Crypta - A Chat With Fernanda Lira
Interview By Chris Hazel March 25th
Published April 7th, 2023
Crypta Socials
EDITORIAL NOTE
Morbid Angel’s United States Tour of Terror show in San Diego on March 25th at the Brick By Brick featuting Revocation, Skeletal Remains, and Crypta occurred before the devastating March 31st storm that swept through Belvedere, Illinois. A tornado hit the 100-year-old Apollo Theater causing the roof to collapse, killing one person in attendance, leaving several others severely injured, and destroying Crypta’s tour RV. The tour has rescheduled some dates and has continued to carry on. Broadcast To The World sends our deepest and heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the individual who lost his life and to everyone else who was injured and tragically affected by this. We lost a brother in the metal community. (R.I.P. Fred Livingston Jr./ GoFundMe https://gofund.me/690b8080)
Chris Hazel: Thank you for taking the time after your show to speak with me.
Fernanda Lira: Oh yeah absolutley, it was a fun show tonight San Diego thank you.
Chris Hazel: I saw you playing pool with Trey on social media.
Fernanda: That was crazy. I won't say it was a personal dream of mine because you don't actually wake up one day thinking you’re actually going to play pool with Trey. But to get this close to him, that's something really special because Morbid Angel was the first death metal band I got into and was the band that made me get into death metal. I even remember the first songs and everything. So it’s a band that truly means a lot to me. Trey wrote some of the best riffs in death metal. Morbid Angel is a band we look up to and I'm highly influenced by them when I'm writing riffs for Crypta. So to get this close to someone I look up to, it truly means a lot. I mean touring is cool enough, that was definitely a dream come true to me, but then getting to play pool with him randomly, that was really nice.
Chris: Is everyone treating you good on this tour?
Fernanda: Oh, yeah. This is by far one of the smoothest tours I've done. Before that I've done some tours with Nervosa. This tour we have been so lucky and everyone's been super nice towards us and we've been having a great time with all other bands. We've been sharing gear here and there. Whenever we have free time, we're just chatting. Even Trey sometimes goes to our RV to check on us. He's a super nice guy. Everyone has been really amazing to us so it's a pretty chill tour. That guy is a super nice guy too. (Fernanda laughs and gets a random huge from dude)
Chris: This guy?
Fernanda: Yeah that guy, the bassist from Skeletal Remains, Adrius Marquez.
Chris: (laughs) well speaking of which, the guy I hugged in front of you early tonight before this interview, he is in a local metal band here in San Diego called Fraxures. His name is Esty Sanchez, he’s a really good guitarist, and he wanted me to ask you a question.
Fernanda: Oh okay.
Chris: What were the first three songs that you listened to that made you want to pick up a bass?
Fernanda: Wow, that's a really good and interesting question. I can't remember the first three songs that made me want to play bass, but I can definitely remember the first three songs I tried to play on a bass because my dad didn't have a bass. Although he loves bass guitars and I was highly influenced by my dad, he didn't have a bass guitar back then when I was a kid. He had an acoustic guitar, but I would play with my fingers as a child. And then I remember the very first songs. It was “Heaven's on Fire” by Kiss because I was a Kiss addict when I was seven or eight years old. And I was just picking the acoustic guitar and try to bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. So I remember that one, “Shout It Out Loud” also by Kiss too, and of course, “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple. These were the first three songs that I learned to play on bass.
Chris: I know you gals have done some huge festivals like Wacken Open Air and the Rock in Rio festival, but what is it like playing at a smaller, more intimate venue like this, especially when you have three California dates that are all sold out?
Fernanda: I think each gig or each type of gig is special in a different way. Festivals are fucking awesome. Summer festivals in Europe are a whole vibe by themselves. But I love club gigs because you know I'm all about stage performance and stuff like that. And to me, being so close to the people makes me feel like I'm building a closer connection so I can look them in the eyes while I'm playing.
Chris: Feel the energy more?
Fernanda: Yeah, and you can talk to them. I can say I see you, and stuff like that. You can't really do that from a festival stage because people are usually too far away.
Chris: I noticed you did some sightseeing. You went to New Orleans& I you went Area 51. I guess aliens are big thing for you?
Fernanda: I love them, although I never see any aliens in person! That’s one thing I love doing on tours. I want to feel the vibe of every city I play in and get to actually know the countries I visit. I want this to be meaningful in other ways other than just playing, which I love, but I wouldn’t have all these opportunities to visit so many places if it wasn’t for music. So I want to make sure I will enjoy it. I always loved doing sightseeing and stuff like that. After the pandemic, everything was so uncertain and I honestly didn't know if one day if I would be able to be back traveling again or playing again. I said to myself if I ever get back to touring again, I wanted to enjoy every minute of it.
Chris: Do you have any sightseeing plans after the L.A. show?
Fernanda: It’s not a proper day off. It's going to be a travel day because we're going to have to travel from Los Angeles to Denver, and it's going to be a long drive, like 16 hours or so which is fine. I still have fun because I'll be looking outside and see all the different scenery because it’s very different from where I come from in Brazil. So I love watching too. For example, yesterday we were traveling through snow and I was like, oh that's so beautiful. This is also important to me. But we will have other days off on this tour and I have plans for a couple of them. Maybe we will visit Six Flags in New Jersey and stuff like that. So I'm always trying to fill the blanks in with adventure.
(Interview & Live Photos By Chris Hazel at Brick By Brick)
Chris: Is there anything you want to tell the readers or the fans that are going to be reading this?
Fernanda: Just thank you for all the support. Without you, we are nothing. This tour wouldn't be happening. These bands wouldn't be playing. Fans are the reason for everything. Crypto was a band born and released during the pandemic. It was such a hard time, but everything worked out because of all the fans. We learned during the pandemic that there were many things we could live without, like going to our favorite restaurants or meeting our friends once a week. We learned how to live without those things, but none of us during the Pandemic spent one day without consuming art. Art was there for all of us. We were watching movies, reading books, and we were listening to music. We went through dark times during the pandemic and art got people through it and fans got Crypta through it, so thank you.
Chris: I noticed a lot of tongue action on stage. Is this because you're a huge Kiss fan?
Fernanda: (She laughs real hard) Of course. Kiss was the first metal band and rock band I really got into. I was like six or seven when they released that acoustic Kiss MTV Unplugged album. I was really into it. I was like, Damn, this is awesome! As a kid it was the first band I got crazy about. And of course, Gene Simmons, I would pretend I was him. But the tongue thing, I think it was more of a natural thing. There is lots of stuff to do on stage and we have some choreography, but the tongue thing has always been natural to me since I was in my previous band Nervosa. I just feel the music, I act accordingly, and the tongue is something natural to me.
Chris: To me. It's nice to see a death metal band that doesn't take selves so serious on stage.
Fernanda: I could not do it any other way because that's me. I'm not good at faking it on stage and posing. That's not me. I'll do whatever I feel it's comfortable because that's me. You know If you go to my Instagram, it's just goofy stuff all the time. I can’t pretending to be someone I'm not on stage. Of course, there are boundaries. I'm not 100 % doing everything I wanted to do, but I do my thing. It's just because I can't help it. If I would do it otherwise, I would be forcing myself to do something that's not natural. And that's something I'm never going to do. I'm very committed to myself.
Chris: I don't know if I can speak for everyone else, but for myself, I think you have a very charismatic personality, a lot like Will Ramos from Lorna Shore that is bringing more people into metal because you are more approachable and friendlier. I don't know if you have a TikTok, but you could probably do a whole series just on all the stuff that you do?
Fernanda: Thank you. I think I'm too old already for creating content for TikTok. They get everything so fast there, but that's fun and nice to hear. I'm just being me.
Chris: Well the two personalities that are bringing people back into metal are you & Will Ramos.
Fernanda: That's awesome. I like him very much too because he has colored hair and stuff like that. He has his own personality and I think this is important because I understand I've been a metalhead for since forever. And I know, especially being a woman in the metal scene, there are many untold rules. You got to be serious and you got to wear black all the time. I love most of these rules, but I think there are some we could break.
Chris: Some people might ask aren't you afraid that fans will not like it when you talk about yoga or veganism?
Fernanda: They can just unfollow me and follow the band's page because there it's 100 % music. Me? I'm this! This is who I am, I can't be any other way, and I think it's nice. I'm wearing all these colorful clothes, I'm doing yoga, I’m a vegan, and I post pictures without any makeup on because it's natural to me.
I'm not saying this because I'm coming from a place of arrogance, but the feedback we get, especially from girls in the metal sense; I think it might be very liberating for others.
Chris: Some girls in the metal community say they love seeing the stuff that you post, the colorful metal shirts and crop tops you wear, and just being yourself. It's inspiring to them.
Fernanda: If I can contribute, even in a small silly way like wearing a pink metal T-shirt; if by doing this, I can help people feel more comfortable with being themselves, then to me it's mission accomplished because that's it. I think the world is already so filled with rules, boring ones, and I think metal is such a cool thing. So if I need to break some metal head rules, I will gladly. You got to be yourself and still have fun.
Chris: Well it doesn’t get much better than that. I have of one last question and you don't mind me asking?
Fernanda: Sure no problem, go for it.
Chris: You do this all the time. What's the one question you wish other people would ask you during interviews?
Fernanda: Oh that’s a good one and there's a couple. I would like to get asked more about my personality...Like your interview was fun. It wasn’t only about how was stage, how is the new album going, and how was this and that? Which I'm fine answering those kinds of questions because people need that. But sometimes I feel like I would like to talk more about personality, feelings and the lyrical concept of our stuff because I put a lot of my heart in it. A lot of my heart goes into the lyrics. So I would like more questions on the human side of things. I love to talk about my art, about music, about the road, and about everything. I really do love it, but I also would like to get more of these humane questions like you were asking me today.
Chris: I appreciate you taking your time to do this interview with me.
Fernanda: Thank you and thank you to the San Diego fans for the great show. It was a fun, very fluid, & organic conversation. I hope it was good for you?
Chris: Just meeting you and seeing Crypta live was reward enough tonight. Thank you so much.
(Photo Gallery By Chris Hazel at Brick By Brick)
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