Rewind Listens

Published on September 24th, 2011 | by Patrick Delehanty

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Delehanty’s Musical Past – Part 1: Nu Metal, Ill Nino

Byron High School was a nu metal haven.  I’m completely convinced 90% of all the sales from that era were from the Byron, IL, youth.  Angst, hopelessness, fear, dread, bitterness, loneliness, irritation, two to three car garages, acre lots, manicured lawns nestled against gravel or freshly paved roads, top of the line school systems…we had all of it, and we earned it.  No one understood, man.  It’s that simple.  Nu metal was a middle class to upper middle class kid’s game and wet dream come true.  We wanted to think that we all had these misunderstood upbringings when in reality, they were completely normal and mundane- at the worst.  It was such a terrible time for that genre to come out to; in that finding yourself phase, when most of us didn’t even know what music technically was at that point.  Beyond that, none of us knew who we were, but we wanted to feel like we had at least something to feel bad about and something that understood us.  That was music.  We were grasping at straws.

Now, I was a confused teenage boy; I never wanted to get in trouble, I stayed within my boundaries, I did my homework, I wore Billabong and Quiksilver t shirts, khaki shorts, skater shoes, and usually a windbreaker jacket (most of my high school stint), but man, I was angry.  My parent’s made really good money, they got me everything I wanted, took me around the world, paid for 2 cars that I would drive no longer than a year each, gave me an allowance that I never exactly earned, paid excellent attention to my brother and I, and here I was, a spoiled kid listening to Staind, Static-X, Slipknot, Mudvayne, Korn…sorry…KoRn, 36 Crazyfists, and sadly, so many, many more.  My screen name was vayneknot2626 for Christs’ sake.  Where and how this came about, I’m not exactly sure, but it did.  I still to this day occasionally ask my dad if he ever thought I was going to kill myself when he would hear some of the things I listened to- his response?  I learned to tune that crap out after about a month, I figured you’d eventually grow out of it.  Here, let me give you a quick taste…

Imagine that if you will for one second, parent or no. You’re walking through the hall and you hear that coming out of your kid’s bedroom. My immediate thought, and this could just be the natural worrier in me, would be Oh my God, my son hates me.  But alas, my father nor mother never stepped in to say Uh, no dude, instead, they accepted it and allowed me to blossom into the undeserved angst driven teen that would ultimately NOT commit suicide and really not have any real problems.  It’s weird because nu metal was such a marketing ploy to do exactly that, make white suburban kids think that they had problems that were really just that- growing up.

I’ve learned to laugh at that aspect of my life and really have no problem telling people what I listened to in high school.  I don’t shy away from it; it happened and I have to accept that at one point I was a teenage kid that obviously didn’t know a thing about what I was doing.  So, I decided from here on out that occasionally I would post a song by a band I listened to and just a brief summary of…whatever happens to come out about that band.  Please understand that this is not my current musical taste but instead a music homage to that ridiculous teenager I once was, and the environment that was my foundation for being such.  This week’s band?  Keep reading.

There was one band that I had a really quick heavy interest in, and that band was Ill Nino; no, I’m saying that right, Ill-Nino.  They were Latin Nu Metal, they threw you a curve ball with their…bongos…and percussion…and acoustic guitars.  So different, you guys don’t even know.  Six Spanish Americans just out there doing it.  They were poets too, with such lyrics as these from Te Amo…I Hate You:

Te amo… I hate you
Te amo and I hate you
Te amo… I hate you
You always think that you are right

Everything you ever promised to not do you did
You f*cked me up so just admit it
You are just another b*tch and I know that you did it
How could you let us split in two

I was just another game so f*ck you
There is nothing I could do
You’re so tough, so bad, so cold
But now you eat your words

Don’t try
Telling all your f*cking lies
‘Cause I
Make you eat your words and die
Don’t try
Telling all your f*cking lies
‘Cause I
Make you eat your words and die

Brutal dude, brutal.  He’s so mad he had to do it in TWO languages.  Revolution Revolucian was a record I found myself spinning for a good month and a half before something else came out that sounded exactly like it, minus the ground breaking percussion.  I myself, not Spanish or anything near it, found comfort in knowing that angst wasn’t only applicable in English, but also in misuse of Spanish, or Spanglish.  With that said, I invite you to click the link below and poke around in the minds of Ill Nino, and put yourself in the shoes of a 15 year old boy from Byron, IL.  We have a big ass powerplant by the way…

Tags: 36 crazyfists, byron, byron high school, byron nuclear power plant, IL, ill nino, korn, mudvayne, nu metal, revolution revolucian, slipknot, spanglish, spanish, staind, static x, teenage angst, terrible music

About the Author

Patrick Delehanty Co-host of the Sock Monkey Sound podcast and contributor to the website. Man of Mystery.