The guys in Ill Nino will gladly admit to being pranksters and after-show partiers, but when it comes to the music and their Latino heritage, frontman Cristian Machado says his band makes no jokes.

“There’s a lot of tribal percussion that we do to accentuate our drumming,” Machado says. “We have a drummer and another percussion player, which brings into the music a very tribal element, a tribal feeling in the music, and that’s one of the pieces of our culture that we incorporate into our music.”

Machado says the band also accents its Latino heritage through mixing Spanish words among English in the song lyrics and through very traditional Spanish-style guitar solos, which are reminiscent of the Venezuelan, Brazilian and New York music scenes he grew up in.

“I would say that the music scenes there are pretty cool, but they’re very underground,” he says. “There’s not a lot of bands that come out of the Venezuelen music scene. They usually stay within their own country.”

Though the bands might stay in their native countries, Machado plans on taking his band to them.

He says the band is actually planning to tour in South America in the near future, but right now is focused on their current national tour, supporting rockers Disturbed.

Machado says the tour has been a great experience, mostly because of Disturbed’s behavior and friendly attitudes toward he and his Ill Nino comrades.

“The band Disturbed, and their crew, has been really treating us like family and making us feel at home on tour,” Machado says. “There’s no ego or rock-star attitude to those guys. We have been on other tours before where the headlining band’s management company really tries to downsize the importance of a main support act. And I’m not going to say any names.”

Machado says the bands have really connected with each other on this tour and says, as a result, there will most likely be some band-to-band hazing. This is something the band has grown accustomed to during its time on the road.

Although the band appreciates a good band-to-band prank, Machado says the pranks will come only after the tour starts to wrap up.

“All the hazing and stuff is done at the end of a tour after the hard work has been done,” he says. “Right now, we’re still concentrating on making the show as strong as it can be, and giving the kids a show. We’ll get to the playing pranks on each other pretty soon.”

Machado says Ill Nino has pulled its share of pranks, but nothing compares to how bad the band got it when it was touring as a support act for POD.

“One time after we toured with POD, POD let loose 80 crickets in our back lounge, which was funny but very stressful at the same time,” he says.

“That was the biggest prank that’s ever been played on us after a tour.”

Machado says he and his Ill Nino bandmates did not go down without pulling a few of their own shenanigans on POD.

As for the current tour, Machado says he is still in the process of formulating a good prank to pull on Disturbed.

“I did have an idea of wearing a Speedo and having one of my techs chase me around their entire set wearing the elephant man mask,” Machado says.

“That’s one of the jokes I was thinking about, but I have yet to really seal the deal on what the joke is gonna be. But that could be a possibility, ’cause its a pretty good one.”

What: Disturbed with Ill Nino

Where: Val Air Ballroom, 301 Ashworth Road,

West Des Moines

When: Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.

Cost: $28.50 in advance; $33.50 at door