Interview to Jonathan Cruz of Lacerated And Carbonized

Interview By Luis Landeo 
Hails Jonathan! This is my third interview with the band, and it is great to see you grew up after the South-American tour. You are going to release the second album after touring Europe with the American band Vile. Congratulations! How do you feel you about it, brother?
Hi there, Landeo! Thanks once again for the opportunity. I am proud of all these achievements as I feel one more step has been taken.

How was the tour in Europe? And how did you get the chance to play there? You know some bands pay to play in Europe. How was it to share stage with Vile? 
This chance appeared thanks to our partnership with The Flaming Arts, the company which worked as our European PR and management agency at the time. The tour was very positive, though physically absolutely exhausting. There were 16 shows together with our brothers from VILE and 11 more in Russia and Ukraine with our pals from SLAUGHTER DENIAL. Those were all killer gigs and each one granted us great experience. I believe we could reach the goals we had previously set.

Now let’s talk about the new release. In the first EPs and in the first full length the lyrics were all based on gore stuff, but now Lacerated And Carbonized has changed to social themes, the violent situation in the Favelas… why did you decide to talk about this big problem in Brazil? And are you approaching these questions in a gory way? 
The 'Third World Slavery' EP was released on the last August by Eternal Hatred Records, which will also carry out our new album entitled 'THE CORE OF DISRUPTION' on May 8th. At first we used to work upon those classic death metal themes as you mentioned, but we felt the need to bring a visceral message coming from our own social enviroment. So we started to depict the reality of the city we live in, which is violent to the core as you can notice.

Why do you think a great country like Brazil, specially in the city of Rio Do Janeiro, famous for have the most beautiful women, the best soccer teams and holding the image of people with the smile in the face all the time, has this kind of public security problems?
I believe our politics are the main factor to all this camouflage. While they sell this joyful image where everything here works well, the reality for the vast majority of the population is way different. It is simply impossible to turn the TV on without seeing on the news that a stray bullet hit a child, or that there are at least 10 homicides in the city every night, or that drug dealers were arrested after being extorted by policemen. Those things are extremely common for us and, believe it or not, the government mask the statistics every time elections come by.

The State of Rio de Janeiro created in 1978 an elite group to fight against the delinquency, the famous BOPE, which became popular after the brazilian film "Tropa De Elite". What is your opinion about BOPE? 
This movie really showed to the world how this elite squad works, their importance to our society and how they face the violence in their own particular way. Maybe they are one of the few military groups immune to corruption.

One of the things caught my attention was the cover art of this full-length, with 2 BOPE soldiers, but what does that screaming blindfolded zombie guy represent? 
It may vary from the each person's interpretation. The whole album is a full package where lyrics and artwork blend together to create a unique concept. Some people may recognize themselves on the cover art, suffering from the city's everyday violence. However, others may see that character as a 'zombie', a criminal, a drug addict or even an ordinary citizen who is forced to live under this confinement.

This album has 4 important members of the Rio de Janeiro and Brazilian scene as special guest appearances: Eregion (vocalist of the Black Death Metal band Unearthly) and Chehuan (vocalist of the Hardcore Metal band Confronto). How was the idea of working with them born? And how were the recording session with them? 
We had Felipe Eregion (UNEARTHLY), Felipe Chehuan & Max Moraes (CONFRONTO) and Guilherme Sevens (PAINSIDE) as special guests in the album. They are all great friends who fight to keep the underground flame burning, and the fact that they are also from Rio helped them to easily capture our proposal and the feeling we wanted to express with the songs. The recording sessions were very easy-going, but at the same time everyone took it very seriously as you all will be able to see in the new album.

After the release of this full length in May 8th, do you plans of touring again? Where? 
For sure. In addition to the shows in Brazil, we will be heading for Argentina in September before coming back to Europe also in the second Semester.

Jonathan any last words to end this interview? 
I want to thank you, Luis, and Arsenal del Metalero once more for the opportunity and tell the fans that the South American metal is still in the battle! Se you on the road! 

To know more about Lacerated And Carbonized: 
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lacerated-And-Carbonized/169403519762376