CRUCIFIX NOCTURNAL CHRISTIANS - Sacrifice
CRUCIFIX NOCTURNAL CHRISTIANS - Interview August/September 2001

CRUCIFIX NOCTURNAL CHRISTIANS - Sacrifice (CD 2000)

(www.sealonia.com/crucifix)

Well, I read about this band from Argentina in Germany´s Zillo magazine some time ago and was very curious about the first South American Gothic-Rock band, I´ve ever heard of. Until now, I only knew some Electro bands from Brasil. The debut CD of this band, which also played a gig at the German Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, is really good. I think, that such bands in Argentina are not too much influenced by commercial things, like the European bands are. I guess, Gothic-Rock in Argentina is still really underground and so the CD sounds very original and fresh. It is a mixture of many Gothic-Riock influences. One song has very Christian Death-like guitars, an other song sounds a bit like The Cure, there are Bauhaus influences and even moments that make me thinking of Lycia. The female singer Alejandra has a very fine voice and so, this CD is a great gift to all, who are still into classic Gothic-Rock. I would love to see the band live some day, ´cos I think, they are very powerful on stage. Beside bands like Diva Destruction, Crüxshadows and Cinema Strange, CRUCIFIX NOCTURNAL CHRISTIANS are a really worth explorable and exciting pack. An interview will follow soon on these sites. (A.P.)

CRUCIFIX NOCTURNAL CHRISTIANS

An Interview with possibly Argentina´s only Gothic-Rock Band

(August/September 2001)

?   Can you please give a short summary of: who, what, when why... ?
!   JORGE: The actual members of the band are:
Alejandra Mucaled vocalist
Jorge Salvador bass & programming drums
Jenny Ocean keyboards
Macelo Zoanni guitarist
The band was founded by Alejandra & Jorge in 1996 with another guitarist as a trio. During 2 years we created our music, with our individual influences and by the end of the year 1998 we started to make concerts, and gothic people began to follow us. In December of 1999 Jenny Ocean joined the band, playing keyboards. Also on those days we put online our first website with 3 of our songs in mp3 format. Our song "Under God" entered on "Mp3.com gothic ranking" so a lot of people asked for our material. Then, in 2000, we decided to record our first CD, but, as in our country there are no gothic labels, or gothic press or radio programms, we decided to make the CD in an independent way,  so we recorded, mixed and edited it ourselves so it took us a lot of time. At the end of 2000, our first CD was ready, we called it "Sacrifice". In 2001 we changed our guitarist and Marcelo Zoanni joined the band, and on 2nd of June 2001 we had our first concert in Europe in the 10.Wave Gotik Treffen.

?   As Argentina wasn´t a well-known country for Gothic-Rock yet, I would be really interested, how you started playing such music... have you been influenced by certain bands or did your style develop naturally?
!   ALEJANDRA: We hadn't heard gothic music before we started to play alive, we created the music that we had inside. After our first concert, people started to call us a „gothic band" and we started to listen to that music and we saw that we had a lot of common things with that music. We didn't have influences of gothic bands by that moment because we did not know that scene.

?   Is there a real Gothic Scene in Argentina (or South America at all) ? Are there Clubs, Bands, Shops, Labels? We don´t know anything about your country (except Diego Maradona)!
!   MARCELO: No, the gothic scence here is very small, because there are no gothic labels or clubs or shops. There are some metal CD-stores where we can get some CDs of European gothic bands. We also organise gothic events here, we make our concerts here, we rent places (clubs), we ambient that places, and with some gothic DJs we make gothic parties here.

?   How did you get in contact with German/European booking agencys or anyone else, who helps you to become more known in Europe?
!   JENNY: Through our website, a lot of DJs from different European countries asked for our material so we sent our CD "Sacrifice". Specially the „The Sanctuary“ DJ SpiderB from Sealonia Agency, he began playing our music in their parties and created our actual website. Nowadays we have a management in Germany too, DJ Silent Goth ( www.cp-killer.de  ) from Leipzig, who, in these days, is arranging concerts for our band.

?   You have a very fine website...how important is the www to promote your work?
!   JENNY: Very important, because it is the only possibility for us to make our band get known outside our country.

?   You have played live in Germany once (or twice?)...what do you remember mostly about this experience?
!   ALEJANDRA: We played two times: the first time in the festival 10thWave Gotik Treffen in the Agra Halle 2, it was a great experience for us because we received a very good reaction from the people, and the organisation was great too, we sold on that day a lot of our material too. One week after the Treffen, DJ Silent Goth arranged for us a concert in Villa (Leipzig), it was a good experience too, because people liked the show so much that at the end they asked for more songs!!!

?   How can we imagine your live show? Is it a really "big show" or pure music?
!   JORGE: We love to make our music on stage, in our country we have bigger shows because we have the possibilty to use video screens, torches etc., but when we travel, we only can carry our instruments. We choose with care our clothes when playing alive and try to move on the stage, and we try to create an special atmosphere when we play, without forcing things to a theatrical scene.

?   Your english lyrics seem to be very personal...could you imagine also to write about critical/political themes or lyrics in your own language?
!   ALEJANDRA: The lyrics are composed by me. Yes, I like to compose very personal and direct lyrics, I prefer to write about themes like sex, bondage, religion, perversion etc., I don't like to talk about critical or political themes, we have too many political themes in our live, here in my country, so I don't like to mix that with my music. About the languages, I like more the phonetics of the English language, instead Spanish phonetics.

?   As your country has a very often changing history, can you give us a few infos about the today´s situation? Do you think, a band should comment on political subjects?
!   JENNY: On these days, the situation of our country is very critical and negative. It is important that a band from a place like our country comment their political situation because the difficult moments we are having, influence very much on our lives and, then, on the band. To buy instruments, to organise gothic concerts, to record and to go on with a project here is very difficult because you always have this critical situation, influencing the band decisions, each one of us has a job (we cannot live of our music), so we don't have too much time for our band and when the band joins during the week, we work hard to make the most with our time to create our music. In summary, we don't have a government really, and we are a very young and with no control nation, two good reasons for needing a strong and honest government, something that we never had.

?   What can we expect for the near and far future? Are you planning to tour Germany/Europe soon?
!   JORGE: In the near future we have a gig in San Martin theatre here in Buenos Aires, and we are also trying to organise a concert for closing this year. For next year, we and Silent Goth are looking for places in Germany and all around Europe to make our first European Tour. We are contacting organisations, DJs, and different events, getting in touch with the contacts we have, everything to make this tour possible so we can present our new material in Europe.

?   Anything I forgot to ask (Your favourite drink for example) or anything you want to add to our readers?
!   ALL: Our favorite drink is a „gut Deutsch Schwarz Bier“ that we can not drink here.

To your readers: hope we can meet you next year at one of our gigs :-), and then we can say in person to all of you: PROSIT !. OK, vielen Dank for the interview.

Thanx goes out to CRCIFIX NOCTURNAL CHRISTIANS for answering these few questions. I hope, it will help the band, becoming better known in Germany. If anyone out there organises concerts for Gothic-Rock bands, don´t hesitate to get in contact with the band as soon as possible. I really hope to meet these nice people from Argentina somewhere on their tour next year and drink a few beers with them. Until then, don´t wait to order their fine CD album „Sacrifice“ at www.sealonia.com/crucifix  !  (A.P.)