At first, please give us a short introduction of you and Nepugia.


Fernando: "Hey, I’m Fernando and I’m something like the band leader of Nepugia.

In 2014, some friends and I started a post hardcore / alternative rock band called "Octubre se ha ido", which disbanded soon in 2015.

Shortly after the breakup, Fernando Millaquén, who is one of the best friends I've made in our local scene, invited me to join a new project he was leading back at that time. It was and still is a crossover / hardcore band, named "Ira Vehementi“. I threw in some ideas, but he told me that some of them "didn't sound like crossover", so he suggested that I could make my own project.

In April I started writing some songs with the help of Fernando who played the drums and until September, I wrote about 15 songs. I decided to release a seven songs EP, but after delaying it several times, I was about to desist from Nepugia. I couldn't handle the insecurity of doing songs alone, because I was accustomed to do vocals and lyrics. This is actually the first time I'm playing guitar in a band and fortunately, Fernando encouraged me to keep doing Nepugia."

The closing track of your debut is quite phenomenal. What is the meaning behind the lyrics of Copiapó 26/10/199 and why is the song so important to you?

Fernando: "Thank you so much!! "Copiapó 26/10/1993" means a lot to me, because it's the first time I wrote about this chapter of my life.

I was only raised by my mother. My father left us shortly after my birth. We lived and still live in Punta Arenas, in the extreme south of the country, where you are forced to take an airplane from here to anywhere. Back in 1993, a family consisting of a working mother and a recently born baby was basically isolated from the rest of the country.

The spoken part of the song is a real letter, that my father wrote us when he was living in Copiapó. I cried when I read that letter a couple of years ago, because it seemed like my father just wanted to get rid of us. Before he wrote the letter, my mother tried to persuade him to come back, telling him, that she was going to leave the country with me. He just replied "do whatever you want, I can't force you to cut your own wings“.

The screamed part it's how I feel about this situation. When I grew up, I felt like he set our home on fire and just watched us burn. Until this day I feel like it's something painful, because my mother and I had really bad times."

Tell us something about the hardcore/screamo scene in Chile.

Fernando: "I can't say too much about the scene in Chile. I've grown up as a part of the internet generation and my personal influences, are mostly foreigner bands. But also, as I said before, my city is basically isolated from the country. Recently, I’ve found some amazing bands on bandcamp, but I don't know much about them. There's a band I like a lot from Chile. They're called "Asamblea Internacional del Fuego“. I'm not sure, but probably they're a typical reference for screamo bands in the country.

In my hometown, the music scene in general is quite small. I feel like, there are only three different scenes:

1. Rock scene with bands that are focusing on the mainstream public.

2. Hardcore scene with constant rotations of bands, because it's always the same people trying to maintain it. There are lots of bands of different genres like punk, neocrust, melodic hardcore, crossover hardcore, post hardcore and even deathcore.

3. Metal scene. I don't know too much about it, because I'm not into metal. The screamo thing is none-existing. I've been assisting at hardcore shows since 2010, and I've never heard something close to screamo. This might sound a little bit ridiculous, but my post hardcore band was considered "pioneer" of bringing that kind of sound in 2014."

Any bands or other projects you’d like to recommend?

Fernando: "There's an amazing band from Argentina. I never saw them live, but I wish I could see them soon. They're called "Arboles en Llamas“ and they are probably my favorite latin American band.

"Joliette" from Mexico is a band whose last release is just awesome. There powerful blend out of post-hardcore and screamo is just mind blowing.

In my city, some friends are currently playing in a neocrust band called "Tardigrada". After all these years, it's probably the band that impressed me the most.

And finally I’d like to name my crossover / hardcore band called "Ira Vehementi". I’m doing the vox alongside a friend. We released a new EP less than a month ago."