Juno nomination brings buzz to Guelph metal band
One minute you’re working in a Waterloo shoe store, trying to eke out a living, the next you’re a Juno-nominated rock star, living the high life as media clamour for interviews and old high school pals congratulate you on Facebook.
“In the last two days, I’ve done three interviews and had an offer to play the Hillside Festival,” confides Michael Ciccia, lead singer of a Guelph progressive metal band nominated for Metal/ Hard Music Album of the Year at the Canadian version of the Grammy Awards.
“This little no-name band from Guelph is all of the sudden on people’s radar. It’s giving us that little extra buzz.”
Mandroid Echostar is its name, and like everything else about this gently subversive metal act that cites Michael Jackson, Prince and Rush as influences, it colours outside the lines.
“Metal isn’t the most popular genre in the world,” confides Ciccia, who proudly admits to
pushing the envelope.
“But our brand isn’t as aggressive and nasty. We’re more melodic, so hopefully we’ll trickle into a few more earlobes.’’
For a metal god, he’s humble and self deprecating, despite the fact the band’s nominated debut album, “Coral Throne,” has a highfalutin’ back story straight out of “This Is Spinal Tap.”
“The record has a loose narrative about the colonial history of Western culture and the clashing of traditional spirituality versus oligarchical religion,” Ciccia emails in a quote supplied by the band’s drummer, Matt Huber-Kidby.
It’s not something you would see Katy Perry singing about, I point out. What, for example, does “oligarchical” mean?
“I had to look it up too before I sent it to you,” he emails back. “I thought it was a typo LOL.”
Mandroid Echostar, which is what I’ve been mistakenly calling Ciccia before realizing it’s not his name, also has an intriguing back story.
“It’s a weird made-up name our bass player gave the band while walking around Elora or Fergus,” he laughs. “There may have been some narcotics involved.”
It’s part of the band’s charm, this ability to meld highbrow philosophy with unpretentious humour.
And it is also why its first Juno nomination is unlikely to go to anyone’s head.
“Everybody in the category is way bigger than we are,” points out Ciccia of competing albums by Devin Townsend Project, Protest the Hero, Despised Icon and Annihilator.
“Everybody has 400,000 Facebook likes. We have 30.” Thirty? “Thirty thousand,” he corrects. “But most of these bands are on a different level. That’s why we were so shocked, and why it’s so awesome.”
He has no illusions about giving up his day job, but when he and his five bandmates head to Ottawa for the April 2 Juno ceremony, it will feel like a milestone.
“For the rest of our lives, if nothing else, we can say we were Juno-nominated artists,” he enthuses about the nomination’s potential effect.
“I’m not looking to be a millionaire or billionaire. But if I could live off music and have a picket fence and house without having to sell any more shoes, that would be the dream.’’
Awkward pause. “Not that I don’t love shoes. I do. But it’s not where my heart is.”