Dave Chavarri - Ill Niño (21/11/2013)
Heading to Australia for Soundwave 2014, we chat with Dave Chavarri of Ill Niño.
Hey Dave, where are you at the moment after finishing the tour?
I am home, in Dallas Texas.
Oh okay, is it hot? Just to awkwardly ask about the only thing I really know about Texas.
*laughs* It’s getting a little colder. We just finished doing 26 shows in 30 days across the United States.
Oh wow. I read that you gave military personnel 2 for 1 entry, that’s potentially a significant amount of your audience, when did you decide to implement that system?
We decided to do that towards the beginning of the tour. It seemed like a lot of troops were being sent home or sent away to North Korea or Afghanistan after the tour, we just thought it would be a cool thing to give them a break so to speak. So we made it so they can come out, have a beer, get drunk and meet the band and chill out in honour of them fighting for us and their country.
Yeah that seems like a pretty cool way to pay tribute to the people who have probably given a lot to your country.
Correct man, there’s a lot of camaraderie for people who have fought for the situations for you to be able to live in. You know, people sometimes forget to say thank you. A simple thank you goes a long way.
Talking about camaraderie, you’ve been a band for fourteen years, how do you still have so much energy?
*laughs* We smoke crack man.
*laughs*
We’re fans man you know, fans of music at the end of the day. And we’re artists, we know what it used to be like when you save your money, you’re a kid, you’ve gotta save your job money, your allowance, where-ever you get that money from. You come to a show to see a show, not to see somebody do a little pole dance on stage and not even seem like you’re happy to be there you know? Reality is, if you’re in a band and you’re not happy to be there, then don’t be a fucking band anymore. Real simple. Get a fucking job at 7/11 or something. I don’t know what to tell you, there are a lot of bands like that who are always belly-aching and complaining about situations. And we live for our fans, and our fans have put us here for fourteen years plus now, and we’ve been trying to give people their money’s worth. We don’t want a kid to come to our show and afterwards say “Ill Nino wasn’t very energetic today” or even “Ill Nino seem tired”; it’s like, fuck that! We leave everything on that stage, we leave our souls on that stage for that reason. That’s what it needs to be, it needs to be where a kid is fucking blown away and they say “Wow Ill Nino was amazing, they were so energetic and were into it” and that’s what matters.
Yeah it sounds like what every band should be doing nowadays. I’ve been a fan since I was eleven, have you met any fans recently that have been with you from the very beginning?
There’s a lot of fans that have been there from the very beginning, I feel like we’re the uncles of a lot of fans. There’s a lot of fans we’ve been friends with since the beginning, when we started, and these kids were sixteen years old and now you know, they’re like thirty years old and married and they have children, and they still come to our shows with their children. It’s like a big family. And they come and hang out with us, and fuck man it’s like they’re a part of the band, like; we’ve raised them so to speak. There’s about 20-30 people worldwide who this has happened with.
Wow. I saw in the ‘Forgive Me Father’ videoclip that you actually got people from that family, what’s your inspiration for that song and why did you choose to release it first?
We basically wanted to do something where the song was about so many people being selfish and even some religions, there’s a lot of hypocrisy in religions also. We wanted to song to come out about somebody being kind of a cult leader but somebody who also wasn’t being real to himself, or honest with himself or to his followers. Then we just said “Hey, why don’t we have our fans come out? It’s time we honour our fans by letting them be a part of our video.” Afterwards we did a meet and greet with them, hung out with them and got to hear what they like, what they don’t like. It’s good to have an ear close to the street a little bit and shows you where you’re at. So that way you can change something you know?
Yeah, I was going to ask about what keeps you grounded after being in the industry for so long, but as you said before, pretty much it’s the fans.
You know, being together for as long as we have, we’ve been through a lot of trials and tribulations, a lot of ups and downs. We’ve been on major labels, independent labels now. It’s weird shifting from independent labels and major labels but it’s what you put into it you know man? If you love to do this, and you love music, you’ll love your fans. And if you don’t, it’s time to get out you know?
Yeah fair enough. Do you have a title ready for the new album? Or are there any hints that you can give us what to expect from it?
We’re gonna go into the studio sometime after Soundwave, we’re trying to have a record out by August of 2014, which is going to be a little bit earlier than our usual time schedule. It’s gonna be 100% Ill Nino, it’ll be fast paced and energetic, you know, attitude. The one thing about Ill Nino is that we’ve stuck to our guns, we’ve done what we want to do on our own terms. Not following other bands, we’ve created our own stamp on the ‘latin metal’ label. So we’re able to continue, and be ourselves and you know, not follow in anyone’s footsteps.
Well yeah, I can’t say I’ve heard too many bands that I can say, “That sounds like Ill Nino”, you seem to have made your own sort of music style. Which in this sort of ‘cookie cutter’ industry is a pretty good thing to have really?
You know, we have a lot of respect for other bands and like, 99% of all the bands we play with on the tours. But we want to do things our way, so I think that’s the reason we’re still here today. If we’d followed the path of all the other bands, and followed their footsteps, I don’t think we’d be a band today. I think we would’ve just made a lot of people unhappy. But I think we’re going to be going for a long time still.
Is the band going to be running over their dreadlocks in wheelchairs on stage in ten years?
*laughs* dreadlocks and wheelchairs. We’ve not really slowed down, as long as our fans are there to receive us with open arms, we’ll be there for our fans. I mean, we’ve been in this industry for so many years that we know how it works, we know how it plays out and we know how fragile life in careers are and we are thankful for what we have. So that’s what we do.
Well that’s great to hear. You mentioned before that after Soundwave you’re going to be bringing out the record in August, that’s a pretty quick turnaround. How do you manage to do it?
We’re already starting to write music now, we’re gonna utilize the Christmas holiday and the New Year holiday to actually start putting words down and getting stuff ready. You know, I’m definitely not saying we’re gonna have a record out in August 2014, but we’re certainly gonna give it our all. I mean, the one thing that we don’t do is, we don’t try to make deadlines in the sense of hurting our music. If we’re in the midst of recording the new record and we feel a song is gonna suffer, or the productions gonna suffer, or the lyrical content’s gonna suffer, we will not put out a record in August you know? We’ll put it out in October or November. We’re not willing to give up quality to be able to put a record out, having a record out in August, or having a record out in November is the same to us. I mean, if we’re ready, August, if we’re not ready, it’ll come out in November.
Yeah well, as the band’s producer and manager, you’d have a pretty massive input into when you’re actually able to release things. Does it give you some kind of freedom to be able to do that?
Well, I formed the band, I created the band in 1999 and I’ve been the band’s manager since 2004/2005, and it does give you the freedom. But it also gives me the content with my band, everyone in this band is extremely important to it. Everyone plays a very important role; we all form a strong unit. We talk a lot, we have meetings every week about all the stuff we have to do, we run our band as a business and we run as a band of brothers. We are all family to each other and we kinda make this ‘all decision, our decision’, and not make a decision because somebody is pushing us to do so. We’re making it on our own terms.
Cool, just to bring it back to Soundwave, do you have any stories from the 2011 Soundwave when you played here last to share from backstage?
Other than that everybody could not believe that Australians drink their balls off? *laughs* You motherfuckers can party like no other man. I don’t give a fuck, we can be in Germany, we can be in Spain, we can be in Brazil, and we can be in fucking London and no-one parties harder than Australia. Nobody, I don’t give a fuck who it is. You’d win the world championship of fucking partiers. If there was an Olympic event of fucking partying, Australia would have the gold medal every fucking year.
Yeah I think we’re a bit proud of that.
*laughs*
So at next year’s Soundwave are you going to be showcasing some new material besides ‘Forgive Me Father’?
No, you know, we’re gonna be showcasing in a 35 minute set, that’s seven songs. So you have to be very smart with what you choose. We’re gonna choose songs that are Ill Nino, but I’ll tell you what, we’re extremely excited to be coming back to Soundwave. I mean, we’ve been to every major festival from Download Festival to Rock Am Ring and Rock Am Park in the UK, you know, we’ve been to Brazil. But by far, I’m not just saying this because we’re playing at Soundwave, but it is the best festival in the world without a doubt. It’s a huge fucking slumber party you know? It’ll be good to see the bands perform, and it’s just going to be a good fucking time. We can’t wait.
Yeah, well Rock AM ring is an absolutely massive arena and then in 2011 on Soundwave, the stage was obviously considerably smaller, how does the band go about conducting the crowd to get rowdy when there’s either so many people or so little?
It depends on the tour. You know, Rock Am Ring and Rock AM park are one show each night and you know, the difference is, with Soundwave, there’s a lot more intensity. There’s a lot more energy. Not only that, but there’s so many different stages, Rock AM Ring and Rock AM park there’s only three or four stages, and then there’s the side stages. It’s the same with Hurricane (festival). You get a pretty huge cult following in Europe, for our European tour we did eleven countries in thirty-three days and our tour was sold out to 85% capacity every single night. But with Soundwave, who knows? It’s like a fucking fourteen-day weekend.
Just quickly before you go, who do you want to see play on next year’s Soundwave lineup?
Definitely Rob Zombie, I’m definitely going to go see Green Day. It’ll be interesting to see how the three guys in the band sound. But Sevendust are gonna be there, great friends of ours, Devildriver, Trivium. Again, we’ll just enjoy our fourteen-day weekend.
Alright, unfortunately, I think we’re out of time, but thanks so much Dave.
Thank you brother, thank you for your time and we’ll catch you at Soundwave.
Jonty Simmons
Hey Dave, where are you at the moment after finishing the tour?
I am home, in Dallas Texas.
Oh okay, is it hot? Just to awkwardly ask about the only thing I really know about Texas.
*laughs* It’s getting a little colder. We just finished doing 26 shows in 30 days across the United States.
Oh wow. I read that you gave military personnel 2 for 1 entry, that’s potentially a significant amount of your audience, when did you decide to implement that system?
We decided to do that towards the beginning of the tour. It seemed like a lot of troops were being sent home or sent away to North Korea or Afghanistan after the tour, we just thought it would be a cool thing to give them a break so to speak. So we made it so they can come out, have a beer, get drunk and meet the band and chill out in honour of them fighting for us and their country.
Yeah that seems like a pretty cool way to pay tribute to the people who have probably given a lot to your country.
Correct man, there’s a lot of camaraderie for people who have fought for the situations for you to be able to live in. You know, people sometimes forget to say thank you. A simple thank you goes a long way.
Talking about camaraderie, you’ve been a band for fourteen years, how do you still have so much energy?
*laughs* We smoke crack man.
*laughs*
We’re fans man you know, fans of music at the end of the day. And we’re artists, we know what it used to be like when you save your money, you’re a kid, you’ve gotta save your job money, your allowance, where-ever you get that money from. You come to a show to see a show, not to see somebody do a little pole dance on stage and not even seem like you’re happy to be there you know? Reality is, if you’re in a band and you’re not happy to be there, then don’t be a fucking band anymore. Real simple. Get a fucking job at 7/11 or something. I don’t know what to tell you, there are a lot of bands like that who are always belly-aching and complaining about situations. And we live for our fans, and our fans have put us here for fourteen years plus now, and we’ve been trying to give people their money’s worth. We don’t want a kid to come to our show and afterwards say “Ill Nino wasn’t very energetic today” or even “Ill Nino seem tired”; it’s like, fuck that! We leave everything on that stage, we leave our souls on that stage for that reason. That’s what it needs to be, it needs to be where a kid is fucking blown away and they say “Wow Ill Nino was amazing, they were so energetic and were into it” and that’s what matters.
Yeah it sounds like what every band should be doing nowadays. I’ve been a fan since I was eleven, have you met any fans recently that have been with you from the very beginning?
There’s a lot of fans that have been there from the very beginning, I feel like we’re the uncles of a lot of fans. There’s a lot of fans we’ve been friends with since the beginning, when we started, and these kids were sixteen years old and now you know, they’re like thirty years old and married and they have children, and they still come to our shows with their children. It’s like a big family. And they come and hang out with us, and fuck man it’s like they’re a part of the band, like; we’ve raised them so to speak. There’s about 20-30 people worldwide who this has happened with.
Wow. I saw in the ‘Forgive Me Father’ videoclip that you actually got people from that family, what’s your inspiration for that song and why did you choose to release it first?
We basically wanted to do something where the song was about so many people being selfish and even some religions, there’s a lot of hypocrisy in religions also. We wanted to song to come out about somebody being kind of a cult leader but somebody who also wasn’t being real to himself, or honest with himself or to his followers. Then we just said “Hey, why don’t we have our fans come out? It’s time we honour our fans by letting them be a part of our video.” Afterwards we did a meet and greet with them, hung out with them and got to hear what they like, what they don’t like. It’s good to have an ear close to the street a little bit and shows you where you’re at. So that way you can change something you know?
Yeah, I was going to ask about what keeps you grounded after being in the industry for so long, but as you said before, pretty much it’s the fans.
You know, being together for as long as we have, we’ve been through a lot of trials and tribulations, a lot of ups and downs. We’ve been on major labels, independent labels now. It’s weird shifting from independent labels and major labels but it’s what you put into it you know man? If you love to do this, and you love music, you’ll love your fans. And if you don’t, it’s time to get out you know?
Yeah fair enough. Do you have a title ready for the new album? Or are there any hints that you can give us what to expect from it?
We’re gonna go into the studio sometime after Soundwave, we’re trying to have a record out by August of 2014, which is going to be a little bit earlier than our usual time schedule. It’s gonna be 100% Ill Nino, it’ll be fast paced and energetic, you know, attitude. The one thing about Ill Nino is that we’ve stuck to our guns, we’ve done what we want to do on our own terms. Not following other bands, we’ve created our own stamp on the ‘latin metal’ label. So we’re able to continue, and be ourselves and you know, not follow in anyone’s footsteps.
Well yeah, I can’t say I’ve heard too many bands that I can say, “That sounds like Ill Nino”, you seem to have made your own sort of music style. Which in this sort of ‘cookie cutter’ industry is a pretty good thing to have really?
You know, we have a lot of respect for other bands and like, 99% of all the bands we play with on the tours. But we want to do things our way, so I think that’s the reason we’re still here today. If we’d followed the path of all the other bands, and followed their footsteps, I don’t think we’d be a band today. I think we would’ve just made a lot of people unhappy. But I think we’re going to be going for a long time still.
Is the band going to be running over their dreadlocks in wheelchairs on stage in ten years?
*laughs* dreadlocks and wheelchairs. We’ve not really slowed down, as long as our fans are there to receive us with open arms, we’ll be there for our fans. I mean, we’ve been in this industry for so many years that we know how it works, we know how it plays out and we know how fragile life in careers are and we are thankful for what we have. So that’s what we do.
Well that’s great to hear. You mentioned before that after Soundwave you’re going to be bringing out the record in August, that’s a pretty quick turnaround. How do you manage to do it?
We’re already starting to write music now, we’re gonna utilize the Christmas holiday and the New Year holiday to actually start putting words down and getting stuff ready. You know, I’m definitely not saying we’re gonna have a record out in August 2014, but we’re certainly gonna give it our all. I mean, the one thing that we don’t do is, we don’t try to make deadlines in the sense of hurting our music. If we’re in the midst of recording the new record and we feel a song is gonna suffer, or the productions gonna suffer, or the lyrical content’s gonna suffer, we will not put out a record in August you know? We’ll put it out in October or November. We’re not willing to give up quality to be able to put a record out, having a record out in August, or having a record out in November is the same to us. I mean, if we’re ready, August, if we’re not ready, it’ll come out in November.
Yeah well, as the band’s producer and manager, you’d have a pretty massive input into when you’re actually able to release things. Does it give you some kind of freedom to be able to do that?
Well, I formed the band, I created the band in 1999 and I’ve been the band’s manager since 2004/2005, and it does give you the freedom. But it also gives me the content with my band, everyone in this band is extremely important to it. Everyone plays a very important role; we all form a strong unit. We talk a lot, we have meetings every week about all the stuff we have to do, we run our band as a business and we run as a band of brothers. We are all family to each other and we kinda make this ‘all decision, our decision’, and not make a decision because somebody is pushing us to do so. We’re making it on our own terms.
Cool, just to bring it back to Soundwave, do you have any stories from the 2011 Soundwave when you played here last to share from backstage?
Other than that everybody could not believe that Australians drink their balls off? *laughs* You motherfuckers can party like no other man. I don’t give a fuck, we can be in Germany, we can be in Spain, we can be in Brazil, and we can be in fucking London and no-one parties harder than Australia. Nobody, I don’t give a fuck who it is. You’d win the world championship of fucking partiers. If there was an Olympic event of fucking partying, Australia would have the gold medal every fucking year.
Yeah I think we’re a bit proud of that.
*laughs*
So at next year’s Soundwave are you going to be showcasing some new material besides ‘Forgive Me Father’?
No, you know, we’re gonna be showcasing in a 35 minute set, that’s seven songs. So you have to be very smart with what you choose. We’re gonna choose songs that are Ill Nino, but I’ll tell you what, we’re extremely excited to be coming back to Soundwave. I mean, we’ve been to every major festival from Download Festival to Rock Am Ring and Rock Am Park in the UK, you know, we’ve been to Brazil. But by far, I’m not just saying this because we’re playing at Soundwave, but it is the best festival in the world without a doubt. It’s a huge fucking slumber party you know? It’ll be good to see the bands perform, and it’s just going to be a good fucking time. We can’t wait.
Yeah, well Rock AM ring is an absolutely massive arena and then in 2011 on Soundwave, the stage was obviously considerably smaller, how does the band go about conducting the crowd to get rowdy when there’s either so many people or so little?
It depends on the tour. You know, Rock Am Ring and Rock AM park are one show each night and you know, the difference is, with Soundwave, there’s a lot more intensity. There’s a lot more energy. Not only that, but there’s so many different stages, Rock AM Ring and Rock AM park there’s only three or four stages, and then there’s the side stages. It’s the same with Hurricane (festival). You get a pretty huge cult following in Europe, for our European tour we did eleven countries in thirty-three days and our tour was sold out to 85% capacity every single night. But with Soundwave, who knows? It’s like a fucking fourteen-day weekend.
Just quickly before you go, who do you want to see play on next year’s Soundwave lineup?
Definitely Rob Zombie, I’m definitely going to go see Green Day. It’ll be interesting to see how the three guys in the band sound. But Sevendust are gonna be there, great friends of ours, Devildriver, Trivium. Again, we’ll just enjoy our fourteen-day weekend.
Alright, unfortunately, I think we’re out of time, but thanks so much Dave.
Thank you brother, thank you for your time and we’ll catch you at Soundwave.
Jonty Simmons