Ismael Azzopardi

I was born in Xewkija and at an early age I used to go on our old electric keyboard on which my older brother used to practice and I’d spend hours playing. Some years later I was sent to a music school in Sannat where I got to learn music properly. After some years I couldn’t find a reason why I should keep playing when all I could do was practice those boring piano exercises over and over again, and for what? I stopped playing for about a year and all I did was listen to Beatles, Creedance Clear Water Revival, Thin Lizzy, The Who, Uriah Heep and such on my dad’s cassettes till they didn’t work any more. I felt empty, uninspired and unmotivated to play until one day I got my first keyboard that we swapped for our classic piano and this changed everything. I started playing the Sunday mass at our local church and this gave me another perspective of being a musician that is being in a band and I really started enjoying what I did.

As years went by I began playing with friends; I had quite a lot of bands that never made it out of my garage. My friends and I were always into rock’n’roll and metal but I also started listening to many different types of genres. Meanwhile, I had already started playing in restaurants and hotels as a part time job and eventually also ended up playing with my dad’s band.

One day Keith called me to play with ‘Mel and Keith’ for a couple of gigs; I had met Keith some time before and I really can’t recall how. Anyway, after 5 years of playing a bit more than a couple of gigs with them, here I am. An official member of Chasing Pandora, I never saw that coming.

I always had a thing for dark music and clothes, it reminds me of dark days I might have had as a child/teenager, but it also makes me feel peaceful at the same time. Occasionally I put black nail polish on only because I like it and think it’s cool though and yes only black nail polish  I think that my biggest idol is Canadian musician and record producer Devin Townsend whom I admire for his unique music in which there’s much more to it then just metal.

I dreamt for years to have a band where we could write our own music and tour around the world to play our own material for the crowds. So Chasing Pandora is a dream come true because I get the chance to write my own music for people in my country and also other countries to listen! How cool is that? Although it’s not metal, I enjoy every bit of it and feel lucky that I can write with people like Mel and Keith. Despite the different music tastes we have I think that we mesh together pretty well and believe we can take Chasing Pandora up to another level also with the help of our latest addition, Simon.