Pic courtesy of: 1n54n0 "Right now James Murphy has in his hands the master of our record. His work consists in mixing our last track, the Metallica cover and to master the whole album"

CR: Hey man how are you?
Ricardo Hernandez: Good, good, right now we are still trying to “digest” the whole experience of playing live next to Fear Factory, and waiting for our next album to be released.

CR: Let me congratulate you on a superb performance on the show with Fear Factory, it was quite a while ago that I saw you guys playing live, the last time I think was when Sepultura was here, well I really liked you guys live, congratulations, tell me more about that night, how was it for you guys?
Ricardo Hernandez: Thanks for the positive feed back; actually after that concert with Sepultura the band got into a sort of more “discreet” period, focusing on the recording of the new album, that as you probably now is a quite complex process; we also took some time to look for a new drummer after Rodrigo left the band last year.
Going back to the gig with Fear Factory, the organization of the concert was great, everything started at time, and we even finished 10 minutes early.
In regards of the place Salsa 54, I think it’s a good place for national concerts, you know it’s location is in the middle of San José and the place it self is quite roomy, but I don’t feel is very appropriate for bands such as Fear Factory, the place doesn’t have a backstage or a direct access to the stage as you probably noticed. And regarding the gig, well it was great, Fear Factory has always been a favorite for all of us, and to be able to see them play that close it was great. I mean we were really happy to open the concert for them along side the other bands; luckily everything went great.

CR: Insano is currently signed by Freak World Entertainment, is that a Costarrican label? How did you guys got in touch with them?
Ricardo Hernandez: Yes it’s a 100% Costarrican label, they previously released the album of December’s Cold Winter and their next projects are our new album and the debut for the band Pneuma.
The owner of the label Javier Fernández, was very interested in taking our new album and releasing it, so after some time and thinking and actually after listening to the work done with DCW we decided to sing with them.

CR: About that new album “Drain” is it already released?
Ricardo Hernandez: Right now we don’t have a lot of details about the specific date of the release, but we hope that it will be this year; we are just waiting for FWE to announce the date.

CR: Since we are already talking about this new album, why don’t you tell us something about it, you know for example, how long did it took you guys to write and record?
Ricardo Hernandez: The writing of the songs took a couple of months, perhaps 8 months just to try and be accurate. After that we went into the studio and that took like two years, that long because some songs changed a lot in the recording sessions, and because we worked with a producer that wanted to give the album a very special sound. Of course we ran into some problems that delayed our work. Besides when we sing with FWE the contract said that we needed to record one extra song, so we decided to record our version of Leper Messiah, from the Master of Puppets of Metallica, that, we did in Audioarte here in San José, and the producer of the song was Javier Fernández.

CR: If I’m not mistaken James Murphy was the man in charge of mastering “Drain”, how did you guys got in touch with him?
Ricardo Hernandez: Right now James Murphy has in his hands the master of our record. His work consists in mixing our last track, the Metallica cover and to master the whole album.
Well we contact him thanks to FWE; first Javier asked me to give him some names of engineers that could master the album, so I gave him Andy Sneap and Colin Richardson. Sneap declined the project, and Richardson who was very honest and professional said that he just produces and mixes and is not involved in mastering, so Javier ask for his recommendation and Richardson said James Murphy.

CR: I was listening to one of the new songs “Andrómeda” Insano presents a sort of evolution into a more melodic yet industrial sound, what can you tell us about this song, what aspect would you like people to pay attention to on this track?
Ricardo Hernandez: That song in particular shows the idea that we had when we began to write the new album. We wanted to grow as composers and give our music a melodic side that will best complement the aggressiveness that we have always tried to create.
Personally I think that having a melodic side next to an aggressive side makes the music sound even heavier; it’s like having a soft segment next to a violent one, it just makes everything more intense.

CR: I really liked the song “Nonentity” it was a very nice “groove” to it; do you think we can say that Drain is going to be an album with a lot of “groove” in it?
Ricardo Hernandez: We have always tried to make our music have some groove. In this album we try to take that just a bit farther, starting with the interaction between the drums, the bass and the guitars. You can hear from time to time a bass displaying a very solid groove in which the guitars and the vocals play with different harmonies and melodies, you know to use the bass as something more than just an instrument that follows the guitar.
Something that was very interesting was to be able to hear the melodies that Magee wrote, which complemented in a great way all the harmonic parts that were written before, and that gives this album a very different shade on the songs.

CR: A cliché question, why the name Insano and why write it with numbers 1n54n0?
Ricardo Hernandez: Well the name Insano just came out from a whole list that we had for possible names, that particular name Insano was the only one we could all agree on. I think we picked that name simply because we just wanted to make the fastest most intense music we could.
The thing about the numbers was Magee’s idea; that was about 4 years ago. Since he is a designer he spends a lot of time creating things for the band to use; he is the one in charge of all the visual aspect of the band, print media and web. Back then in that period nobody else here was using the numbers like that, and they just seem to fit very well, so we decided to leave them; I think a lot of people recognize the band because of them and thanks to the dice also.

	Pic courtesy of: 1n54n0 "We wanted to grow as composers and give our music a melodic side that will best complement the aggressiveness that we have always tried to create"

CR: 1n54n0 has already 6 years of existence, what has changed in you, musically speaking, since those early years of the band?
Ricardo Hernandez: I think we have experienced or enter a more “open minded” stage than actually a change of ideology when it comes to play the music we like.
Even thou metal is the music we all listen to the most, we also listen to other genders, and that has influenced our work in many ways. The thing that we have always tried to be faithful to is writing songs that people can remember and like, but always keeping them heavy, because that’s what we like to play.

CR: 1n54n0 is one of the few bands in this country that has always worked really hard when it comes to “visually” promoting the band, mainly with videos; how important is for you the support received by our local TV stations?
Ricardo Hernandez: Well we had the opportunity to make two videos for the album “Be kind…” back in 2003. Luckily both videos and I think mainly the one called “Disco Death” was very well received by the people and the TV stations in which they where been played.
That really helped us you know, since thanks to that we started to reach people that had never heard us before, and to show to the ones that knew us that we are always trying to do things the right way. We hope to do that again, we already have a video for the single of Drain; it’s called “I’m not God”. We also have plans to record a second video that we hope we can do it before this year ends. We have actually been holding this video down, just waiting for our record company to give us green light, and that will be after they approve the work done by James Murphy.

CR: Going a little back in time, you guys went to Panama in 2001 to play along side Alastor S.E and some Panamanians bands Antaro and Mortus, how was that whole experience, you know to play with bands of such a different approach to metal, black and atmospheric?
Ricardo Hernandez: Something that was really important was the fact that we participated on the “Metal Batalla” of 2000, we got fourth place. In that event there were bands that played, black, death, grind I can clearly remember December’s Cold Winter, Linfo and we really had very low expectations because we didn’t knew exactly how the audience was going to reach to our music. Well non the less once we started to play, I think it was Animosity, FITE, Healing Factor and a very simple visual show, the people there sort of gave us their approval, so after that we spend a long period of time playing with heavier very underground sort of bands.
When the chance to go to Panama came, we were just ready for any surprises, since we didn’t really knew how the scene over there was going to react. The bands that played with us Alastor S.E, Mortus and Antaro were very nice to us as well as the audience.
That’s one of the things that makes us very proud, that we have managed to play with a lot of different bands and different genres of music and I think they all had a good impression of the band, not just professionally but also in a personal level.

CR: There has been certainly a change in the way you guys play and write metal, what has motivated that swift of direction?
Ricardo Hernandez: I don’t really think that we can call it a change is more of a growing process, we evolved and we wanted to experiment a little more into our own sound.
Right now we are writing new material and it kind of goes a bit deeper into our thrash roots with a bit of a mix from our currents melodies, and even a couple of a more classic metal sounds. That material is going to be a long time with us while we work on it, but we are very excited about it.

CR: When it comes to live performances, how do you guys handle that whole process, I mean how do you prepare for a show and how do you pick the elements that you are going to use in your performance?
Ricardo Hernandez: Well the first thing will be to recognize the type of concert in which we are going to get involved, you know if we are going to be the support band of headlining the show, because that will determine our time and the amount of elements that we can use.
Right now we are trying to balance our set, by playing songs most people know and a couple of new ones, so that people can start to get related to the new release.
When it comes to visual elements, we always try to do something that may help people differentiate the band.
We are trying to play in concerts with only 3 more bands, so that we can have time and space to develop our music and show. It’s very hard to do big festivals with 15 bands unless is something like “Rockfest” with a big organization behind it. When we go to big gigs, something like the one with Fear Factory, where we take something close to 10 people to help us out, it takes a lot of organization and time.

CR: You guys have placed along side some heavy weights of metal, Sepultura, A.N.I.M.A.L, and now Fear Factory, how does that feel for a young band, to have been able to play next to some of your heroes?
Ricardo Hernandez: Yeas we have been very lucky to play along side three bands that we admired and respect. I can remember the first time A.N.I.M.A.L was here, while I was watching them I was thinking “it would be great to play with them” and later on that dream became true, and the guys from the Argentinean band left with a good impression from us and
Deznuke.
It’s kind of funny or weird but I remember Andrés Jiménez telling about opening a gig for Sepultura, and we were very excited about that story, and guess what later on we had the same luck, it was great; the two dates on Costa Rica playing along side Sepultura was crazy, I mean everything was really good for us, the organization was incredible and I think we manage to leave one more time a good impression.
About Fear Factory, last year there was a lot of talk about them coming, but it never happened so we just forgot about it, when this June Destiny Recordings called us and asked us if we wanted to open the concert for them along side other Costarrican bands.
This last gig was great, and it was really cool to play along side two bands that have been working really hard in the last few years, like December’s Cold Winter and Días de Agonía, I think we showed Fear Factory a good sample of how our metal scene is developing its own sound.

	Pic courtesy of: 1n54n0 "You can hear from time to time a bass displaying a very solid groove in which the guitars and the vocals play with different harmonies and melodies, you know to use the bass as something more than just an instrument that follows the guitar"

CR: During this 6 years of existence, 6 years of been involved in the metal scene of Costa Rica, what are the biggest changes that you have witnessed?
Ricardo Hernandez: Actually we have always tried to stay in touch not just with the metal scene but with the rock scene as well, to reach more people.
I think that in the last two years, the scene have been going down, you know is hard to find a place to play, lousy gigs and very few fans actually attending to the few shows out there.
Music has its cycles, and I think the big cycle for Costarrican rock has passed, now is very discreet. Non the less we hope that a new wave or that a new force will give us another go, you know, and that will be thanks to all those great bands working in superb material, those are the ones that are going to pick the scene up one more time. There are also some very loyal fans that will contribute and that right now contribute to the scene by supporting their bands and buying their records, so I guess we will just have to keep working.

CR: I was checking out your page on Myspace, it seems that we have quite a different array of fans from all over the globe, is a tour always an idea for 1n54n0?
Ricardo Hernandez: Sure that’s always something we want to do, but is way more complicated than one can imagine, even for big consolidated bands.
Thanks to the Internet we are trying to go places we have never been before, you know with our space and the website. A lot of people thanks to these tools can hear our music, and later on when the new album is released FWE will be putting in online for sale as well, so that anybody that wants it can get it.

CR: What would you say is the biggest achievement from our local metal scene? Just how involved do you feel the band is with the local scene?
Ricardo Hernandez: Sadly I think that the local scene has been very irregular, you know for outside and inside issues that have held it down.
First of all, everybody knows that we do not have the infrastructure for metal or any other type of concerts, and there is always the cultural factor that I think we all know what’s wrong with that.
Sometimes the public supports and other times they just sit back and criticize everything, they sometimes choose to stay away from the gigs and the records. It’s true that on occasion our bands have a poor production and the public deserve better, but they should also support those bands doing things the right way.

CR: On a couple of shows that I got a chance to watch you guys William played with a torn apart doll attached to the mic, what’s up with that?
Ricardo Hernandez: It was part of our visual scheme, some people got really into it; first it was the bear and then the doll, just like all the other things Magee finds lying on the street and decides to use them live.
They are simple things that I think some people get to appreciate, and they become part of a visual as well as a sound experience that we always try to provide to our audience.

CR: If you could pick three bands, any bands to tour with all over theworld, who would you pick?
Ricardo Hernandez: I would choose, Metallica, Slayer and Tool, all of them to play along side 1n54n0.
I know that Magee would pick Faith No More, Hans and Primus; Mario Chimaira and all of us would have picked Pantera for sure.

CR: To end, what does the future holds for 1n54n0?
Ricardo Hernandez: A lot of work, so that we can continue to play the music that we love and always using the opportunities that present themselves the best way we can.
We hope we can have “inspiration” and “determination” to write and record a few more albums. Even thou we haven’t been playing live lately like we wanted to, the people are always good to us.
We are planning a big tour all over Costa Rica to promote the new album, and maybe going over to Panama and one Central American country as well; and off course promote the album as much as we can in radio and TV.
We hope the promoters continue to call us for international concerts as well.

CR: Well Ricardo thank you very much for your time it was a pleasure, good luck on the new album!!!