loved it so I’m starting to, the more and more that we tour I’m starting to realize that the places that we don’t go to very often are the places that they really want to see us.

Obviously there’s our hometown and Starland Ballroom and Irving Plaza is kind of like home to us as well as maybe Philadelphia, The Troc and Allentown maybe, and maybe Hartford, Connecticut. But some of the places like we usually never go like North Dakota, like Oklahoma, Kansas, even LA... I mean we went to LA on the Ill Nino/Flaw/40 Below tour and we did a thousand people in LA. You know, a thousand people in LA for a band like us is amazing especially when we just saw Disturbed play there at the Rock in front of 700 kids. So the scene is there and it’s slightly inconsistent but if you really pay attention to where you haven’t been and to where there’s really music loving fans like some of the Midwest states then I can predict that, yes, we’ll have a great show.


S&T: I was just thinking when I was growing up before the Internet and before you could just kind of go online and find out everything about a band and get pictures and all that other shit, what you had was a band might come around once a year and if you waited like all year or you saved up for an album cause they were albums then, and then the band would come around and then whatever. You’d get somebody’s parents to drive you there, you’d go to a show and that would be it. You’d have to wait another 8, 10, 12 months for the next album cycle for them to come around. I gotta think it’s just kind of like that, you know what I mean? You go to these places and they’re listening to your albums and they know everything about you but they don’t get to see you live. You go there and they’re dying for it.

Cristian: And the longer they listen to the record without seeing the band live is the more they anticipate the show when you actually show up and play. Um, I mean I would have to say that was true of the scene. Maybe six, seven years ago it started taking a turn and one of the bands that actually definitely, I think, changed the scene was Sevendust because when they came out they were non-stop touring. For three years, every two months they were coming through New York or New Jersey and they were here with this band, they were here with that band, they came as headliners, then they came with Snot and they came with this other band and they definitely rearranged or rewrote the book on how often you could actually play at the same venue over and over and I give them credit, you know. They gave bands like us something to look forward to, some type of goal or standard to say, “You know what, this is what a real touring band does. They tour constant, non-stop.” But now the scene is obviously changing again and I think that more and more you are going to start seeing bands not coming around as often, letting kids and fans just have to wait.


S&T: I would think that there’s a balance where say Roadrunner wants you to be out there because they want you to capitalize on a successful single, at the same time you don’t want to over saturate. I remember Mushroomhead came through on Mushroomhead/Twisted Method/Dope, and like three months later they came around again. The first time they came around it was great, the place was packed. But the second time it was like, "Tickets are expensive, I can go to like two shows a month or whatever, I gotta pick and choose. I just saw this one three months ago; I’m not coming to see it again."

Cristian: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. There’s got to be a middle ground. I think that capitalizing on worldwide success is a way to keep your fans interested, anticipating and at the same time satisfied. So those are three very hard things to achieve with a fan base, you know? Keeping them interested, anticipating your show and then satisfied when you come to the town...


S&T: That’s another thing too, man, the longer you make them wait the bigger the anticipation, the harder you gotta work to satisfy...

Cristian: Well, yeah, 'cause I mean, they are expecting, “Oh, I haven’t seen this band, you know, I’ve been listening to the CD for two years and I haven’t seen this band. They better kick my ass live,” you know? And it’s true but then there are those fans that are just so, “Oh my god, I haven’t seen this band in this long,” and they’ll just eat it up as soon as you get on stage.

But you know, I guess trying to not use but take advantage of worldwide success is a way to keep bands not always coming around the same town, you know, do a tour of the US and maybe perhaps go do another continent and then come back. Like right now we’re doing these two weeks of just headlining, today being the last one, we could have just stayed headlining but we really said to ourselves our record’s gotta come out and let the kids just swallow the record first and then we’ll come back with Static-X so we’re taking some time off you know, we just did the Disturbed tour, we played in front of a lot of fans, we did two weeks of headlining just in minimal markets and we’re just gonna let the record come out, let the people buy it, let everything, I guess I would just say, reach the level that we’ve gotten to, you know, we’re ready to play the new songs but we obviously want our fans to have the new record, we want press to know that we have a new record out, we want the single to be peaking at radio and stuff like that so right now we’re just glad that we got the Disturbed tour because it’s really a hard time in music right now. It’s really a tough time for everyone to sell records and to have a big draw unless you’re, I don’t know, Blink 182 or Green Day, you know? It seems like there’s a huge resurgence of punk rock and there’s a lot of bands cashing in on it but in metal it’s like the kids are picky, the fans are picky and metal fans are not dumb by far. They are very smart people and they like their music to be smart also and that’s why it’s... and they are so smart to the point of just going online and downloading every single record they could (laughs). Rather than spending their money they say, “If I could get it for free why would I want to buy it at the store?”


S&T: Is there a different vibe just to your whole day and night knowing that you’re support instead of headlining? When you’re out with Disturbed is there less pressure? Can you enjoy it more?

Cristian: It’s almost weird to really answer that question because it is less pressure but at the same time you go up on stage and you realize that some of the crowd, maybe 20 percent, 25 percent may be also hardcore Ill Nino fans but the rest of them are really only there to see the headliner so it makes you try to go a little bit more overboard. You know, you try to really shove your style of music down these people’s throats whereas when we headline, when Ill Nino headlines I feel very comfortable with just putting the mic out there and letting the kids sing a part because I know they know the lyrics. But at a Disturbed show it would be a little bit different. I obviously have to work a little bit harder just in getting the fans to stay focused, you know, pay attention and not be like, “I saw a couple songs, I’m gonna wait for Disturbed.” But Disturbed is a band that’s got really music loving fans. They have fans that just love to listen to music, you know, they love heavy music, they love good melodies and we were truly blessed that we got asked by them to be on the tour because there was nobody else touring.


S&T: I always think it’s a good move for bands where you are that do headlining tours that can come to clubs like this and do a tour, I always think it’s a great idea for them to jump on a tour as support again for the larger bands. I know bands that don’t do it because, “Oh, no, we’ll build it up and then we’ll get to that point.” It’s still a business, it’s still about getting out there and if you’re in front of 5,000 kids, you’re in front of 5,000 kids period and that’s the point. You go back to talking about a band like Sevendust who built their fan base by touring, by you know, being on stage 350 days out of the year, you know, and that’s the point.

Cristian: Yeah, Sevendust is one of those bands that said, “We don’t care where music is at.” When they came out, music was in a very weird place, you know, it was like you’re either Korn or you’re Pearl Jam and there is really nothing in between, or you’re a death metal band and then it’s like here’s this band with really heavy riffs but straight singing, you know, soulful. And they had to do it like that, they had to go out there and show people that they had what it takes to be a very successful band and they did do it and that’s why I said earlier they’re one of the bands that rewrote the book on how you build a fan base. Usually during the grunge era it was MTV, during the Korn era or even rewind to the Metallica era it was just word of mouth, you know, during the Sevendust, beginning of the Ozzfest era it started to be touring and now it seems like it’s radio. That’s how you build a fan base now.


S&T: On the new album there’s definitely some songs that are like more accessible, I think, and I don’t mean that as a hit, I mean I think there are songs on there that are definitely could go mainstream tunes.

Cristian: Yeah, absolutely. I think in general we just wanted to write music that regardless whether it was heavier or melodic, we just wanted to write better songs. The heavier songs we wanted to be more of who we really are, have more personality and the more melodic songs, we wanted them to have more emotion than ever before. I think we managed to do that. We busted our ass trying to do that so I hope everybody feels that way.


S&T: And you’re singing more?

Cristian: Yeah, I mean, I’m not singing as much as I did on Confession but the singing is more direct. It isn’t, the vocal tracks aren’t doubled, you know, it’s like one vocal track and a backup track very low in the mix and it’s just like this is the personality of who I am. Same thing with the instruments. There isn’t like 20 guitar tracks on there, it’s like two rhythm guitar tracks and one augmented guitar track and that’s really what we wanted the record to be. We just wanted it to be more raw and more pure but more focused on the culture, aggression, and the originality of the band rather than how many tracks or you know, how many backing vocals there was or what not. We just wanted it to be more raw and direct, right to the point. This is what it is.


S&T: Obviously it’s a different line up then the previous two recordings. What do you think these guys brought differently to putting this album together?

Cristian: I think that One Nation Underground is the most, is the one Ill Nino record that has the most personality to it. You can definitely hear each individual musical element that we incorporate into our music, having it be, whether it is Latin jazz or New York hardcore or Ahrue being from the West Coast, you know, Bay area metal, you hear every single aspect of what makes each individual Ill Nino member. And that’s one thing that I don’t think we achieved with any or our other records.

The first record that we did, Revolution Revolucion, was basically a record that was pretty much written solely by me, you know, it was like me with a guitar in my house writing most of the riffs and then I’d come to rehearsal and I'd show Dave the riffs and we’d rearrange some things here and there and we’d just put the songs together and then we’d show them to everybody else and it would be like, “These are the songs, guys, put your stuff on top of it because this is what it is.” On Confession it was still a little weird because we were going through some band member changes and the best songs on Confession, I truly believe, were the ones that (departed members Marc Rizzo and Roger Vasquez) were never involved in writing like the “Damn, I Hate You,” “Cleansing,” “Unframed,” “Have You Ever Felt,” all those songs were to me the best Ill Nino songs on that record and it just purely showed the rest of the members in the band that these two dudes needed to go and we need to have a family unit, you know, we need to have a very friendly, creative, family-oriented band or else we’re not gonna make the kind of records we want to make.

And with this record we individually said to each other, “We’re gonna work as a team and we’re all gonna write together. This record, One Nation Underground, isn’t gonna be dictated by one individual person or two individual people. It’s gonna be a record where we’re all gonna write music and we’re all gonna bring music to the table and we’re all gonna arrange it together.” And that’s really the way it worked out, I mean, me and Ahrue, Ahure was living at my house during the entire recording of the record and during the entire pre-production of the record and during the entire writing of the record. So between him and I, we sat together a lot, you know, and just went through rifts and showed each other material and then Jardel would come by and show me material and then we’d sit down and really brainstorm it. I’d say it’s the only Ill Nino record where we really got to brainstorm each others ideas and take parts from Jardel and put them next to something that I wrote and then take Ahrue’s chorus and put it into the song and then have Laz’s bass line break the song down in the middle. So it was very interesting to be able to work in that way, solely because we had never gotten the chance to really do that and I think that the music is just a lot more personal that way to each individual member and as far as the audio, the actual music, you can hear the influences. You hear the Samba influence; you hear where Laz and his bass playing come from a very Caribbean form of bass playing. You hear where Ahrue’s riffing comes from a very Bay area metal form of riffing. You hear where Jardel’s riffing comes from a very strong Ill Nino tribal type riffing. With me you just, I actually got the chance to finally explore everything I wanted to without having to have anybody tell me what to do and without having any producers saying you shouldn’t do that, you shouldn’t do that. If anything it was, to me this was the most creative record that I got to do where I had the most freedom to do whatever it was that I wanted, write about whatever it was that I wanted and it was just truly an amazing experience being able to make the record...


(Fan): Sorry to interrupt, man, album’s great.

Cristian: Thank you brother.

(Fan): Sorry, man. I’m Steve man, I’m a friend of Danny Kudos, man, new guitar player for Candiria. Hopefully one day we’ll get on the road with you guys.

Cristian: Awesome, man, no doubt. Danny’s over there.

Steve: In the bus?

Cristian: Yeah, I’m just finishing up an interview.

(Fan): It’s great shit, man. One of your best, man.

Cristian: Thank you, brother.

But, yeah, on this record I got to really just go off, man, and I said to myself I’m not gonna look at the structure of this band the way that I’ve been looking at if for the last four years. I’m gonna look at it completely different, I’m gonna start from the ground up and even with the concept behind the lyrics. It’s completely different then either of our records so I’m very happy with the outcome. I think we needed to make that step and just go outside the bubble and become the Ill Nino that we’ve been wanting to become.


S&T: Are you tired of getting questions about Marc and Roger. Does it still bother you?

Cristian: Well, I mean, it never, ever bothered me but it obviously bothered (Marc) to be out of the band. Me personally? I was glad to have him out of the band, you know? They didn’t want to be in the band so it’s like BYE, you know, just the pure fact that you’re in the band and you don’t want to be here. You’re making our music suck and it’s your fault and you hear it with One Nation Underground. You know, some dude just walked up to me and said this is the best record you guys have put out, you know, and every single fan is saying the same thing and it’s just audible. You can totally hear that we’re happier now and we’re a band now. Rather than four people and then two dudes that think that they’re God’s gift to music, you know? People like that should just go do solo records, man. Be a paid musician. That’s what you should do. If you can’t collaborate with musicians then just sit at home. I don’t know. Join a band and get paid for it. Put out a solo record which is what Rizzo does so that’s probably the best thing for him, you know, is to be in Soulfly, do solo records, and then he can feel like he’s God’s gift to guitar players, not that there isn’t 20 million other people that could shred better than he can but you know, obviously it bothered him.

He kept it inside for so long that it actually probably ate him up and we agreed to do the Soulfly tour knowing that there was... we knew that there was gonna be a problem from day one. We knew that the Soulfly powers that be were gonna make it impossible for Ill Nino to be on that tour. And it got to the point where the reality of the last day of that tour was that, so that everybody out there can know, and whoever reads this interview or hears it, the reason why we got kicked off that tour is because we showed up at the venue, Royal Oak, Michigan, and our tour manager went up to the Soulfly tour manager, I’m not gonna mention any names, and asked if Laz could use the restroom in the venue, at which time she responded, “None of you Spics are allowed in the venue until four p.m. and neither is your crew.” So when you get to the point where you can’t even use the restroom, man, then what the hell are you doing being on tour with a band? You know, what are you supposed to do, take a shit on the street? Shit on a tree? And there may be a lot of bands out there that don’t want to speak the truth about the way that the powers that be behind Soulfly treat their opening acts, but you know what, Ill Nino was the band to not take the fucking bull horns. It was basically like, “Fuck You. You know, we do well on our own, don’t treat us like we’re a fucking local band on your show. You know, we’re on tour with you. Treat us properly or get called out,” and they got called out. They can make up as many stories as they want about how I got my ass so kicked that I’m scarred all over the place and it’s hysterical to me. It’s funny and immature and I laugh about it. That’s the way I take it.

(Cristian's cell phone rings, looks at it) Remember that band Stem, from Jersey?


S&T: Vaguely.

Cristian: They used to play at the Birch Hill nightclub all the time. That’s actually Jai calling me, the singer of Stem. He used to sing for Dragpipe for a long time.


S&T: Dragpipe, ... Diablo?

Cristian: Yeah. Jai Diablo.


S&T: That’s him? No shit.

Cristian: Yeah, he’s probably coming to the show, yeah. I’ll call him after we’re done. It’s all good.


S&T: How’s he doing?

Cristian: He’s doing great, man. Dragpipe is actually back together, they’re playing.


S&T: Oh, that’s good. I liked that band.

Cristian: Yeah, I think he’s an amazing fucking front man.


S&T: Still got them teeth?

Cristian: Yeah, still got his gold ass teeth, man, and he’s still got his crazy attitude but he’s cleaned up now and he’s focused on life and...


S&T: That’s good because the last I heard I saw somebody else from the band and they were like, “Yeah, man, he fell hard and he fell bad,” and then I couldn’t find anything on him. He did like a hip-hop album or something. I actually saw the video for “Simple Minded” about two months ago and went looking and I was like I have no idea where this guy is. I had no idea if he was dead or alive stuff so...

Cristian: He actually lives like two blocks away from me. I hadn’t seen him in years and then I was walking in the park by my house one day and I looked, no actually, I was in a store. I was at the grocery store by my house buying some, I don’t know, probably avocados with my girlfriend, I have no idea. And we were shopping and I saw Jai and I was like oh, my god. I was just so happy to see him alive, you know, I had heard that he was just having a rough time with life and all that and I was just happy to see him alive and happy to be alive and just focused on life and happy to be sober and just, he had gained weight, you know, and he was feeling good. He was happy about being back in his band in the music scene and I thought that was great.


S&T: That’s good shit, man. I liked that band. I liked that album.

Cristian: I always felt that Jai was always like on the cutting edge of music, you know, like even back in the day when he was in Stem I thought that he was doing something that was ahead of its time. Unfortunately bands break up and you know, the bands that deserve the credit aren’t always around when credit starts coming around to that genre of music. And the same thing with Dragpipe, it was like they were playing very straight forward rock right before the whole rock scene started to come alive again and unfortunately things happen with bands and bands break up or whatever but they’re back. They’re doing their thing so that’s awesome.


S&T: Well, good shit. So what else do you want to talk about?

Cristian: Um, I did a song with Dino (Cazares of Fear Factory) on the Roadrunner 25th anniversary record, which was pretty cool. It totally blew me away the fact that Dino calls me up and he’s like, “Yo, what’s up man? Yo, we haven’t talked in a while.” I was like, “What? Is this Dino?” He was like, “Yeah, man, it’s me que pasa, bro,” and he’s like, “Yo, you know why I’m calling you?” and I was like, “No.” I had no idea. “You want to come to a show or something? I don’t know. You want me to put you on the list,” and he was like, “No, man. You know that I was assigned as one of the team leaders for the Roadrunner All Star record,” and I was like, “Who fucking knew?” I had no idea and he was like, “I want you to do a song with me,” and blah, blah, blah, but he was like, “There’s only one catch, you have to throw some spanish in there,” and I was like, “No problem, man, it’s an honor for me to do a song with you.” So that was always fun.


S&T: How did that work out? I’ve only heard two of the tracks. I know Dave played on two with the singer from Trivium, right? And how did it work?

Cristian: Well, there’s probably... there will probably be a lot of misconceptions and misunderstanding as to how that record got put together so I’ll try to clear it up as best as I could. Being that there are so many different artists from so many different bands, so many different cities across the US on the record and Europe, a lot of it was done through FedEx. In other words, in different studios, different recordings. I know that Dave McClain, Marcello and Dino recorded the song in LA and then they FedEx’d me the stems to the songs and then I did the vocals at our studio in Jersey and then we FedEx’d it back and that’s probably how most of the songs were done. It would have just been unrealistic to fly people everywhere. It would have cost millions of dollars to do that, just to hire studio time and try to get all these people together at the same time, all those bands are touring bands and everybody is always on the road so it would have been ridiculous. But Dino pretty much had the songs written and you know he went into a studio and he recorded them accordingly depending on who he was working with on each individual song and he did that one track with Dave McClain and Marcello, ex-Soulfly, now who’s playing in Abloom and he was like, “I’ll just FedEx you the song man, do what you want to do to it,” you know. And I pretty much did and when he got it back he just shifted a couple things here and there and that was pretty much it.


S&T: That’s cool. You’ve heard it?

Cristian: Yeah, yeah.


S&T: You like it?

Cristian: Yeah, it came out awesome. Definitely.


S&T: So they did four songs each, is that how it worked?

Cristian: I think so. I’m not exactly sure if... I mean there’s more than 12 songs on there and there was...


S&T: I think there’s four guys though, I think there was four...

Cristian: Yeah, I think maybe Joey Jordison did some extra songs.


S&T: Yeah, he did some songs and then who was the fourth one?

Cristian: Rob?


S&T: Yeah, Rob Flynn from Machine Head. I think it’s a great idea, I mean it’s a great idea for a 25th anniversary but I think it’s just a great idea period like if somebody would just do it every once in awhile for no good reason. You know what I mean? To just pull different people from different bands and collaborate. You talk about your band now in the same way like it’s a collaboration and you got everybody in the band participating and you’ve got everybody, their input and then the sum is greater than the parts. If you get like a bunch of different guys from a bunch of different bands and just pull in different influences and different genres, shit like that would be cool, man. That would be all right.

Cristian: Yeah, you could get something pretty tasty, you know, it’s different flavors. A lot of people are used to being in their own bands sometimes and it’s good to step out of the bubble.


S&T: What did you do different with their music than you would with Ill Nino music?

Cristian: Well, I knew that the record was gonna be a pretty brutal record so I wanted the vocals to be pretty heavy so I did the best that I could just screaming really hard. That was really the only difference, you know, I mean lyrically I pretty much stayed within the same context of what I’m interested in right now or where I am in my life right now as far as what needs to be said in music.


S&T: Which is what?

Cristian: I think that music in general should be a voice for the people, you know, that’s what music was to me when I was younger. I mean when I was growing up and listening to a lot of punk rock bands the reason why I was attracted to them was because they said things that a normal person wouldn’t be able to say whether it was standing up against things that they didn’t believe in, standing up against the government, standing up against religion, whatever it is, you know. I think that music should speak for the people and music should speak about things that the media wouldn’t ever want to talk about because they’re not allowed to. That’s what music is there for. To me it shouldn’t just be about heartache and pain, it should be informative and it should school people, you know, it’s a way to reach the youth of the world and it’s the one thing that a lot of people have in common. They listen to music. And if there was more artists trying to concentrate on talking about topics that are really important to some type of positive movement in the world today rather than, I don’t know, crying over a girlfriend or getting laid or having Escalades, you know, maybe we’d be in a different situation. Maybe people would be schooled and maybe people would really know what happens behind the scenes and people would know what steps they need to take in order to be heard in society. They would no longer maybe want to be a silent member and just keep their mouths shut. Like our last election you ask people why they voted for who they voted for and they’ll tell you, “because I did.” You know it’s like man, you are basically closing your eyes and trying to I’ll just take this one, and you know, living life and trying to make your community, not just society but your community excel is not done by just closing your eyes and taking a guess. It’s done by opening your eyes and opening your ears and making a smart choice, a smart decision. There is obviously a lot of different decisions that people could make and that’s why you have to be schooled and just understand the system for what it is and not let it drag you down purely because its standards have been set by somebody else.


S&T: I like that. I want to end with that.

Cristian: That’s what I think music should be about. Speaking to the fans but also speaking for the fans.


S&T: Well, I’m glad to... I haven’t seen you guys in a while and the last two times that I saw you I don’t want to say you were crabby but you could see like stuff was bothering you. It’s good to see you guys whole and smiling and looking like you’re enjoying yourselves again.

Cristian: Yeah, we’re having a good time and I think it was good to take our time making the record, you know? It just makes us feel better about the point of view about the band musically and lyrically and we’re just really behind this record. We all really individually feel that it’s our best work so far. It’s the only record that we’ve ever put out that we actually listen to on the bus all the time and we blast it and we rock the fuck out to it. With our other records it’s like we’d be done making them and then we’d never listen to them. But with this record we all wind up listening to it.


S&T: All right. Always a pleasure, bro. I really appreciate it.

Cristian: Thank you very much, brother.

interview by scott sisti