Interview with Ahrue of Ill Nino
September 6, 2003
Interviewed by Bill Steinbacher

 

Bill: How’s everything been going so far being with the new band? (Ahrue was formally a guitarist from Machine Head and just recently joined Ill Nino)
Ahrue: Everything’s been going good I’ve been in the band for about three months. I came out and tried out and I didn’t pack a lot of stuff. I packed enough stuff for about a week and I ended up being in the band and they kind of just kept me. I was staying at Christian’s house for about a month and then I was staying at Jardel’s house. I’ve been staying at Jardel’s house ever since. So they’ve just been kind of putting me up at different people’s houses. We’re on tour now so, ya know, there was no sense in really getting a place and we’re probably going to be touring for a year and a half so I’m not even going worry about thinking about where I’m going to live until the tour starts winding down so I’m technically homeless at this point right now.
Bill: Well, you got the video games on the bus.
Ahrue: Yeah. Well, yeah this is my home actually – I’m not homeless. I don’t have a real home after this one.

Bill: What are some of the major differences being in this band as opposed to Machine Head?
Ahrue: I think the biggest difference is creatively somebody had the final say in Machine Head and this band, creatively it’s a democracy.
Bill: So you have more input as to what goes on?
Ahrue: As far as writing and that’s pretty much the reason I had to leave Machine Head. I dunno…I loved a lot of things about being in that band and I loved the music, but I just felt like I didn’t have a creative fulfillment in the band.
Bill: I actually hear that from a lot of people in a lot of bands they say it’s a very controlling environment. That’s why a lot of people leave a lot of bands.
Ahrue: Well…yeah.

Bill: When did you start playing guitar?
Ahrue: Uh…I was 14 years old and I was a big fan of Angus Young from AC/DC and I was living in Hawaii at the time and I had a friend named Peter Nelson and my parents had a deal where each parent would keep me for a year and my dad lived in Hawaii and my mom lived in Vegas and the deal was that I was going to go to Vegas for a year and get a guitar, learn how to play and come back and we were going to start our band. But, I ended going to Vegas and getting a guitar, but I never moved back to Hawaii.

Bill: You kind of answered my next question, but what bands or musicians inspired you to be musician?
Ahrue: Uh…AC/DC was the first one and then I was really into Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, the first two Motely Crue records. Umm…Metallica, first three records, well, first two records I would say and Slayer.
Bill: Slayer’s always good.
Ahrue: Yeah. I would say Slayer is probably one of my all time favourite bands.

Bill: Speaking of Metallica; what do you think of their newest album?
Ahrue: You know what I like it a lot better than Load and Reload.
Bill: Oh definitely.
Ahrue: So that’s an improvement.
Bill: My view on the whole record is it would be great if they spent more time producing the drums.
Ahrue: Yeah
Bill: That whole tin can drum sound gets to me.
Ahrue: Yeah.
Bill: Besides from that I loved that album.
Ahrue: At first I was like it was so weird and then after awhile of hearing it, some of these riffs are actually pretty cool. James Hetfield’s metal riffs have influenced probably every band that’s around right now.

Bill: What five CDs are your currently listening to?
Ahrue: I don’t even know; this is the second day on this bus. I don’t even know where the CD player is.
Bill: If you had five choices of what you wanted to listen to right now. What would you go with?
Ahrue: Myself personally or the whole band?
Bill: You personally.
Ahrue: It’s weird. When I start the day off I like to hear heavy shit. I think more…I mean I like a lot of older heavy shit than newer heavy shit. I like the classic older Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, but then I like Sepultura and Slayer. I like new bands too. I like Killswitch and Chimaira.
Bill: Killswitch is one of my favourites.
Ahrue: I think as the day goes on I like to listen to lighter and lighter music. Then maybe around 2 ‘o clock or something then I’m more into something like…uh…Deftones or something like that. Then, by the end of the night I want to hear The Cure or Radiohead. It’s like I like the energetic stuff towards the beginning of the day and the mellower stuff towards the end…when I’m kind of winding down.
Bill: That’s the way I usually am. On my way to work I throw the heaviest thing in I can find. Then on the way home I’ll throw hip-hop in or something real mellow. Um…How do you feel about the general state of Rock Music today?
Ahrue: I’m not sure if it’s because of people being able to download music on computers, but I know the whole music industry isn’t doing as well as it was doing about 5 years ago. It’s kind of hard for bands because every band is suffering a little bit, and a lot of bands are being dropped. Some bands that might have been a good band, just can’t afford to be a band anymore. They kind of have to get jobs or whatever.
Bill: Yeah. There’s so much controversy with downloading.
Ahrue: Yeah. At first I was all for it, because I did it myself. When it really started affecting the industry it became something you kind of had to think twice about. If you’re a band that sells billions and billions of records you feel like oh that person’s rich anyway, but still if someone has a lot of money is it right to take money from them just because they worked hard to get it?
Bill: It seems to real small bands it tends to help out, but then as you get bigger and bigger it tends to hurt you more and more.
Ahrue: I think who suffers the most are the bands in the medium level. A band like Ill Nino or Machine Head or something like that. Because you’re not quite making enough money to buy a billion dollar mansion but ya know, you still don’t have to work a day job.
Bill: Rather than everyone going out and buying your album, they know they can download it and they just do that. What are your favourite and least favourite aspects of touring?
Ahrue: Uh…The only thing I don’t like about touring is just the wear and tear that it puts on your body. If you’re giving 100% every night, like every band - good band should, but not all do, then it’s going to wear on your body. There were times where I would do 12 shows in a row and at the end of it there would be 7 things wrong with me, major things that make it hard to play a show but once the adrenaline starts going you forget about all of it. You don’t think about the pain at the time, but after the show you’re even worse-off. But, besides that I love being on this road better than being at home. It’s like my favourite thing. When I go home and have to see the same scenery all the time I start losing my mind.
Bill: See I’m the opposite; I can stay home all the time. I can sit at my house and play video games and watch movies. Do nothing all day.
Ahrue: Actually, you can do that here too. But then when you walk outside you’re in a completely different place. What games do you play?
Bill: Right now I’ve been playing Mario Gulf. I’ve been addicted to it. I didn’t think I would be I bought it though and it’s just so consuming. Silent Hill III’s real good. I’ve been wanting to get Madden 2004.
Ahrue: Yeah it’s so cool. There’s this thing where you enter your favourite team, like I’m a Niners fan so I entered the Niners. So when it comes on, ya know on the exhibition screen whatever the game is that week that’s the game that’s up there. And yesterday, I think it goes by the time zone that your clock’s set to in your Playstation, the Jets – Redskins game was on. I don’t know how they do it, but it’s pretty cool.
Bill: They have the Europe teams on here too. Don’t they?
Ahrue: Yeah. But I play Madden religiously and I don’t think there are too many people out there that could beat me.
Bill: I would challenge you but I haven’t played it yet.
Ahrue: It’s to the point where I tell people if they score a touchdown, they won. And there was one year where I was so good I was like alright if you get positive yardage, you win because I could blitz so could they would usually lose yardage on their possession.
Bill: I’m a big fan of Tiger Woods Golf too.
Ahrue: I got that on my phone. The new one comes out like this month.

::This is where the interview ended. Bill and Ahrue stopped talking and started to play Madden 2004::

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