Good! how are you?

 

Well, it’s weird because the first day of a tour on a new record, you never know what to expect. I haven’t heard that much responses to the new album from Europe, but from what I’ve heard it seems to be pretty positive. I just hope it’s a good show and everybody enjoys it. We’re definitely excited to be here because we haven’t been here for a while. Hopefully everything comes out really good.

 

The responses to our new record has been really good in the US. We’ve done two tours so far in the US. One with Disturbed and one with Static-X. Both those tours have been very good! The good things about those tours is that we got to play a lot of people we haven’t played to before and the people that did see us before seem to enjoy the new music as well as the older music.

 

 

 

No we’re gonna mix it up! I think we split it up evenly. So there are as many songs from the first record as from the second and the third record.

 

We actually do play that one live but Cristian does Jamey’s parts. We played a show in Boston and Jamey was supposed to come up and sing with us but I guess I didn’t work out because he had to leave early. But I’m sure there will be a time when he comes up and play with us. Probably when we play in New York.

 

No I’ve never heard of them.

 

Yeah well, I’m looking forward to see them!

 

Well, there are several bands that we were trying to get over here with us but because of their schedule it didn’t work out.

 

One of the bands we were considering was Mudvayne and one of them was Static-X. But unfortunately it didn’t work out.

 

Well, I’ve been touring for ten years. I mean, from Machine Head all the way up till now. And I’ve been touring all over the world so I have a pretty good vision on how the crowds are in different countries. What I think is: the biggest cities always have the lamest crowds’. New York, London, Tokyo. Just because they’re so used to music that they don’t care so much. Because every day there’s another great band playing there. But then the smaller cities, no matter if it is in the US or in Europe, have the best crowds. The kids are going crazy over there, just because they don’t get concerts that much so if they do get one, they go nuts. So I don’t think it has to do with the countries but with the big cities and small cities.

 

I think it just happens naturally. I know there has also been different combinations of writing on the records. The first record was mainly written by Cris and Dave. And on the second record Jardel had a lot of input as well as Cris and Dave and on the third record I had a lot of input but so did all the others. The third record is more of group-effort. Because of the different combination of people the writing has come out a little bit different plus everybody’s personal evolution.

 

No I don’t think we’ll ever change. I mean, tribal/latin is the hearts and soul of Ill Nino so the worst thing we could do is changing that. It’s basically the one thing the separates us from all the others so we won’t change that.

 


Your official bio says that you guys felt somewhat limited and therefore you decided to change your style on the third album and to act more on impulse. What made you feel so limited in the past?

Well, I wasn’t so much around for the first record of course but I was with the second and the third. And I know that there was a lot of pressure from the record company. Basically there was just a lot of external pressure. And that was influencing what was happening on the record. But with this record we didn’t really care what the label was gonna say. That’s why we did exactly what we wanted to do. We recorded it in Laz’s studio without a big name producer. We just had somebody that is close to us recording the album. So, if the record company would come up to us and tell their opinion we were just like: “Oh yeah? That’s good!”.

 

Oh yeah! Well, Omar is the one who does all those sounds on the records. And back then he came on tour with us but unfortunately he doesn’t like touring. Some people just can’t take it because it’s a very difficult lifestyle. And especially when you have a lot of people that you love at home and you can’t see them for months and months. That’s just very difficult for some people and Omar just wasn’t happy with that lifestyle. He still works with us on the records but he just doesn’t come out with us anymore. He’s like the seventh member of the band to us but he just doesn’t tour, haha!

 

Well, that kinda hard for me to say. You know, Cris came up with the title but I never asked him what exactly the title means. I think it’s just something you can put your own meaning to. I got my own meaning behind it but I really can’t explain it man!

But you can also see it as one big Ill Nino family that always stays ‘underground’. Just as one nation that keeps the heavy music alive. But that scene will always be some kind of underground scene in the world.

 

Well, it’s not that we did it because nobody would expect it but it just turned out that way. Especially Laz, Jardel and Dave love Eastcoast hardcore. They’re from New Jersy and that where all those bands are from. I mean, Jardel has a Biohazard tattoo on his arm. And hardcore has always been an influence to them but they never brought it to Ill Nino. And on this album we did whatever we wanted so they wrote this part and they went nuts over the part, they loved it! So later one, during the recording of the record they though it would be a good idea, since Jamey is a friend of us and he’s a fan of the band, to ask him if he would like to sing on it.

 

Well, I think this record is kind of setting the tone of the direction we’re heading towards in the future. It’s more what we want to do and it contains a lot more heavier things. We’re gonna take as many risks as we wanna take. In the past, the band was on a level where the record company sort of pushed the band towards a certain audience, but now we know who our audience is and we know more than anybody else what our fans are gonna like so we’re just gonna do exactly what we want and nobody can influence us anymore.

 

That’s actually Laz’s cousin. We wanted an imagine on the cover of this album that was a lot more shocking than the previous covers. And if you open the sleeve and you check out the inside of it, you can see that the kid is holding a gun. It kinda tied in with the title and it had to be a bit more shocking. And of course it’s also very cool to have Laz’s cousin involved in it. I mean, he’s 14 years old and he’s getting a famous head already because everywhere he’s on shirts on album covers and stuff…so that’s cool!

 

 

 

Well, because we actually had a talk with him about it before. And there was just no reason for him to go in the press and make up things and do what he did. I mean, he did it in the past and back then, Dave and Laz had talked with Mark about that. After that, everything was supposed to be good and he wasn’t going to continue to do things like that now he did it again. Basically we responded like this because it wasn’t the first time.

 

I actually haven’t heard it. I heard the stuff Dave did and I liked it a lot. But since my wife is pregnant right now so at this moment the RR United album is the last thing on my mind, haha! But the concept of it is a really good idea. I’m sure there’s some great songs on it but I just haven’t hade the time to listen to it yet.

 

All of you who are fans of Ill Nino and supported the band through the years, thank you very much! We hope to see you on this European tour!