ILL NINO : Love like a hurricane...

-Laz : With this album, we wanted to move on to the next level to Ill Nino’s career and life, and when we were planning and talked about writing the next record, we all knew that we had to move on to another level of our lives and our music, we wanted to do more melodies, but nevertheless Ill Nino is an heavy band and will always be : we wanted to incorporate more melodies, more percussions, a lot more ideas, more defined, and I think that the new record was more focused, as far as that goes, when we actually had time to really think of what we wanted to express : the band has a growing period, and the last three years, when it was time to write the record, we had collected all this inspiration and all these ideas that affected us and our lives, and the last couple of years, we kind of had everything bottled up : pump up the volume and let the music pour out. This is the outcome of that.

-The fact to tour so intensively for two years surely influenced your ways of writing and composing ?

-L : Oh, absolutely, of course : first of all, when you’re on the road you are away from home all the time, and it has somehow a profound feeling for many of us it was the first time that we spent such a long period of time away from home, and being away from home and dealing with things that occur back home when you’re on the road, sometimes it’s a difficult situation, and that does change a personality a little bit as far as it affects your way of thinking, you begin to long for certain things, and also you get a lot closer to the people you’re with all the time, so the last few years we became a lot closer, we developed more trust in each other, more trust in our musical ability also, more trust in writing, so therefore everyone in the band felt comfortable with each other when it was time to write the new record, and also this new record was written as a band, and that was kind of refreshing that we were able to do that ! When the first record came out, we didn’t even have the time to think about things. We had to hurry up and do our thing, there was a lot of things that I wanted to change about this first record after it was done, but looking back, I think this record was perfect the way it is, I wouldn’t want to change a thing about it, and the new record is here, and that was the opportunity to do some things you wanted to put : now you know how to portray yourself and this record I think has everyone’s individual personality.

-It’s a great album, and we can feel and hear and the work you’ve done and the progression between

the two albums...

-Laz : Oh, thank you ! We’ got already a positive feedback from it, it’s kind of rewarding, all your hard work has been appreciated, it’s a great feeling.

-You have a new member in Ill Nino, Ahrue Lester from Machine Head : how did it happen ?

-Laz : We were friends with Ahrue before, actually friends with the whole Machine Head band : we did two tours with them, one in America and one in Europe, and throughout those tours, we developed a friendship and a strong respect for each other’s music, as players and as people, more importantly. So, we were old friends, and at the time when we found out that Mark wasn’t going to stay in the band sometime in the recording of the record, we just simply called Ahrue up, as we knew he wasn’t doing anything and had left Machine Head : we just gave a call to say hello, and ask him if he wouldn’t like to come out here and jam out with us, we weren't really sure because he was on the west coast and we are on the east coast. He said he would come and hang out for a week and see how it goes. He came for that week and never really left ! Musically, he knows we just had it off, and he has always been a fan of the band , we’ve always been a fan of his, and it just turned out to be a really cool and special thing when he came in.

-And musically, what does he bring to the band ?

-Laz : Well he came in later on, when our album was pretty much written, and so we didn’t have that time to get creative together, but we did find a time to fit him into the record. Mark started out doing the record, he did about eight songs, and we were able to get Ahrue for the tail end of the record to do the other songs as well as Jardel, our guitar player, so I thought it was very important that he did put his stamp on the record.

-How did you choose Bob Marlette to produce the lp ?

-Laz : Bob wanted to work with the band on our first record, and I think that it’s one of the things, when Bob Marlette’s name came up again that he was still expressing he wanted to work with the band, he’s someone who really likes Ill Nino, before we even put out a record, basically to start from scratch ; he has been into the band prior to us having some former success, so let’s see how it works ! So we got together with him, first for a week just to feel each other out, and he just seemed like the right guy, he had this ability to come into the band, he stepped into our world and be a part of our circle, as opposed to someone coming else, as opposed to the other producers that we spoke to, who were more on the outside looking in. And also the respect we have for Bob Marlette, because he was also a musician and a songwriter, he also played many musical instruments, he had a great concept of how to blend everything together and I think he did a wonderful job, I’m glad we chose him. He was also a pleasure to have around, he was a very very sweet guy and we had great time with him. Of course, Dave Chavarri co produced with him, even some tracks he produced on his own, and that came around because toward the end of recording, we kind of felt a source of inspiration to continue writing : we called up the label, Bob Marlette had to leave already for another project and we had him for a very long time already : the label said: "can't guarantee your new inspiration is gonna be on the record but we’ll give you another two weeks to do what you got to do, if it is all that special then, we'll talk about it then", but it was nice to our record company to really give us a chance, and those 2 weeks gave great songs that we put up on the record, with those that Dave was producing.

-Ill Nino is also the name of a hurricane, but does this album contain special topics you have to...confess ?

-Laz : Well, the whole topic of this album is confessing our stories, on this record I think Cris was expressing things that he doesn’t really share with anyone, but felt comfort to share it with our fans, things that he would normally never even talk about to anyone, but he began to expose his life pretty much and made a confession : instead of going to a priest, he did it to our fans which is pretty much the whole idea which is stamped out of this, with a certain sincerity because it wasn’t until later on after the record has been written, you look back and you realize that that’s really like my real life story, and I’ve never talked about and I’m confessing and pouring my heart to my fans, so I thought that was pretty cool...

-Would you consider to sing more in Spanish ?

-Laz : Yes, and actually there’s always some versions in Spanish, but they just come out in Spain and South America. So we always do some versions, not the whole LP, that would be a nice thing to do, but we haven’t reached that level to have this luxury to call our record company and say : « We'd like to do a Spanish version », so we haven’t had that opportunity to have that type of budget, and around the demand is not that great for us to do so.

-You have a track on the new movie Freddy versus Jason : could you tell us more about it ?

-Laz : We were in the studio and we had done the first couple of songs and sent them to Roadrunner : they heard the song and thought it would be a great idea to use the title track of the album. So, we just thought, when they told us about Freddy versus Jason, that the last both Freddy and Jason movies were really kind of flops and nobody seemed to even care that much about it, but we thought it was kind of cool because we grew up with these characters, everyone we knew watched these horror movies : so we did it purely on it being cool and didn't really think too much about it, the song was ready for the movie, it just happen they thought it was perfect to put in the movie, it seemed like it fit with the movie, and then we’ve heard that it was number one movie in America last week ! Everyone was called off guard, so it’s like a big story in America that this movie of horror is number one movie in the country ! So I guess it worked ; it was a little bit more special than we’ve imagined. I would love to write something, like a score in a movie but I haven’t had that opportunity to do so yet, but hopefully I’d love to do that in the future.

-If Ill Nino were a movie ?

-Laz : Probably a movie called ‘The warriors’ ( en Français : ‘Les guerriers de la nuit’ , ndlr), which was about gangs in New York.

-Could you tell some records which changed your life at a time ?

-Laz : The Ramones were very important in my life, and ‘Rock’n’roll high school’ was one of the first records I ever bought ; Iron Maiden at a time, when I was a child ; the New York city hardcore bands like Agnostic Front and the Cro Mags, the Bad Brains, Jane’s Addiction later on.

-One record you would have loved to participate to, at any level ?

-Laz : The Jane’s Addiction’s ‘Nothing shocking’ album, I think it’s their best and I love the bass writing approach to the record : the bass is not only holding down the rythm, it a very important element of the songs, the songs are pretty much melodies on bass, I thought it was brilliant, and I would have loved just even play a live show or do one song ! The band was great, the musicians were great, the songs were great, and the cover sleeve too.

-Is the website of the band important for you? What do you think of this media ?

-Laz : Internet has become one of our main sources of information : we no longer keep encyclopedias at home anymore, we go on the Internet and look things up. I think it’s very important and we try to pay more attention to our website now, they’re in a process of redoing the site, upgrading it and making it a little more special : everyone is on line now, it’s growing every day, it’s a part of getting information from bands, specially in our case, and hearing the stories about the bands, the access is out there and it’s not really hard to find, just call up our name and a lot of sites would just come up. It’s also very important for music, there’s a debate right now whether it’s killing the music industry : I think it’s helping bands to expand and grow. The big thing with the music industry was that records were downloaded and the record companies have the feeling they are losing money, but I have the feeling that when fans really love something, they’re gonna go and buy it, and if they don’t dig it, they won’t buy it anyway, and also, for me, sometimes kids can get to your music and can’t afford to pay for it and have a friend who has a computer, and I would rather that those kids have our music instead that they don’t have it at all. If you’re really into a band, save up your money and get the whole package which I think they would all want anyway, so I think it’s have been helpful. They say they’ve been a decline in records sales, and it’s also downfall because I think it’s also a good thing, so record companies can’t sell bad music either : now, we go on line, we listen and we know we don’t want it ! But if it’s good and someone digs it, it’s gonna be ok. It has been a tradition for record labels to follow trends : if they see Linkin Park, they are going to sign everybody that sounds like Linkin Park. What happens to the originality of it ? You’re supposed to start new things, now you have 29 bands sounding like Linkin Park and you can’t tell them apart, that’s a shame ! All that has to do with the greed for the money. But it’s a business, they have their point of view, and it’s a shame because to us it’s an art.

Interview made by JP Coillard.