A very Happy Birthday to Dave Chavarri of Ill Nino, a Halloween baby 35 years ago today. Dave is spending the night playing an Ill Nino show in Exeter and says of scary Halloween tales, that “turning 35 is scary enough!” The band have been playing around the UK all week, having endured a bumpy ferry crossing at the weekend from France to Dover. “The wind musta been 90km/hour,” says Dave, “It was fuckin’ crazy. The boat was just jumpin’ up and down, a couple of the guys got sick… it was like a rollercoaster ride! The 1.5 hour trip took like 7.5 hours…” “It’s been an amazing European tour though. Many of the shows have been completely sold out, and both the press and all the kids at the shows have been really receptive to us. We’ve seen a lot of old fans too like in Portugal and Spain from when we played there with P.O.D. It’s been nice to see familiar faces.. all these people now wearing Ill Nino shirts!” “Ya know we’ve been touring for 20 months straight… only 75 days at home in that entire time. And when we get back off this tour, we’re going out in the US again from Nov 21st-Dec 21st so we still only really get a couple weeks at home.” Even then Dave won’t be having much rest. He’s been hard at work producing some songs for British band Violent Delight, spending some time in a studio here in London, and once he gets home, the VD boys are flying out to the US to keep working in that small touring gap there. “Wolverhampton last night was totally sick”, Dave grins, talking about the UK shows this week. “And that one you were there for at the weekend, the Brighton show. But they’ve all rocked.” Plans are afoot to film a couple of the songs from tomorrow night’s London Astoria show for possible future use where who knows?! “Yeah, maybe we’ll film ‘What Comes Around’ and ‘Unreal’, get some really nuts crowd shots from the stage or something,” he explains. Are they gonna be playing ‘With You’ as has been talked about? “Oh yeah, that’s been said.. I dunno man. Maybe we’ll check it out tonight and see how it is…” He laughs. “We’ll play the song from the CD on the way out.. our outro. No-one said we were gonna play it LIVE! We just said we’d play it… Shhh don’t tell them!” As for Halloween, sorry to disappoint but the band have no plans to appear in Exeter in costume tonight. “I don’t wanna see a ton of guys dressed as women tonight,” Dave laughs, “if I see too many of them, I’m gonna refuse to play!” “Hey Cris!…” we hear him shout… “you gonna get up and sing tonight in a dress for Halloween?!” Loud laughter wafts down the phone line… distant discussion of Jagermeister and availability of a dress can be heard. Moving on… The Roadrage tour. Killswitch Engage, 36 Crazyfists, and Five Pointe O play in Berlin, Germany tonight. Jerry Cantrell plays tonight in Chicago. Theory Of A Deadman play Louisiana. Probably the most hallorific of all, the Murderdolls will be spending Halloween holed up in a tourbus somewhere between Germany and Scotland. Chimaira will be spending the night in a studio. Caught up with Chris earlier. “For Halloween we are going to work on our album! Can’t slack off – we are hard at work and almost ready to record! Two years ago Mark and I went trick or treating… walked over to this wealthy housing development and grabbed a few king size candy bars! Last Halloween was spent with Slayer… that fucking ruled!!” Hmm, so no costumes in the studio then. If you were going to dress up in costume, what would you dress up as? “A Ghostbuster. I did it last weekend at an early Halloween party!” Did you make the costume? “Yea. Went into our attic and found my old ghostbuster backpack! The straps were too small so I tied shoelaces to it! But the marshmallow man would be the ideal costume. The marshmallow man is the greatest villain of all time.” So now you know. Have a spooktacular time, wherever you haunt.