Ill Niño
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Ill Niño

Not only are New Jersey’s finest Latin metal band Ill Niño coming back to Australia for their third appearance at Soundwave Festival next year, but they have something extra special planned for their Australian fans. 2016 marks the 15th anniversary of their classic debut album Revolution Revolucion, and they’ll be playing the record in full on every date of the tour. Frontman and co-founding member Cristian Machado still has great affection for the album, and he’s excited about the prospect of reliving it night-after-night.
“We’re getting a little nostalgic,” he says. “It’s something that’s really cool to do if you have a first album that you can be proud of. Our first album has stuck with our fans ever since the very beginning, and hopefully we can bring back some good memories of a time in our lives when we were younger and could do whatever we wanted [laughs].”
Machado’s not afraid to admit that nostalgia is the key reason behind the album retrospective, and Australia will be the first on the planet to take the trip down memory lane.
“It’s something that we thought about a couple of years back,” says Machado. “We were hoping we could get to a point where we could do a nostalgic kind of thing and do the first record in full. It just seemed like Soundwave was the right time to do it. It’s the 15th anniversary of the album, and it’s an album that carries many great memories of us coming up as musicians and making the album. We saw that other bands were doing something similar, and it depends on whether or not you can be proud of your first album. We are very proud of our first album.”
Ill Niño’s debut came out at the height of the alternative metal boom, which took place at the turn of the 21st century. This period remains fresh in Machado’s memory. “That time has gone by so quickly,” he says. “It definitely feels like it could have been last week, but it’s been 15 years. It’s been a long time and we’re just grateful to be able to do something like this.”
Despite Machado’s fondness for the time of the album’s release, several of the songs haven’t been performed live for many years. Regardless, Machado is confident that it’ll all come rushing back.
“I consider things like that like riding a bike,” he says. “Once you do it, you never forget it. It’s just a matter of getting used to it again. I still remember all the lyrics off the top of my head. I may need to touch up on some of the things, but I’m just excited to play some of the songs we haven’t played in a long time.”
Ill Niño have released a further six albums since Revolution Revolución, and they’ve also established themselves as a powerhouse live act. However, even with all they’ve achieved, Machado remains humble.
“I’m just very grateful for it all. We’ve made some great fans along the way, and I guess the first album impacted many people’s lives and so many of them have stuck with us on this 15 year journey. I’m just very grateful, and hopefully in another 15 years the album will still carry its own weight.”
So is there another 15 years left in the band? “I don’t know if it will be that many years, but as long as the fans want to keep hearing these songs, we’ll keep making the trek to every corner of the world to bring the music to them.”
Written by Rod Whitfield
When & Where: Soundwave, Melbourne Showgrounds – January 26