{"id":5658,"date":"2012-10-31T11:01:07","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T17:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=5658"},"modified":"2012-10-31T11:01:07","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T17:01:07","slug":"distances-q-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/10\/31\/distances-q-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Distances :: Q + A"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Darcy Penner<\/strong><\/p>\n

On October 16 2012, Distances released their debut self-titled EP<\/a>. The Winnipeg quartet tracked their melodic post-hardcore with Winnipeg\u2019s Michael Petkau Falk at Volcano Recordings<\/a>, and had them mastered by Stu McKillop at Rain City Recordings<\/a> (Vancouver)<\/em>. Comprised of Florian Maier, Nic Herzog (Waster, Everyone Everywhere), DJ Sangalang (The All Night, Common Lives) and Chris Ferguson (The Afterbeat), the band has followed the release with a handful of packed shows in Winnipeg. <\/em>Distances invited <\/em>Stylus to their practice space, where they are hard at work on new tunes, for a beer and a chat about the release and the band.\u00a0 The following is an edited transcript<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Stylus: What were your goals for the EP and what are your plans now that you\u2019ve got this released?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Florian Maier: <\/strong> When we started thinking about this EP, it was never supposed to be an EP.\u00a0 It was only supposed to be a demo for us to go and do in the studio.\u00a0 But then we heard the sound and it turned into something that was more of a release, so we decided how we wanted to do it and just figured that putting it up for free is the best way to spread it, and get it on every computer out there.\u00a0 That is the ultimate goal: every computer in this world.\u00a0 [laughter]<\/em> Spread it as far as we can.<\/p>\n

Nic Herzog:<\/strong> Yeah, for people just to torrent it and give it to a friend and to give back to the community.\u00a0 As much as we\u2019re musicians we\u2019re also listeners in a music community.\u00a0\u00a0 We love hearing stuff, and everyone loves getting free stuff. Just to like, kind of create buzz and give people for free what we\u2019ve kind of put ourselves into, I think people would like that.<\/p>\n

Stylus: How has the reception been so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n

NH<\/strong>: It\u2019s been pretty good so far.\u00a0 We came out of the studio with a product that we thought\u2014you know, it was a little bit rushed with four days to put it together \u2013 four tracks in four days.\u00a0 We busted our asses but we felt that maybe it wasn\u2019t our best effort as far as the production value of it.\u00a0\u00a0 Mainly because A) we didn\u2019t really have an understanding of our own sound yet.\u00a0 As well as B) we didn\u2019t have much time, because we didn\u2019t demo anything, to kind of tear apart and find out each thing that we wanted to change.\u00a0 We just kind of puked up a whole bunch of music onto a hard drive and all of a sudden we came out with a finished product. So as much as we for the most part like the finished product, we don\u2019t feel that it was necessarily our\u2014we didn\u2019t get a ton of effort done in time.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Yeah, what happened is that I think we started in late April, the four of us playing together.\u00a0 And they\u2019re the first songs we wrote, and as we said before, we booked that studio time and we thought we were just demoing for us.\u00a0 And it just happened to be better than we expected it to be.\u00a0\u00a0 And now it\u2019s an EP.<\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0 What is the writing process for the songs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

NH: <\/strong>It\u2019s kind of give or take.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say that.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Actually the writing process for the two songs we wrote immediately after we put out the EP, they were different: they just happened.<\/p>\n

NH: <\/strong>They fell out of us.<\/p>\n

FM: <\/strong>We didn\u2019t have a concept, because usually it\u2019s the two of us [Herzog and Maier] having ideas, bouncing them off each other, writing together and then bringing it to the band and then they make it an actual song.<\/p>\n

NH:<\/strong> And now it comes back that because we\u2019re writing, because we\u2019re going into pre-production soon, we have made ourselves the goal of writing a plethora of new songs.\u00a0 So we\u2019re kind of into the whole, me and Flo put parts together, then DJ and Chris come in and just do their thing, and it comes together as a song.\u00a0 For the most part, and I would say the general sense of it, is it\u2019s Flo and I write the parts, and we all come together and kind of, you know\u2014<\/p>\n

FM: <\/strong>Make it a real song.\u00a0 We come with a basic structure of the song, and they do their thing.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Who writes the lyrics, and what are the themes on the EP?<\/strong><\/p>\n

NH: <\/strong>I write the lyrics.<\/p>\n

FM: <\/strong>We know most of them, we think.\u00a0 [laughter]<\/em><\/p>\n

NH: <\/strong>The content revolves very much around a lot of bull shit and heat that I had been coming out of personally from relationships either in bands, interpersonally, and lot of it was just really pissed off about where I was in life at that point. Me and my last band had a pretty rough falling out, and at that point I was really bummed about not being in that band anymore, even though it was my own choice.\u00a0 And the relationships that kind of frayed around that whole path, I mean, a lot of that spilled out onto paper.<\/p>\n

I mean, since then, like things are really good. But for the most part, a lot of it comes from negativity and just the world around us in general.\u00a0 A lot of us, we\u2019ve been around the block as people, as musicians, as people that have had relationships with people, and everybody has had shitty shit happen to them in their lives.\u00a0 The world is kind of a fucked up place, and no matter how old you are, if you\u2019re a kid or if you\u2019re a grown adult, you still have to deal with shitty people. You still have to deal with stuff that isn\u2019t necessarily fair or that you\u2019re not foreseeing happening, and life is just about dealing with that shit, and that\u2019s exactly what most of these songs are all revolving around.\u00a0 Just, life\u2019s fucked but deal with it and just get through it. That\u2019s pretty much what everything is about that I write.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s all I have to say about that pretty much, there isn\u2019t much more to say.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Thank you.\u00a0 You mentioned you are doing pre-production. What is that for?<\/strong><\/p>\n

FM: <\/strong>Potentially a full length. It is kind of a goal.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Are you shopping the EP ahead of that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

FM: <\/strong>That is another thing.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t actively shopping right now.\u00a0 Because we thought it was going to be a demo, and we like it as a free download for people, but it\u2019s not our best. We\u2019re picky about that. We\u2019re doing pre-production now, or are about to go into the studio to do pre-production, and I think the goal is to demo a full length hopefully in the next, say six months, and shop that.\u00a0 I think that is kind of the goal, to really have a product where it\u2019s like, \u201cThat\u2019s what we are.\u00a0 This is the best we can do right now,\u201d and we want to shop that.<\/p>\n

Chris Ferguson: <\/strong>We have a better understanding of what we sound like and what our general sound is, now with that being said we can write songs that we feel comfortable with \u2013 shop that rather than something that we kind of, just threw out there.<\/p>\n

NH:<\/strong> But we don\u2019t really think about that, to be honest.\u00a0 I\u2019m of the opinion, as I\u2019m sure these guys are, that we\u2019re not anything yet.\u00a0 Like, if somebody from a label decides that they like us and that they want to put it out, whether they\u2019re an indie-rock label, a metal label, a rock n\u2019 roll label, it doesn\u2019t really matter.\u00a0 We\u2019re not the judges of whether we should be signed to a label or not.\u00a0 That\u2019s up to other people, and to be completely honest, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re even label-minded at this point. We\u2019re not at that stage yet.\u00a0 We\u2019re a young band, and for somebody to even consider signing us at this point is like, almost kind of silly if you think about it from a business stance.\u00a0 You want to see the long-term possibility.<\/p>\n

Stylus: And commitment levels.\u00a0 Are you planning on touring this release?<\/strong><\/p>\n

NH: <\/strong>Maybe not this release, but we\u2019re definitely planning on touring hopefully early in the new year \u2013 spring time.\u00a0 More so than anything to kind of see how we test on the road as people.\u00a0 We think that it\u2019s responsible for you to figure out if your band can hack it, because sometimes bands just don\u2019t get along on the road.\u00a0 We\u2019re pretty good friends, and we\u2019ve actually already been through quite a lot as people, as friends.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve overcome some obstacles and I think for us to tour is taking the next logical step as to whether this band can actually function as a band.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> I think the fact that we\u2019ve all been through different bands before, bands that weren\u2019t ready to do what they did, and bands that just wanted too much too fast, I feel like we\u2019re all open for whatever may come.\u00a0 I think if a label knocks on the door, we will for sure listen to what they say and not just turn them down. \u00a0Like we\u2019ve all been through that and we\u2019re very careful about that stuff.\u00a0 And we know that we need to test out the waters before we go full on.<\/p>\n

NH:<\/strong> We honestly came together as a band to play songs and have fun.\u00a0\u00a0 That was the original goal.\u00a0 The fact that we\u2019re actually a band now and we play shows and stuff, like that\u2019s just bonus.\u00a0 [Laughs]<\/em> Our main focus is just to write songs that we like. Yeah, we\u2019re business minded in that we want to be professional, we want to make sure that have all our T\u2019s crossed and our I\u2019s dotted, but at the same time, we\u2019re just worried about making good songs and being friends, first and foremost.\u00a0 Everything else is you know, neither here nor there at that point.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Anything else you want to add?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

NH<\/strong>: I think one thing to add is the fact that we\u2019re actually all kind of surprised that the demographic of people that are listening to us are actually transcends Canada.\u00a0 We\u2019re getting feedback from people in Europe, people in the States.\u00a0 We keep track of all our downloads, and people are actually paying money, surprisingly enough because our album is free, from Pennsylvania and people in Germany.<\/p>\n

Another thing I should say is that the people at Manitoba Music are incredible people.<\/p>\n

FH<\/strong>: Manitoba Music and Manitoba Film and Music.<\/p>\n

NH<\/strong>: Honestly, if it wasn\u2019t for Manitoba Music and Manitoba Film and Music, we probably actually wouldn\u2019t be sitting here right now. They helped fund our EP. I shouldn\u2019t say helped. They pretty much pulled all the weight they possibly could to help us get this out, and to help us make this happen. To go in there and sign the contracts five minutes before close on a Friday, they were the nicest most genuine people that I\u2019ve ever met in the industry.\u00a0 A lot of the people that I have met in the industry are total dick heads.\u00a0 Sorry, I\u2019m very jaded.\u00a0 But a lot of people working in their respective corners of the music industry are very much full of themselves that they kind of hold the power and they make the puppets dance, but the people at Manitoba Music and Manitoba Film and Music\u2014awesome people. Very down to earth.<\/p>\n

FH<\/strong>: Manitoba Music made us download of the week.\u00a0 The week before we released our EP, we already had one song for free download.\u00a0\u00a0 It was super nice; both organizations helped us out a lot.<\/p>\n

NH<\/strong>: That\u2019s another reason that Manitoba\u2019s scene is awesome for music.<\/p>\n

Check out Distances tonight<\/em><\/a>, October 31, 2012, at the Park Theatre with Brilliant Bastards, Dangercat, and Grand Beach. \u00a0The show is $7 at 8 PM.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Darcy Penner On October 16 2012, Distances released their debut self-titled EP. The Winnipeg quartet tracked their melodic post-hardcore with Winnipeg\u2019s Michael Petkau Falk at Volcano Recordings, and had them mastered by Stu McKillop at Rain City Recordings (Vancouver). Comprised of Florian Maier, Nic Herzog (Waster, Everyone Everywhere), DJ Sangalang (The All Night, Common […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}