[2] He enlisted Merauder vocalist Jorge Rosado, guitarist Daniel Gomez and bassist Christian Machado and took on the position of drummer and percussionist himself.

Among them were future fulltime member Marc Rizzo,[5] Scott Roberts of Biohazard[6] and Derek Sykes of Demolition Hammer.

[7][8] When Chavarri took over Roy Mayorga's duties in Soulfly on the Bring Da Shit Tour in July 1999, Ill Niño was briefly put on hold.

[3] After he returned from tour, Chavarri decided to reform the band with a revamped lineup: Machado switched from bass to lead vocals and the two were joined by guitarists Marc Rizzo and Jardel Paisante, bassist Lazaro Pina and Roger Vasquez on additional percussions.

[10] In early 2003, just before Ill Niño was set to record the follow-up, the band parted ways with guitarist Marc Rizzo and percussionist Roger Vasquez.

[22] Dead New World, the band's label debut, was released on October 25, 2010 and production was shared by Sahaj Ticotin and Clint Lowery of Sevendust.

[24] This was their last release to feature long-time percussionist Daniel "Danny" Couto, who left the band in late 2013 and was replaced by Oscar Santiago.

On January 15, 2019, Dave Chavarri announced that Cristian Machado, Ahrue Luster and Diego Verduzco had departed the band.

They were replaced by Marcos Leal (Shattered Sun), Jes De Hoyos (Sons of Texas) and Salvadore Dominguez (ex-Upon a Burning Body), respectively.

On March 21, 2019, MetalSucks acquired a copy of the lawsuit paperwork filed by Machado, Luster and Verduzco accusing Chavarri of shady business deals, such as using his status as Ill Niño's manager to scam the band into taking a financial loss while repaying a personal loan, falsifying financial documents in order to keep tens of thousands of dollars for himself, pocketing show guarantees and tour advances for himself, sometimes even canceling tours and then refusing to return the promoter's advance, and refusing the band members their legally owed access to financial records among many other accusations.

But on May 13, 2023, the band re-recorded the "Numb" song from their Confession album with new arrangements and lyrics changed by Leal, and its video clip has been posted on YouTube.

He also engaged in a harsh back and forth exchange of words with guitarist Jes DeHoyos on social media over his alleged contributions to the album.