Ivanyi's Cut The Fat, He's Fitting Fit, And He's Ready To Take 'Denalavis' Around Oz

Australia now has a long and illustrious history in progressive rock and metal music, and in slightly more recent times has become a massive player in the instrumental progressive music scene, whether it be sleepmakeswaves, Plini, I Built The Sky, or Sydney guitar whiz James Norbert Ivanyi. Ivanyi is very excited about what is happening in this country with this style of music, and has felt an upswing of interest in the Aussie scene on his regular jaunts abroad.

"Yeah, it's totally cool, even just chatting to people at the festivals in different countries, they're really aware of the wave of instrumental music coming out of Australia," he enthuses, "and I'm really honoured to be a part of that."

He displays his own chops and songwriting prowess to great effect on his recently released EP, Denalavis, and tells us that the reaction to the release has been virtually nothing but positive. "The response has been amazing," he states, "I haven't seen any negative things said about it, which is always nice. It's really gone beyond my expectations. Especially since I'm still feeling the water with these shorter three-track releases, but it's generally been overwhelmingly well-received, so I couldn't be happier."

Ivanyi and his band are about to head on a run of live dates down the eastern seaboard and across to Adelaide, and he feels their recent dates overseas have really played them into good form for this run. "I feel great, I feel ready," he says. "Obviously we were just in the UK, and we played really well, and had a great reception over there. As a band I think we're playing and performing better than ever, so I really just can't wait."

The tour promises an exciting but slightly scaled-back show in terms of personnel, which allows all instruments to breathe and be heard to their fullest extent. "We're planning something a little different this tour," he reveals, "we're going out as a trio, which we trialled in the UK and it worked better than we thought it would. That's because I really want to strip the sound back to my roots, I always grew up loving single guitar bands, and wanted to try that on this tour.

"We'll have a few guest appearances, different people jumping up on stage in different cities, and we'll be playing music from all of my releases, and stuff we've never played in Australia before."

Ivanyi has punched out a number of shorter EP releases in recent times, and while he has really enjoyed the process of bringing out new music on a more regular basis, there could be something lengthier coming in the not too distant future. "I feel like it's time to come back and do a full-length," he says. "The short ones are good because your audience can hear new music every year, and you can take brand new music on the road with you every time, but I think it's time to get back to a full-length."