Cruizero was born in Galicia, Spain around 2019. The band survived and spent the time being very active. The result was a striking self-titled album composed on a verge of inventive doom, stoner and even space rock.

Cruzeiro is a quartet consisting of Beatriz Onyx (vocals), Gon B. (guitar), Rust (drums) and Raposa! (bass). It seems that only Beatriz and Gon have some musical background, but believe me or not, their album is a killer! It’s huge, it’s psychedelic, cosmic and heavy! Just as planned! We interviewed Onyx and Raposa! in order to learn more about the band.

What’s new in your camp?

Onyx: Hello Aleksey, hope you are ok in these crazy times we are living in.

Cruzeiro is currently playing our first album and finishing some details for a possible future split release on 7” or 10” with another Spanish band. We’re also writing new stuff for our next album. Our first record is having very good feedback, two years ago we couldn’t imagine the reaction we’re getting.

Is the material you are working on these days made in the same vein as your first album?

Onyx: It is possible, but I wish not to reveal too much… The essence of Cruzeiro is reflected in this new music, but we like to take risks as well. We still are finishing the outlining of the compositions. I could not give you a complete answer, but the idea is to continue the path we have already started.

You started the band three years ago, what was on your mind back then? What kind of ideas did you want to transfer through Cruzeiro?

Onyx: It all started as a meeting between friends to continue a proto project of what this band was years ago that didn’t come together on previous occasions. With my incorporation on the vocals and with the entry of Rust to play drums everything changed. From that moment onwards the commitment was totally fluid. It worked energetically because I think the four of us are involved in something that we enjoy on a personal and musical level, so strong ties between us had been forged. If I look back at those almost three years, the first thing that comes to my mind are mad rehearsal sessions bathed in liters of beer.

As for our imagination in regards to capturing what we want to convey, let’s say that it is a blank book in which what keeps us motivated or what we are living at that very moment is captured. There isn’t a particular theme that feels like an obligation to write about. Also, although the lyrics have a certain sci-fi content and imagined scenarios, there is always a more intimate and personal message in the background of this all.

I’ve checked your first demo. There are just two songs, but each song has its own history. First of all, what can you tell about ‘Al Quibla’? I’ve found that it’s the name of some huge container ship. You use Arabic letters on the album’s cover, and ‘Al-Quibla’ is an Arabic word. What connects you with this Eastern culture?

Raposa!: ‘Quibla’, or ‘Al quibla’ (The Qibla = The Direction) is often referred to as the direction to Mecca, where muslims send their prayers no matter where they are, or where they are from. It’s a sort of a “declaration” for a sincere adoption of the orientalism that often is one of the most hidden roots of the music genres of stoner, psychedelia and even doom, since Black Sabbath days. Using the Arabian scales and being directly “pointing” to the cultural origins of this important component of our common genre of music alongside so many other bands, we try to be more conscious, and “aware” of the references western music normally uses, but never recognizes… ‘Aquarius’, the other song, is a ship, yes! The story behind the lyrics, through some “science fiction” maneuvers, is no other but the history of that famous cargo ship that helped to rescue a great number of refugees from the deadly Mediterranean, mostly from the East, and Africa too.

What made you pay attention to these themes? Both of them are far from standard stoner doom stuff.

Raposa!: Well, it might look like that at first, but maybe if we pay more attention to the classic doom and stoner music, politics and cultural topics were always there. Always hidden though, those were other times that even affected in an unconscious way to the artists back in the day. We are not afraid of using/talking about these topics in our songs even if we also “hide” them a little bit with the current tool of fantastic or sci-fi metaphors et cetera… We are not trying to be a political band, but, on the contrary of the main audience, maybe, we consider that this genre(s) we play can also express a little bit more of what we are used to. We also think that a “closed-topics” genre is a closed genre for all forms, and contents, and, therefore, it (could) fail to evolve, in a future time, when it would need more of it. It’s another way of being more “mature” or self-conscious about our genre and our creations (about our big possibilities and about our evident limitations…).

What can you say about Alexandre Lago, whose poem you cite for the demo’s second song ‘Naufraxo’?

Raposa!: Aleixandre Lago is a Galician born poet, a close friend of mine. We studied and lived together in Barcelona for some years, where we frequently shared our ideas about literature and music, and common interests about Galician romantic culture of the XIX and XX centuries. His poem Naufraxio (literally, ‘Shipwreck’), used partially as the lyrics of the song of the same name, is somewhat related or descendent of that general artistic movement, same as the music of the band itself, partially…

Your label Vertebrae released Cruzeiro’s self-titled debut album on October 29th, 2021. Tell us more about it.

Onyx: Regarding Vertebrae (Sp) & Interstellar Smoke Records (Pl), both labels made a co-edition on CD, but our main Label is ISR, this is the one that released the vinyl edition. We are proud of this decision because, this way, the distribution fits us all. We have distribution all around Europe/Poland and in Spain. With both labels we have a very good relationship and understanding.
We have another edition in cassette through Lunar Seas Records & Cain Records that is currently sold out. Then the label Rotten Raven Records just re-released a new and very limited edition in the same format because we sold all the copies in less than 2 months. CD’s are working very well too; we hope the same for the vinyl because each edition is different.

What about the album’s artwork? There’s a pretty and quite alive cosmonaut on the original cover but I got the promo CD with a dead skull. Which one is right?

Onyx: The artwork is made by our bass player Raposa! who is an illustrator as well and the design is made by our collaborator Beto coordinated by me. All the album art and, in particular, the CD edition has a lot of details, each song has its own illustration referencing something from the lyrics. The cover that you mention is the cover for the promo CD that is also the cover of the booklet and the contra-part to the real cover that shows a cosmonaut (the original cover). We wanted to show the uncommon triumph of a scientific woman in space made in a non-American way, but at the very end it doesn’t matter who you are or where you came from because death equals us all.

Where else can we see Raposa! artworks?

Onyx: If anyone is interested in the art of Raposa! you can find him on his IG profile @toba.da.raposa or through www.behance.net/tobadaraposa.

Your music is a mix of doom, stoner and psychedelic rock with light space-rock touch, which bands did help you to shape Cruzeiro’s sound?

Onyx: That’s a very difficult question to answer. We are four people with a lot of different influences, but I could say: Black Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Reverend Bizarre, Windhand, Jess & the Ancient Ones, Jex Thoth, The Devil’s Blood, Sleep, Candlemass, Pink Floyd, Darkthrone, Neil Young, Janis Joplin, Blood Incantation, Wishbone Ash… just a small example of what kind of influences we have.

I was surprised that ‘Balor, As Sete Pálpebras’ is more creepy and “atmospheric” than ‘The/Owls/Are/Not/What/They/Seem’ which I appreciate sincerely. So, well… a blunt question… How did it happen? How did you write ‘Owls…’?

Onyx: Well, the music for ‘The/Owls/Are/Not/What/They/Seem’ was almost finished just before the pandemic began, during which I decided to watch the entire Twin Peaks saga again. It obsesses me so much that I thought that the best way to capture and release that obsession was this song. I took advantage of the time during the confinement and paid homage to this audiovisual masterpiece that feels so close to our way of feeling delirious through Cruzeiro.

How do you like Twin Peaks’ “new” third season? I wish I could forget it and watch it from the start once more!

Onyx: I think it contains an excess of events, but at the same time it has a lot of details that could inspire a good repertoire of acid rock songs. My first reaction when watching how everything began left me with a weird feeling, but at the same time I liked it because it is part of a bigger story. I think, in that season, many found answers and meaning to certain enigmas and others found a bag of nonsense that perhaps left them with a continuous WTF feeling, I think that also shows how crazy it could be the Lynch-Frost universe. In any case, it is a series that you have to review several times to continue understanding nuances that you do not notice at first sight.

What are your plans for 2022?

Onyx: From December 21st to March 22nd, we had gigs in a lot of places in our country like Galicia, País Vasco, Valladolid, Cantabria, or Asturias. We also played in Portugal this past month of May and we are now looking forward to doing the same in the Mediterranean coast and the South of Spain, also in Madrid and Barcelona and some other places in Europe too. So, if everything goes according to the plan by the end of the year, we should have been playing in the most important metal places in the Iberian Peninsula, that was our first challenge.

Thanks for your time and support!

Aleksey Evdokimov

Cruizero Website / Facebook / Instagram / SoundCloud / Bandcamp / YouTube
Interstellar Smoke Records / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / Bigcartel