The Icarus Line

Present:

Joe Cardamone - vocals
Aaron North – guitar
Jeff aka The Captain - drums
Don Devore – bass
Alvin Deguzman - guitar

The Icarus Line are a rock ‘n' roll story in the making. Over the course of the last five years they have made quite a name for themselves as one of the most controversial, progressive and hardworking bands around. They released a handful of singles on various independent labels (Hellcat, NewAmericanDream, Crank!) and then put out their first album Mono on their own label (Buddyhead). It was critically acclaimed and 2 years of heavy live touring followed. They were broke fired their manager, booking agent, lawyer and rhythm section all at once and made plans to release their next album. V2 then stepped in and signed them setting them up with Alan Moulder to help produce the forth-coming album “Penance Soiree”. And that's were it really started going crazy …


Joe: I feel fucked.

M-N: What were you up to last night?

Joe: We were playing in Birmingham, I was puking all night.
[A glazed expression on his face, Joe takes out a cigarette and then sees the no smoking sign on the V2 canteen wall]

M-N: I read somewhere that you got your name from a transexual prostitute called Icarus who was so good at his job that that there was always a queue outside his place of business, is that true?

Aaron: We all live at the Santa Monica Boulevard, near the Dragonfly, where there are lots of transexual prostitutes, hey, they're really cheap, if you want a blowjob from a dude its about $20 cheaper. Not that I would know [laughs].

M-N: I had a quick look at your labels website www.buddyhead.com is this just a side project or something that could be much bigger?

Aaron: We haven't done anything to the website in two years we're kinda focusing on the record label. We got a bunch of bands, putting out records, a dvd, a book and not focusing on the website, but it's all done in the same spirit, just not as prolific I guess.

M-N: You've made a few enemies in the industry already I hear.

Aaron: When you're the kinda band we are, and the kinda people that we are, we know what we want and we're not willing to compromise. We don't really know any other way.

M-N: When you play live what percentage of nights do you play well as opposed to badly?

Aaron: Can be hit or miss, it depends on the psychosis of the people. Individually we'll have good nights and bad nights but it's rare that we'll all have a really good night.

M-N: Recently you toured with Primal Scream, how did you find that?

Aaron: Great good dudes, those guys party, we've got a lot of respect for them.

M-N: What are your influences?

Aaron: We take a conscious decision not to tell people our influences as we're interested in finding out what people think of us. Our stuffs all over the place we could be five different bands all the time. We're eclectic, no tooting our horn, we don't listen to The Stooges all day as people would have you believe.

M-N: What about if I mention The Cult?

Joe: Yeah, we love'em. We just don't want people to come and see us and think of say The Gang of Four that would be disconcerting [unlit cigarette still hanging from his mouth].

M-N: We heard the sampler for your forth-coming album ‘Penance Soiree' and ‘Party The Baby Off' really stood out for me, could I hear any Bolan/T-Rex influences there?

Aaron: It's a pop song, rock ‘n' roll pop song. Good single material. We got a real good fucked up guitar effect running through it. We constantly experimented around with the recording techniques both left and right clarity and chaos.
Don: Yeah, on this album we could experiment so much more. I ended up breaking an acoustic 360 bass amp and destroyed two microphones that were worth $4,000.

M-N: Who produced the album?

Aaron: We did, we had help from a friend, Alan Moulder, he mixed My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain and The Smashing Pumpkins.

M-N: I love the opening bass line on ‘Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers' it reminds me of the heavy Stranglers bass lines.
Don: Yeah, I spent a long time trying to get that sound. We had the bass amp miked up about 50 yards away.
Joe: We were working about 70 hours a week on that album.

M-N: How long did it take to record?

Aaron: About three months.

M-N: Since Mono how do you think you have you moved on?

Aaron: That album was all about how we sound live, we had not so much time, it was all done on the first or second take. This one we had much more time and tried out different guitar sounds and stuff.
Jeff aka The Captain: We tried different drums and different percussion all the time, the sound was constantly evolving.

M-N: Is it true that whilst recording Mono you ran out of money?

Aaron: Yeah, we only had the drums and bass down. All my guitars were done in six or seven hours along with the vocals.
Joe: The vocals weren't even written, I just sang what I thought sounded good and wrote them afterwards.

M-N: What do you think will change now that you have left Crank for a major label?

Aaron: It's always been a battle trying to get our music recorded. Before Mono was even finished we are already heading into this territory. We don't want to make the same record twice.
Jeff aka The Captain: We wasted a year of our lives just trying to get out of the gutter, we were on tour forever on Mono. We came back and we were broke and shit happened had to fire everybody.
Aaron: We want to make another record right now.

M-N: Will you be playing any festivals this year?

Aaron: We're playing Reading and Leeds.

M-N: Whats the biggest UK audience you've played to?

Don: Reading.
Aaron: We were good at Leeds but first day at Reading we were shit, kinda rough.

M-N: You said that new music sucks because these days kids have everything ‘Comfort does not encourage creativity' how do you apply this rule to yourselves?

Aaron: Well we don't self impose the rule, outside forces come into play. Strange experiences in the studio, yelling a lot can be both negative and positive.
Joe: For me it was uncomfortable. It wasn't as if I was going into the studio for a laugh, I would scream at the engineer for three hours to the point that we'd stop recording and the label man would come in and tell us that we're going over budget and we'd have another fight and start screaming again … every day.
Aaron: It was no summer camp with a chef bringing us hot bagels in the morning.
Joe: It was just a room with some equipment in it, about this big [he cuts half the V2 canteen in half making a compartment about 5 x 3 meters].
Don: We had some incredible audio shit, everything was swindled. We called in all our favours.

M-N: Who okayed the final production?

Aaron: We finished all the mixes then sequenced it then handed it in. ‘Party The Baby Off' will be the single and the last one on the album. That's where we wanted to put it.
Jeff aka The Captain: They were under the impression that we were gonna hand in another Mono.
Aaron: We were trying to tell them that it wouldn't sound anything like that but they never listened. They never asked us about it, now there asking! [Laughs].

M-N: How does a typical song come about?

Aaron: It's different all the time, there's no select format, we have a totally different approach each time.
[A gorgeous blonde girl glides past our table]
Joe: We want all V2 women to do a calendar, she's October [cigarette now lit].
Aaron: I had her down as August.

M-N: So how are the women your meeting along the tour?

Joe: The Captain had 18 girls last night! [Jeff smiles]
[Unfortunately most of the rest of this conversation was off the record, but trust me, they're having a bloody good time].

M-N: Do you all get on well on tour?

Joe: We all just get out of peoples way.
Aaron: We know each other better than our families. We know exactly how to press each others buttons.

M-N: Are your families proud of you?

Don: When your sending postcards from the South Pacific and weird countries in Europe they think, yeah!
Joe: It's a career, it's better than a 40 hr day job a week. If anyone don't wanna back us it's up to them. They're stuck in an office we're artists and travellers, what else could you want?

M-N: Yeah, I suppose your right.



The Icarus Line are not doing this for an easy ride, they've got a plan and are pushing it forward. And, quite honestly, I don't think there's much that can stop them.

Penance Soiree is released on April 26th 2004. The single Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers is out now, to read the review click here.