DONALD ROBERTSON Icehouse epitomise the problem that any Austra lian band faces in trying to make a global impression. Working, like most bands, from a general base of influences (in this case the Bowie/Roxy/Bolan early seventies axis) they are not only liable to be grouped with all the other bands mining the same lode, but are apt to suffer invidious comparisons (e.g. Ultrabruce, Numanesque) with those same bands. The odds are definitely against critical acceptance, particularly in tired old cynical Britain. America poses rather a different problem. In the land where valium rules the airwaves, to be too original or excit ing is a definite no-no. And, if you haven’t heard, America is where one makes more money than anywhere else. Icehouse’s managers, Ray Hearn and John Woodruffe, being astute men, are aware of this fact, and therefore the major part of Icehouse’s overseas stay has been spent in the land of the brave and the free. The Icehouse album, given a lighter/poppier mix by Iva Davies and Ed. E. Thacker (who has also just finished working on the new Angels album, ‘Night Attack’) did pretty well, for a debut album, in the States (even though my ears still prefer the original Australian release.) In the N.M.E. ‘Icehouse’s ’ two line throwaway album review was followed up by a cruelly contemptuous live review of a gig at London’s Venue. “ I’m expecting the British to be really critical,’’ said Iva Davies when I talked to him a few hours before he caught a plane to New Zealand, the first leg of the round the world tour, nearly five months ago. “ I’m not saying it’s fair — it’s just the way it is.’’ The next time I talk with Iva it’s the day after the British tour with Simple Minds has finished with a date at London’s
Hammersmith Odeon. He’s still four weeks away from Sydney (with an American tour in between) but he’s looking forward to coming home. “ Well the thing is I’m not, generally I’m not that excited about touring. I’m the settled type. I like to surround myself with things I like. The thing was, I’d been like that for so long that I was really itching to cut every connection, which is what I did. I haven’t got anywhere to come home to. I moved out of my house and everything I have is in storage. It was like this new leg — packing everything up and living out of a suitcase for four months was really timely. I’d wanted to do it for a long time. I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s only really now, being 3-4 weeks away from getting home that I’m starting to enjoy the idea of coming home. Up till now I’ve really gotten off on the idea of only spending one night in one town. I haven’t got any connections at all and I don’t even have any belongings.” Almost like an old wandering minstrel, isn’t it? “ It’s something, like when you’ve done something that’s really extreme it’s great to turn round and do the complete opposite. It’s like having a blood transfusion or something.” Iva Davies had lived in the same house for seven years before leaving Australia, and as is more or less generally known, it was that house that was partly the inspiration for the song that became the band name. When I interviewed him last year, Iva told me about the strange relationship he had with his house — other people would’nt go in the house, Iva even said it’s the kind of house that eats people. When he left, the house gave him a send off. “ The last night I spent at that house” he told me, “ I spent in candlelight. I was on the phone when I heard this strange crackling. I went to have a look and the fusebox in the house was ablaze. Just burning up. I called the council, but there was nothing they could do. It was really peculiar.” There’s something uncanny about Iva Davies. A relent-
less perfectionism, a surgeon’s precision in his crafts (writ ing, singing and playing) and tons of charisma. If you look bn charisma as some sort of psychic attraction, it’s not really surprising that Iva Davies has strange relationships with his houses. To recap. After Icehouse left Australia they did a New Zealand tour, flew to London, recorded “Love In Motion”, did three dates (two supporting Hazel O’C onnor’s Megahype) and then went to America. A cross country tour, including the accident in Canada that wasted $250,000 worth of equipment, then back to Britain for seven dates supporting Simple Minds. A three week U.S. tour then H.S.H. for the other way round Icehouse/Simple Minds tour. Got the outline? Let’s allow Iva to colour it in. From the top: “Love In Motion” ? “ It was something I wanted to do for a long time. It was somthing like the mix Ferry used to get on his solo albums. He’s got this peculiarly European style always but, sort of roots, American, black sound about him. It seemed like it was an accident of fate because everyone’s doing that in London now; they were’nt back then when it was recorded. We actually did it within a week of arriving in London for the first time. We had three weeks to get the gear together for the three dates we did, and we recorded the song, which I actually wrote in the flat in London. It was a pretty quick song — I wrote it all in one go. In all the reviews in America, and there were quite a few good ones, everyone of them commented on ‘Love In Motion’ which is great because normally it takes a while for new songs to settle in. It was originally written as a ‘b’ side for ‘Goodnight Mr. Matthews’ so I didn’t really work on it to make it a good band song. But it just happened to turn out really well. Everybody was in a real dilemma — we thought they were very evenly matched as songs and we wanted to put out a double ‘a’ side but in order not to confuse the radio possibilities, basically
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everyone decided it should be the A side. So there you go. “ The guy who recorded it is a guy called Steve Nye who vyas actually assistant to the assistant engineer on Roxy’s first album then ‘For Your Pleasure’, and some of the early Eno albums, ‘Here Come the Warm Jets’ and he’s done all the Ferry solo albums and recently he’s been doing Yellow Magic Orchestra in Japan. He has a big history in that early Roxy thing. That was a bit of an accident too. I met him for the first time the day before we went into the studio. And he was great to work with.” America? “The shows in America were great. The only one I wasn’t really pleased with was New York, which was one of the first ones we did. I was just totally intimidated by the fact that we were in the middle of Manhattan — I was just unnerved and I had a really shaky night. But from there on we started doing really well. By the time we got to Texas, believe it or not, really peculiar, we had sell-out dates. We sold out 2,000 seaters and turned 300 away. Craziness like that. There were some really strange extremes, like we did that and things like the Old Waldorf in San Francisco which is a tiny little club — using 2 speakers for a PA and no production whatsoever. That was actually a fantastic gig — it was like playing at a party in a corner. Somehow that situation didn’t worry us at all. In fact it was really refreshing to play without any of the trappings, and play well and really enjoy and be received well. We did big shows in certain towns where we got a lot of radio play — we walked in almost as established stars, and in other places where we didn’t have any kind of profile, on air, but, as in San Fran cisco and Los Angeles we did really well, everyone seemed to enjoy it. “ Then we went to Canada. Canada was where we had the accident, which was a real drag. But even so we only missed one night. The quarter of a million dollars worth of gear that was written off in the accident fortunately wasn’t ours. Unfortunately it was most of Todd Rundgren’s stage
set up. It was all insured so I’m sure he’ll get his brand new gear out of it. Amazingly all our guitars got out of it un scathed except for one which was the one I bought from Ian Moss — the one he did ‘East’ with. But it’s not beyond repair. I did play it the next night. It’s just that half the body is missing. If we’d lost some of our key guitars it would have been a real problem but all that we lost was hired and we managed to get other gear.” Back to Britain with Simple Minds. “ The English press over here have given us a hard time partly because we had the big American sell, which was unfortunate because it built up a resentment straight away. By doing 7 really good dates we’ve surprised quite a few of them. It’s done us a lot of good to be the underdog. The hype from the American end of the company should have been stopped by the British end of the company, but it wasn’t. So I jumped up and down about it when we started getting a few adverse reactions, from N.M.E. and whatever. Since then we’ve taken a much more realistic sort of profile and we’ve just put ourselves out in front of the public and with a minimum of tinsel and said, ‘Well here it is, I hope you like it.’ And generally it’s been really excellent. It’s definitely the way it should be done.” And what about these tartan terrors who you seem to have struck up such a firm friendship with? “ Simple Minds are great. They’re really great guys and they’re uncannily like us, in lots of ways. Not only musically but as guys as well. Jim, their lead singer is an incredibly retiring sort of guy. They’re really hanging out to come over. “They’re a very moody sort of band. Most of their songs live are 7-10 minutes long. Not highly involved but they tend to set down this kind of disco rhythm and layer on top of that. “ Lots of bands over here really dipping into the same pool of resources. Starting to sound very similar. You can plot exactly what they’re going to sound like in a couple of weeks time.”
Iva asks me what’s been happening down here while he’s been away. I tell him about Hunters and Collectors, the Sunny Boys’ rapid rise to prominence. Tactics (‘They were always a potentially excellent band’ muses Iva). But not much has really changed I conclude. And I guess that’s almost inevitable in a country where a band builds up its following through live performances. Going to a concert/gig is liable to leave a much more lasting impression than hearing a song on the radio — and it’s much easier to fluke a record than to put in consistently high quality perfor mances. “ Simple Minds don’t tour very often at all, which is quite common here,” states Iva. “They haven’t been on tour, until now, for over a year. This is basically because it is so depressed that no-one can even think about making money. Simple Minds got the crowds they expected to and they’re still going to §nd up losing a few thousand pounds. They knew that before they started the tour and that’s the way it goes here. Just seven dates to promote their album. It’s a really peculiar set up. Bands like Spandau Ballet hardly ever appear in public.” Quite different in Australia, I comment. “The exact opposite in fact. Our thing is dominated by the live thing which is a lot more healthy.” It’ll be interesting to see you treading the boards again. “ Yeah — even though we’ve been playing all those same songs again we’ve been doing lots of new ones live. I reckon we’ve improved out of sight. It’s quite unbelievable Changed a lot of our gear and really tidied things up a lot. In fact a lot of the reviews have put our sound way above Simple Minds. Even in Glasgow, which is their home town.” So, all in all it’s been a worthwhile experience? “ The good thing about it is, I dunno why, I’ve really felt like writing a lot of songs, although I haven’t actually had the time to do that, when I get back I’ll be getting straight into it. If I’d’ve been hanging round at home I probably would have got stuck.” ROADFtUNNEFi
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