EMQ’s With Ignore The Distance
EMQ’s With Ignore The Distance
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Italian solo metal project, Ignore The Distance. Huge thanks to guitarist and composer, Michele, for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Hi, I’m Michele, I play guitar and Ignore The Distance is kind of a one man act started in my bedroom during the 2020 pandemic; the forced isolation gave me more time to sit down to explore my sound and eventually compose and release some music. I take care of the song writing and production, I prepare a demo and then I hire musicians to play the instruments I can’t play like drums, bass, etc.
How did you come up with your band name?
It’s a name I came up with for a collaboration with a guitarist friend of mine, he lives in Italy and I’m in London so it was about doing remote work together, sort of ignoring the distance in between us; that project didn’t happen in the end but I decided to keep the name as it resonated with me. I see it as a statement that no matter how hard something actually is, if you keep working on it and giving it your best at some point you will get stuff done. You just have to ignore the distance to get there 🙂
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
I am Italian, which has always been a nurturing place for heavy metal music, in particular in the north where I come from. I used to have loads of friends who were into metal and many of them were musicians too. I grew up in the boom years of nu-metal, amidst metal-heads friends who fueled my interest for the genre and passed on many records which I didn’t have the money to buy in my teen years.
What is your latest release?
It’s a single called The Accident, for which we also shot a playthrough video which is available through my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@ignore_the_distance ).
Who have been your greatest influences?
I started playing this style of music after listening to acts like Intervals and Plini, who’ve become well established musicians who made a name for themselves in the prog-metal instrumental scene worldwide. Through them I then discovered a multitude of other amazing musicians and still continue to discover more and more.
What first got you into music?
It was a long time ago, I was 13 or 14 years old, and I recall some of my friends started listening to rock music like Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers which inspired me to learn some of their songs; I was curious to find out how to replicate that sound and, after a friend lent me some Nirvana cassettes, I borrowed a classical guitar and started learning a few of their songs.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
Probably some of the artists who I look up to nowadays like I Built The Sky or David Maxim Micic in the instrumental guitar world. I was honoured to collaborate already in this EP with Anup Sastry who is the former drummer of Intervals. He played on The Accident and Spare Soul.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
I think it would be Radar, a small prog-metal festival in the UK; they have an amazing line-up every year with all my favourite artists, and give an opportunity to small acts to perform in this niche genre.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
Well I guess my girlfriend is kinda my biggest fan and a while back she gave me a framed print of the official Spotify soundwave of my single Bless The Inphernet, which was the only song I had released at that point. Very sweet and proudly on display in my living room!
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Thanks so much for the kind support so far and please send me some weird gifts!!
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Many of them, but probably the first would be Layne Staley, Alice In Chains’ former singer. I always loved the depth and tone of his voice, and often dreamed of seeing them live with him. And also because he was so young when he died he would have given us so much more amazing music if he were to be alive. I still remember where I was the day he passed, I was watching some friends playing a gig when they gave the news during their set.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
It is a passion that allows me to meet and become friends with other people and share nice times together, and express my feelings and ideas through the guitar. There’s not much to hate! I guess the marketing aspect has been a bit of a challenge for me – a steep learning curve I’ve had to go on in recent months while I’ve been promoting my new releases.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
I think it’s a shame that money and contacts are often more important factors than talent in terms of which musicians make it. I don’t have any answers exactly, but it would be great if there were a more meritocratic way for talented artists to be exposed to potential fanbases.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Only one?? This is triggering my option paralysis big time 😀 But if I was going back a few years I might say Get Some by Snot; it is effectively their only official album as the singer passed away at a young age and it was an amazing concentrate of raw vocals, groovy riffs and creative songwriting and I came across it when I was just starting to play guitar so was really into it.
But I am not going to name that one 😜 I’ll say Handmade Cities by Plini!
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
Any of these as long as it’s by Ignore The Distance :). Which actually confines the choice to Downloads only… for now. Jokes aside, I have a fascination with vinyl even though I don’t own many, but I do like the whole physicality of it all, the artworks in large prints, and I can see why it’s making some sort of comeback in recent years.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Huh, never played a gig to get a date, but I guess it’s a strategy some might like. Jokes aside, as a matter of fact Ignore The Distance has been a bedroom project so far but I play a lot of gigs with my covers band. Best one so far I’d say was at Temple Of Art And Music in Elephant & Castle, nice big venue with lots of people and good vibes, minus the slightly old-fashioned sound engineer that absolutely abhorred my use of a digital modeler and kept ordering me to buy a real amp! 😂
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Probably I’d be sitting on a bench wondering how awesome it would be to be a musician.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
I’d have the other musicians who feature on the EP – drummers Anup Sastry and Naman Sachdev, bass player Marcin Palider, pianist Daniele Colombo and the mix engineer Widek. They live all over the world, but for that one night only we could Ignore The Distance (there would be no Distance to Ignore!).
What’s next for the band?
There will be a new single on the 27th October, called Spare Soul. They will all be part of an EP that will be available in late November (the title of which is under wraps for now, but watch this space!). Then I have various ideas about new songs that I’d like to develop, maybe experimenting with different tunings.
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
I have set up profiles on multiple platforms to reach as wide as possible, Instagram, Facebook, Bandcamp, a personal website, YouTube.
https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/ignore-the-distance/1535825080
https://www.instagram.com/ignore_the_distance/
https://www.facebook.com/ignore.the.distance
https://ignorethedistance.bandcamp.com/track/the-accident
https://ignorethedistance.com/home
Time for a very British question now. As an alternative to the humble sandwich, is the correct name for a round piece of bread common in the UK either a Bap, a Barm (or Barm Cake), a Batch, a Bun, a Cob, a Muffin, a Roll or a Tea Cake?
I am Italian and have little clue of what most of these are, probably because whenever I go in a shop to buy bread I disregard any bakery stuff that is not a panino! 😀
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Thanks for having me on your website! Very much appreciated. To the fans reading this – please send those weird gifts!
Disclaimer: This interview is solely the property of Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this interview, unless you have the strict permission of said party. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
