THE LOCKDOWN LOWDOWN ~ CRISTIAN MACHADO

I'm Music Magazine, Cristian Machado, Die Alone, Hollywood Y Sycamore, Ill Nino, COCONUT BAY ,CHESKY RECORDS

Live music and touring are on lockdown right now and fans as well as artists are going through withdrawals. We wanted to come up with something fun to help bridge that distance between fans and artists right now. What we came up with is something called The Lockdown Lowdown and it’s a Q&A session with fun questions for artists to answer. They’re not your typical interview questions, so it gives you a peek inside of the artists themselves. We’re big music nerds here at I’m Music Magazine and we love learning things like this about the artists that we love. We’re pretty sure that you’ll get a kick out of these, so we hope you’ll take the time to read them. In this installment, we sat down for a fun Q&A session with Cristian Machado, former frontman of Ill Nino who is about to drop his own album Hollywood Y Sycamore in September!

What are five albums that changed your life?

Iron Maiden Live After Death – absolutely life changing for me. A cousin turned me on to them when I was hardly 12,13 maybe, love at first listening!

Quicksand Slip – again absolutely life altering. The melodic sensibility, great arrangements, and real life topics made me love it. Had just enough punk attitude but futuristic songwriting and so unique sounding. No band ever sounded or will ever sound like quicksand. I don’t know if that’s a bad or good thing sometimes, I just love it.

Tool Undertow – another band that shifted music as we knew it. There was nothing else like it at the time. So insanely dark and drone like but still rocking and though the songs sounded or felt simple, they had an underlying progressive soul at the heart. I’m probably giving away that I like unique sounding “character” bands. I realize Tool is a polarizing kinda band that some say is too obscure. Not for me.

Fear Factory Soul of a New Machine – another incredibly unique band that at the time had nothing else you could compare it too. I suppose it had some parts of exterior influences but It was done so differently, they truly wrote the book on a lot of extreme metal going forward from there.

Rush Moving Pictures – I know I’m also giving away I might be a little proggy on the inside. Regardless, you can’t deny this album is an absolute masterpiece. I remember as a kid two of my faves on this album were, are, will always be “Red Barchetta” and “Vital Signs”. Of course we all love “Tom Sawyer” but I can be a deep cut kinda rocker sometimes. However, no song in this album is imperfect in my opinion.

Name five artists that influenced you as a musician?

Fear Factory

Jimmy Gnecco / Ours

Tool

Quicksand

Iron Maiden

What are your five favorite live albums?

Iron Maiden Live After Death

Kiss Alive

Lenine Lenine In Cite

Alice In Chains MTV Unplugged

Slayer Decade Of Agression

Life on the road; what are five of your the craziest/funniest/scariest tour stories?

Well I can definitely think of a few!

We’ve had couple scary bus fires. One was worse than the other. I woke up with my bunk full of smoke. I usually take a back middle bunk. All of bunk alley (where everybody sleeps) was full of smoke, I started yelling at everyone to get up. The bus driver heard the yelling, he pulled over, we all ran out not knowing at all where the fire was. Some dudes were slow as hell to get out though, sleepy as hell! Hahahaha! Well it was the engine that had caught fire, no idea how or why but the bus driver had to put it out with an extinguisher. One of the other buses on the tour picked us up on the side of the road. That same night we had a “back-up” bus sent. Scary moment but everyone was ok and we didn’t miss any shows.

A funny moment we had was an end of tour prank of raining cold cuts and veggie platters during our show. We were on tour with Drowning Pool. We were main support and I guess needed to be sent home in a celebration. The final show was in New Orleans at the House of Blues, which I call the House of Booze. Anyway, so at the NOLA HOB the dressing rooms all have windows and look down onto the stage. During our set the DP guys decided to take all the cold cuts trays & veggie trays in the entire venue and made it rain down on us during our set. I’m not a cold cut kinda guy but it was hysterical and we definitely deserved it. Hahahaha!

One unforgettable memory was a fan who brought some of the ashes of a deceased loved one to the show in order to spread them in the pit. I know it sounds morbid but they had a ceremony during the spreading. I don’t know how they were able to do something like this during a chaotic show but it was an honor. Perhaps honor is not the right word, but regardless, I was grateful they shared this moment with the band. They told us their friend loved our band and had been to many shows and this is what they felt he wanted done. I am also grateful they used some of the ashes, not all. There’s so many loving people who loose their lives tragically, unexpectedly, every day. It’s something I think about a lot. Part of life we just accept but can never swallow, I suppose.

I have a funny Maynard story. We played a festival with Tool back in the day. I saw Maynard walking towards right outside of catering. Me being a huge Tool fan was definitely gonna stop him and probably gave that away. He made the fastest left I have ever seen in my life, he was like a footballer. He must’ve been socially distancing hahahahaha!!!

What are your five favorite movies?

In no particular order cause that’s too complicated! Hahaha

“Fear and loathing in Las Vegas” – how can you go wrong with a movie about one of the greatest characters of our time, the crazy, the mad, but the collected Hunter S.T.!!!

“The Fugitive” – yes the one armed killer had done it! Bastard! Hahahaha!!!

“Forest Gump“ – a movie that is as inspirational to life as it is entertaining on the screen. True magic on this one.

“Borat” – possibly one of the darkest commercially successful comedies. True comedy genius though it may not be for everyone and could insult some people.

“Man on the Moon” – Jim Carrey is an amazing actor no matter what he does. The ability to move through such a variety of characters with ease and with seriousness that is convincing is astonishing.