Short Interview: Cris Nominato

Cris Nominato is an amazing Brazilian guitarist. Her favorite style is metal, especially Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Doom metal, Industrial, Gothic, Thrash and Death Metal. Cris also likes classical music, electronic, folk and videogame/movie soundtracks.

Who influenced you the most to play the guitar?

"At the beginning, Slash from Guns N Roses was who inspired me to play the guitar and to listen to rock music, I used to play the flute before that.

Coming from a small town, we had almost no rock music and I didnt knew the style. I listened to You Could be Mine from Terminator and I fell in love with that agressive sound. The riffs and guitar solos captivated me and I wanted to know who was playing that music.

A few months later, my cousin, who had internet access (at that time it was not avaible everywhere), found out it was Guns N Roses and downloaded a few songs for me. Shortly after, I had the opportunity to see a music video from them and I found the esthetics and energy and attitude amazing. That moment I decided I wanted what I wanted to do with my life, play music, travel and perform in great stages.

I got into metal when I heard Iron Maiden. Adrian Smith and Dave Murray are also among my biggest influences, you can notice that in my solo compositions.

Other influences are George Lynch, Andy la Roque, and my favorite guitarist Alex Skolnick from Testament.

Heavier metal is something relatively new for me, I got immersed when I got into Lluvia Fúnebre (my main band and the reason for me to move from Brasil to Chile) and now I got into extreme metal when I was invited to Beretta."

What do you like the most about playing metal?

"What I like the most about playing metal is the energy, the possibility to express my deepest fellings, to bring out and expose the darkness within. Metal for me is like terapy. On my personal life I'm a very shy, kind and introspective person, very self counciouss and self repressed. I don't like to make other people feel bad and as a result I ended up holding lots of repressed anger, frustration, the felling of not being understood, of being underrated and misstreated. Metal made it possible for me to take it all out in a positive way, take every negative feeling and shape it in a way other people can relate and feel better about themselves."

Follow Cris Nominato in:
Instagram: @crisnominato
Facebook: /crisnominatoguitar