We’re all creatures of habit and most of us hate to break our regular routines. Imagine being in a band and starting over after over 20 years with the same band. Well, that’s what is happening to Cristian Machado. He was the frontman of the band Ill Nino for 21 years, but he’s taken those shoes off and stepped into a brand new pair. He is about to release a brand new album entitled Hollywood y Sycamore and it is going to catch quite a few of you off guard. You see, the screaming vocals and metal that you expect from him based on his Ill Nino days are gone. Instead, he has stripped things down and gone acoustic on this new album. Now, I know some of you may be scratching your heads and think this isn’t for you. Let me remind you how bad ass Alice In Chains’ MTV Unplugged album was. Although the songs are stripped down, there is still some diversity there as some tracks have more instrumentation than others. We recently sat down with him to discuss this new unchartered waters that he’s sailing into, his new amazing video “Die Alone” and more.

Cristian Machado: What’s up Johnny, this is Christian from……….Cristian Machado. So, yeah, Cristian from Cristian. Yeah. Cristian from Cristian Machado. There we go. I didn’t even know what to say. I was like wait, I’m a former vocalist.

It’s all good; you’re speaking on behalf of yourself. How about that?

I can; I can only do that and I cannot be responsible for anybody else. Especially in today’s world, you know?

Let’s just right into this and talk about your new solo album that’s dropping in September.

Music has definitely been therapeutic throughout life whether playing or writing. So, you know, after everything went down and we recorded the album last year, we waited as long as we felt was reasonable and then we realized (me and Chesky Records) that we can’t keep waiting forever. So let’s go ahead and put some music out there.

Good for you dude! I will admit, and I’m sure I’m not the only person, that I was quite caught off guard the first time I heard “Die Alone.” What made you go down that avenue?

Acoustic music is definitely something I’ve always had an infatuation with especially for one reason or another. I’ve always had an obsession with cover songs that are done stripped down acoustically. For example Tori Amos covered (Nirvana) “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I actually enjoyed her cover slightly more than I did the original. It’s not because “Smells Like Teen Spirit” isn’t, you know, a massive monster so that can connect with anyone but just because hers is left field, you know? I’m a metal head at heart and I don’t think that will ever change but reality is that I came into being a musician for mainly songwriting purposes you know. I can play guitar but I’m no Eddie Van Halen. I’m a vocalist so I’ll mostly stay at the one thing that I do know I’m okay at that. 

Everybody’s so used to me being metal. This is probably the right time for me to do something differently and I knew that it would take a lot of people by surprise. It’s expected and you know, my hope behind it all was simply if the songs are good enough, they’ll be accepted. It will be a surprise and people may be shocked but hopefully their ears and hearts will be open to it.

That’s what it all comes down to is a great song. Dave Grohl is forever telling these young, up and coming bands that it all boils down to the song. You’ve got to write good songs. That’s where it begins.

It is the one thing that unifies the listener to the musician. You know if a musician can write a song and feel genuine at heart and you feel the message and really connect with him, then that’s it. As long as you’re being realistic and really wanting to create something special, you’ll get through it and it will connect some people.

Was there any hesitation pursuing this lane of music instead of what we all expect from you or was it just guns forward and let’s just do this?1

There wasn’t much second thought behind it. I knew it was something I’ve always wanted to try. When I was approached by Chesky Records to make an album that’s a little bit more stripped back my response was, yes, absolutely. They were happy with the demos that I sent them, so it was kind of like just put the baseball suit on and start playing baseball kind of thing. You know, it’s something that I feel comfortable doing but there was some worries there just because I was kind of doing it without too much second thought. I feel like people may accept it, you know, but some of my fans may say it’s not their kind of music, I realized that this is not something that’s for everyone. You know it takes a very specific listener to like this kind of music, you know, they have to have broad music tastes of music. I came into it expecting that this may not be for some of the metal fans. This is for people that want to connect with music in general. That’s usually a sign of concern and I just kind of crossed my fingers and start running. Next thing you know, you’re five blocks down the road and you’re like, well, I guess it really is run time. So, I’m stepping away from my normal and starting fresh in a way. 

This is kind of uncharted land. You spent 20 plus years with Ill Nino and now you’re a solo artist. I would think it might be a little intimidating to be stepping into this new phase. That’s not even touching on the fact that it’s happening during a pandemic.

Yeah, I definitely was. We experimented in the band with a lot of different you know, little different flavors of things. We never necessarily committed to one particular you know, or completely heavy flavor, or completely commercial things. I mean, I’m not going to lie to you; it is an extremely scary thing to do. The only thing I really had going for me to overcome my fear was hearing the songs on the album, which I really, really think is phenomenal. I’ve said that before about other albums, but I think that this is really an album that I wouldn’t have been able to make 10 years ago. It really took, like you said, two decades of growth as a musician and understanding as a human being for this to happen. 

I was intimidated and worried and nervous. Luckily, that didn’t lead me down the path of second guessing myself. You get in this tunnel vision situation where you’re in this mode of not being able to finalize things because you’re second guessing everything. Luckily, I had to support from some of my friends and that’s what really pulled me through it. It was more me having to deal with the personal change. I was creating fears because of that change.

Isn’t it good though to be pushed outside of your comfort zone? It’s a strange feeling to describe as it’s fear and excitement at the same time.

You’re right man; that’s so true.

Let’s talk about the music video for “Die Alone.” I’m not going to lie to you; I’m not sure how many times I hit repeat on that thing. I can’t tell you the last time that something has moved me in the way that that video did. Can you just tell me a little bit about the vision for that how you came up with it and put that together? 

Thank you, that really means a lot. The making the video was more than an exhilarating experience. We knew that we wanted to be about some type of personal transformation within a relationship, but we didn’t want to get too cliché. I think the main point was to try to just agree with the motion and try to tell the story of a person who goes through a lot of change. I guess most of it is just emotion from the performance of Melissa Maria. The emotion that she put into the acting in her role of the ballerina and just the loving woman was really awesome. I think she really made the video. It’s amazing, you know; I wasn’t expecting the horizons to be like that. I’m so grateful she was able to be a part of the video. It was a friend who recommended her to us.

We wanted to tell the transformation of a woman who is going through a struggle. In the end, she expects that a lot of the suffering is life skills that we have because we are living beings. The experience of life is the sum of all the scariest parts and that is probably one of the most important things that we could show. 

It was tough shooting a video because of Covid because we didn’t know what studio was going to allow us to come in and shoot. We didn’t know who would be available. I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to get a makeup artist for the video. We shot it during the peak of Covid and nobody wanted to touch anyone’s skin. The label was able to find a location that was open because that in itself was a nightmare. After we had the location, we couldn’t get any props because all the prop houses were closed so we had to buy them. I mean, what choices did we have? We had just put out the single and it really needed to have a video for it but when it came out, we couldn’t shoot again. Luckily, we found a window that worked for everyone, but it was definitely tough to make happen.

I am reading quite a lot of positive stuff about it. What has the reaction been like for you?

Overall, it has been pretty amazing aside from people that may not necessarily have a negative feeling about, but it’s just not their thing. Like I said earlier I was into this accepting that that is a reality of course. The feedback has been amazing and it really makes us feel so blessed and grateful. The fans have really kind of taken away with it and they liked the song. It really seems to have connected with them. 

I do have to ask you this and if you don’t want to talk about it feel free to stop me. At this point, I am pretty sure you know I’m talking about the whole Ill Nino situation. 

It’s ok man; I’ll answer accordingly so that I don’t get in trouble, but you could put it all in. You can ask for whatever you’d like.

In case someone is reading this and is not sure of the situation. I just I mean out of respect for you, I want to make sure that I have this correct. I just know that I read that there were some shady things being done by drummer Dave Chavarri all involving money. Instances include you guys not getting your cut of money that was rightfully yours and other instances include Chavarri pocketing money that he really should not have been. It went to court, you guys settled on things, he has the right to use the name and everyone is moving on. I mean, that’s kind of the short version.

We knew how it would turn out but eventually, you know, the three of us, Ahrue, Diego and I felt better to come to terms and put our energy into doing something musical. Right?  If anything, I think that the big learning lesson for me is I learned something about myself in that as emotionally affected as I was, at the end of the day, I’m terrible at holding grudges. I’m terrible at just forcing myself to continuously feel bad about something that I know I shouldn’t have to feel bad about. We asked ourselves if there’s a way that we could move forward, we could say that it was just a matter of coming to a settlement that was fair for everyone.

But, you know, we’re, we’re really blessed that at least we were getting a chance to be able to say, okay, you know, there is no need to hold on to this anchor. Right? You know, I personally feel that growth is the more important thing in life or trying new things. I’m just thankful that I don’t have to hold on to any grudges. I could just kind of stay creative, keep creative and put all the BS to bed. Those guys can do their own thing and focus on music the way they hear and I can focus on music, find a little positive and then move forward.

The album drops on September 25 and I am sure that you were going to be hitting the road to promote it. The pandemic has really changed the game as far as that goes. Is there anything that you can mention that’s in the works as far as promoting goes?

Man, I wish I could mention the things that we had planned. We’re supposed to start touring and everything has been pushed back to begin in March 2021. We were planning to go to Mexico, Australia, South America and do a little bit of touring everywhere. Right now, we’re just being patient; I guess is really the only thing to do. The music industry has been devastated by this and I don’t just mean the musicians. I mean the crew people, the venues, the bartenders at the venues, everyone. This is an industry where there is no relief for the workers.

You know, I mean, I’m not even worried for me as an artist. I can keep putting out content and do things and stay busy so I feel like I have a purpose. As musicians, I think the best thing to do, at least the conclusion I’ve come to is I have to be patient.  I’m just going to focus on putting out content. I’ve got the video that just came out and the next one will have more instrumentation. It’s got more drums on it, and it’s a little bit broader production. After that, I think I’m going to go with the Pink Floyd cover “Welcome to the Machine” and do a video for that. 

We have some smaller venues here in Raleigh (North Carolina) that are really struggling hard right now.

It’s been it’s so hard, but there’s got to be an upside coming eventually. I have faith that it’s not going to be permanent. It’s just how will we all deal with this moving forward and knowing that these kinds of things come up and then how can we protect ourselves? I’m working on that one brother. 

Dude, I appreciate your time today. You and I did an interview several years back for an Ill Nino album and tour, so it’s great to come full circle and work with you again.

Yeah, man, it’s a blessing. I didn’t remember that we had done with, congratulations to you and your magazine.

Thanks man! Congrats on this new album and fingers crossed that things become safe enough to tour properly so that you can get out on the road.

I appreciate that man; take care and thanks again for the support.

By I’m Music Magazine Owner/Editor Johnny Price

Pre-order Hollywood y Sycamore:   http://hyperurl.co/858c7f