The Obelisk Questionnaire: Enrico Meloni
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Enrico Meloni of IKITAN and The Healing Process
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I am the drummer of IKITAN and have been into music since my early teen years. Being self-taught and having been into bands at different times and with varying intensity in many parts of my life, I can’t say “I’m a musician” as there was never the drive to make it a profession or something too professional (as in, studying for hours a day), but I do love playing and experimenting with music.
It was easy for me to listen to albums back to back and try and reproduce them when I first picked up drums (around 11-12 y-o), and then go and play with my bands and do the same without too much study, so I guess I’ve been lucky I can express myself to an acceptable degree without having to invest too much time or energy.
IKITAN came about in just the right moment in my life: I had recently moved back to Italy (in Genoa) after 5 years in London and, having explored a lot of different kinds of music, it was time to do something different, whatever that means. Which for me means: not having a “musical” plan and going with the flow, without being afraid of crossing barriers and mixing things up. Try and do something original, and never be afraid. Also, don’t get too much in love with something as “a better idea” might be around the corner.
After some not-too-successful experiences, I met Luca (guitar) and Frik Et (bass) thanks to an adv on a local FB page for musicians, we met and started jamming from day one. Thanks to them I learned about the existence of the world of instrumental music in the form of post-rock and the likes. This is how IKITAN was born: a jam session-driven band wanting to play instrumental music, and heavily influenced by post-rock, stoner and prog.
We’ve been playing together for over a year now, released one EP called Twenty-Twenty (one only song which lasts 20 minutes and 20 seconds, released on 20th November 2020) and this is the result of our personalities meeting and creating music. We call it heavy post-rock but there’s a lot more into it. Sounds cliché, I know, but this is what it is.
Like in my original plan of not having a plan, this whole thing took me somewhere unexpected, and I’m very happy about it.
On top of this, last Summer I got in touch with The Healing Process, a Milan-based one-man technical thrash metal band who was looking for a session drummer to record their upcoming album. I met with Carlo and we’ve started working on a killer 7-track album that will take you back to the sound of bands such as Heathen, And Justice for All-era Metallica, and Toxik.
I’ve always wanted to play thrash metal, probably my fav type of metal, and this is the perfect opportunity to do it.
Describe your first musical memory.
Watching my dad and sister play guitar together. She’s a great classical guitar player and my dad, who knew the basics of guitar, was very much into the Italian songwriters of the ’70s and ’80s, De André mainly (which, ironically, was from the city I now live in, and where IKITAN happens to operate), and with my mom singing all types of tunes as all the time, there was always music in the house.
All I could do was call for attention by thrashing pans and spoons while they gently and mindfully played their strings. I was doomed from that early age, yes.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
My first ever gig, when I was 12 and we just went on stage with my elder cousin and a couple of other guys and played two songs we never actually rehearsed before (from Italian rock band Elio e Le Storie Tese: “John Holmes” and “Catalogna”).
Back then it looked like every single teenager in the town I’m from was playing music, so little festivals and concerts were literally all over the place. You could just ask people “do you know this and that song?” go on stage and have the time of your life.
On that very day I was also challenged by some stranger who said I was too young to play Iron Maiden, so I went on stage and started playing “Be Quick or Be Dead,” completely random, between bands.
This was my initiation!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
In all fairness, I’ve never been a fond fan of instrumental music, but now I feel very comfortable playing it with IKITAN. I’ve discovered a whole new world and I love it. Not having a vocalist gives us the flexibility we need to be fully driven by the music, without having to worry if this or that part of the song has to be aggressive or sweet vocally.
Some of the bands I like the most, even though it did take me a while to fully appreciate them, are As I Watch You From Afar, Pelican, Long Distance Calling, Russian Circles and If These Trees Could Talk.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
You gotta be happy and proud of what you do at all points of your career. I’m not in this for the money (I guess I’m a bit late for it lol) so I feel that artistic progression and what one creates have to make oneself happy in the first place.
What do I mean by happy? Satisfied with the music, with the people you share the journey with, and content with what is being reached with hard work on a daily basis.
If you’re not satisfied by your passion, what’s the point? To keep this feeling consistent is not easy, of course, and I’m not even talking about the music per se here, but more about the experience of being in a band as a whole.
Too many times, when looking for a band playing “that” genre, I met people who had a very precise idea of where they wanted to go and how they wanted to appear etc. This often didn’t coincide with my idea (which, in a way, is “I have no idea where I am going, let’s start and see where we can get together”), and now I feel with IKITAN we’re more or less on the same wavelength, which makes the project interesting and relevant every day, both musically and as human beings.
How do you define success?
This kind of links back to the previous question. If that could be summarized as “wake up every day and not be ashamed of what you see in the mirror,” I’d go for that.
Success means peace of mind, having the time and opportunities to experiment and be well with the people you like.
In my and our case, with IKITAN, our first success was to stick to our plan to actually release an EP even though the band was less than one year old, no social media presence, no concerts, but a lot of playing together, jamming around and the right mentality to make things happen.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The movie of IT when I was six years old. It was a game-changer and one of the first, real “fears” I’ve ever had when I was a kid. Little did I know the book is even scarier when I read it a few years later.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I can’t wait for IKITAN’s upcoming album to take shape and be released to the world. We will want to do a proper PR campaign and let the world know about it. I feel we’re where we want to be with this band, everyone is contributing in a relevant and tangible way to the project and we’re playing with the music a lot. It looks like after years of purposeless projects we’re finally in a stage in our lives where we can and want to invest in this project and we’re doing whatever we like to do.
So yes, creating a real full length album and releasing it would do for now.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Enrico: to lift your spirit, whatever that means for each one of us. Some might “get high” by giving art a political connotation, some others might only be interested in the music, some others use it to convey a spiritual message… whatever that is, get lifted.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
As non-original as it sounds (I suspect everyone’s said this lately lol), I can’t wait to go back to concerts and life to stop being about wearing a mask. And visit my family in Sardinia, it’s been so annoying not being able to travel, whether it’s for work, for leisure or to visit your family. I really hope personal liberty will go back to where it was very quickly. I wasn’t particularly affected on a mental level by the restrictions but after one year… hard not to be!
As IKITAN, we’d like to do our first concert, for example, as we started playing together in November 2019 and then shit hit the fan big time.
Stay tuned as some cool surprises will be unveiled to the world in the next few weeks.
https://www.facebook.com/IkitanBand
https://www.instagram.com/ikitan_official/
https://ikitan.bandcamp.com/
