Broken Distance

Broken Distance is one of the newer bands keeping European straight edge alive. Singer Dave used to be in well known band Pointing Finger and also runs Take The Risk records. Reasons enough to ask the guy some questions.

You were a member of Pointing Finger and now sing in Broken Distance, do you consider this band to be more 'your band' because you sing? And was it always something you wanted to do, sing in band?

Yeah, I definitely feel this is more 'my band' because it kinda started off that way. I was doing PF at the time and I felt I wanted to do something different, still hardcore, but something more personal, where I would have more control over things.

I started this project called Get Lost, which was the first version of BD. Me and Bones, our drummer got together and wrote a couple of songs and recorded a demo. We played a few shows but then we decided we wanted to start everything all over again so as to finally try and do things right. So we changed the name and worked on the new songs a bit more and that's how the BD demo and 7" came to life more or less.

I was really used to just play guitar or bass in a band so at first it was kinda scary to just stand there with a mic in my hands with everyone just looking at me, but then it all just came naturally.


How did you get involved in hardcore and how have you seen the portugese scene change over the years. If I remember right from when I was in Portugal with Reaching Forward the scene was pretty political is that still the case?
That's not the case at all right now. When I first started to get involved in hardcore in 98/99 the scene was really politically influenced, I mean, almost everyone in the scene was straight edge and vegan. Bands all had political lyrics and used to talk a lot in between songs during their sets. There were loads of fanzines being published as well. I can say those were some pretty fun times.

I'm not going to say that right now the scene sucks and that it was so much better in the good ol' days. It's not the case. People change and the scene changes too. Most kids that were around in those days have moved on, some are still around but aren't that active anymore. But sure there are still a handful of kids out there passionate enough about hardcore and straight edge that still try and keep the spirit alive hehe!

Right now with the internet and myspace kids have everything available and that can be good and bad. The good thing is that they can get easily exposed to punk/hardcore but on the other hand it just makes it just another musical style they can get bored off after 6 months and can move on to the next trend. But I'm still hopeful the scene will keep on going strong.

What really bothers you about todays'scene and what are you really positive about?
It really bothers me the lack of interest kids have in records nowadays. They just download the records and that's it. We need to make record collecting cool again haha!


No but seriously, it sucks that most kids are just content with having tons of mp3s and not a single record to show for it. I still love to get a package and explore the whole thing religiously man. Putting the record on my turntable, looking at the kick ass photos on the sleeve, reading the lyrics. You can't replace that with mp3s man, never!

I'm still positive about a lot of things in the scene, there are always good bands commin' up and new releases, new shows, tours. It's all still exciting for me and helps me keep positive about the scene.


Pointing Finger received quite some recognition over the years. Now you have to build that all back up with this new band is that a challenge or a struggle. Did you learn from the time in Pointing Finger so you do things differently this time around and if so can you give some examples?

Yes, it sure is both a challenge and a struggle. With PF I was already used to touring and being pretty easy getting a show because kids more or less knew us either by name or from a previous tour, so it was really hard to do it with BD this time. But it's something your have to expect when you start something new. The first year of shows kids didn't really pay much attention to us and now we've been playing some really cool shows.

Of course there are things I learned from the mistakes made with my time in PF, like not have a 50 song discography heheheh!! I mean with PF we used to play everywhere and most of the times the money we got didn't cover the costs we had. With BD were being more selective when it comes to that. We no longer want to have to pay to play.

Also we're taking things slow with writing new songs. We used to almost write a song every practice with PF and we're not doing that with BD. But there are still things I wanna do with BD and I think the band still has a lot to offer.

The lyrics of Broken Distance are more personal than those of Pointing Finger is that your way of writing, the things you want to express or also because these type of lyrics fit better with the style of music you play?

I guess it's a little bit of both. Diogo wrote the lyrics in PF so I guess we have different styles of writing. It doesn't mean that what I wrote in BD couldn't be done with PF just because we played a different style. Just check out the last Battery LP. The sound is still the same and the lyrics are really personal and aren't the typical youth crew lyrics.

Those were just the things I wanted to write about at the time. I don't usually start out wanting to write about a specific topic. I just sit down and write what comes to my mind at the time. Sometimes I have a feeling about what I might want to express with a certain song that has a specific riff. But I don't think it's something pre-determined.

What are your futureplans with the band and the label?

Well we're still writing songs for our future release. We still haven't decided if it's going to be a LP or another 7". I think right now were starting to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have something new coming out and that's not doing us any good.

I felt that sort of pressure before and that's one of the things that killed PF in the end, so we're just taking things slowly and we'll see what happens.

With the label we're going to release the Rat Attack CD early next year. That's the only release scheduled right now.

Myspace: Broken Distance
Take The Risk Records