HAVE YOU EVER SEEN YOUR BAND MATES DO ANYTHING YOU WISH YOU COULD UNREMEMBER?

DAVE, CUMBRIA

Cristian Machado (vocals): “Oh yeah. Seeing Dave (Chavarri, drums) getting changed in the middle of the hallway – I wish I could block that out of my memory for the rest of my life. There’s a lot of shit I wish I could block out.”

Lazaro ‘Laz’ Pina (bass): “Dave also loves to drive recklessly. I don’t really like to get in the car with him – he’s an animal behind the wheel. Blowing the horn, flashing the high beams, swerving in and out of traffic, you fear for your life getting in a car with him. Then there’s Diego (Verduzco, guitars) who’s so laid back it takes three days to get out of the block. There’s no happy medium in this band.”

CRITICS HAVE ARGUED THAT YOUR PLAYING UP OF YOUR SPANISH ETHNICITY IS A FEEBLE ATTEMPT TO INJECT IDENTITY INTO YOUR SECOND-RATE AND SHAMEFULLY DERIVITIVE NU METAL CACK. HAVE YOU EVER TRIED ESCARGOT?

MILLIE, VIA MYSPACE

Laz: “Never fucking had it, have no intention of having it.”

Cristian: “We’ve eaten some pretty weird stuff though.”

Laz: “Like cow brains. I mean we’ve had members who have eaten cat and dog. But I don’t think there’s a ‘feeble attempt’ going on. We’re immigrants in a country where you have to adapt, and we have adapted, so I think it’s ridiculous to say that. That’s part of who we are. Would you prefer it if we pretended to be something else?”

Cristian: “To me it’s faker when people try to appease a certain type of fan. If you’re like, ‘look at me, I’m so metal’, then you go back on your tour bus and then put on some country music or something. It’s like, are you yourself in your music, or are you imitating someone that you really liked as a kid?”

Laz: “The truth is we try to do this, not just for our own culture, but to inspire everyone else to be able to put some of their background, their culture in the music. You can do it, we all can do it, and if you’re from Africa, Egypt, wherever, if you wanna rock and express your culture, I think that’s interesting.”

Cristian: “If there can be Viking metal, pirate metal, death metal and freaking metalcore why not Latin metal?”

WHAT MARVEL OF ENGINEERING WOULD YOU MOST LIKEN YOUR CAREER TO: THE HINDENBERG, THE TITANIC, OR SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER?

SANDRA, VIA EMAIL

Laz: “Obviously we haven’t sunk like the Titanic or burned like the Hindenburg…”

Cristian: “The Titanic, you know, some people did sink but there were a lot of survivors so I’d definitely say that, because we have survived the copycat fever going on over the last few years. Plus, they made a movie of it and maybe they’ll make a film of our career one of these days. And we can be like old men (adopts wizened voice) ‘I remember, one time, I saw your ass in the hallway…’”

Laz: “I mean I want to be a survivor but I also want to get on that space shuttle and explore the fucking universe.”

Cristian: “Yeah but the Challenger blew up.”

Laz: “Oh. Pardon me. Okay. Let’s rewind. I had no recollection of it blowing up.”

Cristian: “I think the Challenger would better represent the career of The Darkness. Everyone was like, ‘They’re gonna take off, they’re gonna take off, argh… booooooom!”

WHAT’S THE STRANGEST REQUEST YOU’VE HAD FROM A FAN?

DUNCAN, VIA EMAIL

Cristian: “A couple of male fans have proposed on stage.”

Laz: “We did a gig in South Carolina where there was a huge fan of ours who had died in a car crash, and they asked if his ashes could be sprinkled in the pit. I thought that was pretty unusual, but we were OK with it.”

Cristian: “It’s very morbid. I dare a black metal band to beat that! We’ve had a fan’s ashes spread in the moshpit!”

YOUR SECOND ALBUM CONFESSION, WAS SO SPECTACULARLY FUCKING AWFUL THAT IT MADE COAL CHAMBER’S CHAMBER MUSIC SOUND LIKE MASTER OF PUPPETS. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE CHEESE?

DOMINIC, HOVE

Cristian: “That’s great…”

Laz: “My favourite cheese? Holy shit. I tell you the cheese I hate the most is the funky cheese coming out of people’s feet when they take off their socks on the bus.”

Cristian: “I would say, Dominic, take the cheese and shove it up your ass.”

Laz: “Confessions happens to be our greatest selling record to date. Obviously Dominic didn’t dig it, but there’s a world of people who did. Personally, the only thing I would do different is make that album a little more raw.”

Cristian: “Some of the people we know at Roadrunner have actually said they wish they hadn’t pressured us to make such a light record. It’s hard for a band to evolve freely when you’re surrounded by people who feel they know what road you should walk down, and I was uncomfortable with the label pressure. But like Laz said, it did turn out to be a great record and a lot of people love it. You can’t appease everyone. If you want to be appeased, buy a band that make the same record every time.”

CRISTIAN, YOU’VE BEEN QUOTED AS SAYING “ULTIMATELY I THINK OUR MESSAGE IS A POSITIVE ONE. WE PROMOTE SELF-AWARENESS AND INDIVIDUALITY.” ARE YOU AWARE YOU SOUND EXACTLY LIKE SOULFLY?

SAM, VIA EMAIL

Laz: “Sam has obviously not heard any of our records if he thinks we sound exactly like Soulfly. You’ll never hear melodic structures, flamenco or Spanish guitars, traditional rhythms from Cuba or Porto Rico… Soulfly was a tribal Brazilian thing. In this band we come from different backgrounds; Mexican, Brazilian, Peruvian. We’re a mix of a lot of things and incorporate all that.”

Cristian: “If you listen to the first Soulfly record there’s a lot of stuff that isn’t there that was on the first Ill Niño record. When Marc Rizzo left for Soulfly he took some of the Ill Niño influence and adapted it to that band. So I think Sam hasn’t been paying attention.”

IF MAX CAVALERA IS THE BOB MARLEY OF METAL, DOES THAT MAKE YOU ASWAD OR CHAKA DEMUS AND PLIERS?

DAN, VIA MYSPACE

Cristian: “It’s simple. If Max is the Bob Marley, we’re the Carlos Santana of metal.”

Laz: “Santana’s been a great influence on us and has even expressed interest in working with us, which is a fucking honour.”

WE’VE ALL HEARD STORIES OF GIRLS ASKING BAND MEMBERS TO SIGN THEIR TITS, BUT IF A GUY ASKED YOU TO SIGN HIS COCK, WOULD YOU?

VERCINGETORIX, VIA MYSPACE

Laz: “I’d stab him with a sharpie, right in the cock and puncture his balls. Not to offend any of our gay fans, I mean I’ve got nothing against gay people…”

Cristian: “So you’d sign a cock?”

Laz: “No I wouldn’t, ‘cos I choose not to be gay.”

Cristian: “Would you sign your own cock?”

Laz: “If I could sign it with my tongue I would.”

Cristian: “If a girl came up and asked you to sign your cock, would you do it?”

Laz: I’d sign her with my cock.”