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Caution - Icicle Works

The Icicle Works

Article from One Two Testing, August 1985

cooling out in the South of France


They put DX7s through Leslie cabinets and use French classical pianists. And they're only a pop band. Jon Lewin does the (Icicle) works.

The action to date. Following the success of "Love Is A Wonderful Colour" and the debut LP from which it was drawn, our three Liverpudlian heroes take their idiosyncratic brand of neo-psychedelic pop music to America, understandably seeking further fame and fortune.

Stints with the Pretenders and David Gilmour ("it was great, apart from the audiences... all those Pink Floyd fans...") lead to the Icicle Works' own tour, headlining 1000 seater venues across the continent. More success: the album and the single "Birds Fly (From A Whisper To A Scream)", while not exactly achieving megabuck status, both go Top 40. Things are looking good.

However, in this country at least, the collective pop memory is notoriously (though sometimes thankfully) short; when the Icicle Works recommence their career in Britain, it rapidly becomes apparent that they are 'starting again', in spite of their previous exposure.

I had been an attentive but uncommitted fan (seemingly like the majority of the band's following) during the first phase, but my interest was rekindled by the release in May of a strongish Tamla-flavoured single, rumours of a new LP and a spate of gigs around the country.

Bearing in mind that they had been responsible for one of the most appalling live concerts ever televised in this country, it was with extreme caution and a marked lack of enthusiasm that I approached the Marquee that sultry May night...

They were great; strident, commanding, and armed with an array of new songs as strong as anything from the earlier days. Please, Mr Editor, let me interview them? Please, before they get too famous?



Ian McNabb, singer, guitarist, and occasional keyboard player with the Icicle Works: "We're a lot simpler nowadays. We couldn't get a song together on the first album unless it had a weird drum beat, and that limited the songs we did. Stuff like "Out Of Season" or "Reaping A Rich Harvest" were very complicated songs to play live, especially for a three-piece. I think, now, we've thought about arrangements, lyrical content, and melodies. Instead of trying to be fancy live and put frills on everything, we're just very direct. That makes us a more exciting entity live. On the new stuff, like "Hollow Horse", it's just guitar/bass/drums/keyboards and whammo! Much more fun, easier to play."

You mention keyboards — as a trio, how do you cope with using them live? I noticed that Ian played on one or two songs at the Marquee gig, but you had someone else doing the majority of the work...

Chris Layhe, bassist, backing vocalist, and occasional keyboard arranger: "That was Chris Turrill, our tour manager. At the moment we can't afford a session man, so Chris just takes the pressure off Ian so he can concentrate on his guitar and singing. We did once audition keyboard players, but most of them arrived with eight keyboards thinking they were Howard Jones. All we want is someone who'll play a chord here or there, just to fill it out a bit. Ian and I can handle that."

Ian: "The keyboards have always been there, and we've still got the same set-up we always had — a Logan string machine, most primitive — "

Chris: " — steam-powered — "

Ian: " — and a Korg 770: we still use both live. On the new album we used DX7s, a Prophet, real piano..."

Chris: "We tried to keep it to the minimum. We used the DX7 mainly for the Hammond sound through a Leslie cabinet. They're mainly frills, though."

Do you ever use the keyboards to write on?

Ian: "I write on guitar — if you write on keys, the song becomes a keyboard song. So I always like to make sure I write on guitar."

Chris: "I'm more involved in the arrangements, all that keyboard crap. I used to play keys live until Chris took over."

Ian: "When I write, I usually come up with the initial idea for the song — chords, tune, words — then the band arranges it, and does whatever's necessary. I think that's the best way of writing because too often, if you write a song around a riff, then put vocals over the top, you end up with something that sounds like Simple Minds — three or four notes modulating over one chord. Our songs are all born in the bedroom, so they sound perfectly good just played on an acoustic guitar. Better than the records, sometimes."

Do you demo songs?

Ian: "Usually we don't have time — about six of the songs for the new album were demoed. 'Rapids' we didn't, though I had that in my head, the single we didn't. Sometimes you get such a good demo that you can be disappointed with the real thing. Demos are relaxed, dead cool; but when you're mastering, everyone's sweating and panicking — 'is the hi-hat loud enough?'"

Where did you record this new album?

Ian: "Most of it was done at Miravelle in the South of France, which belongs to Jacques Loussier. We did all the French stuff, and then we still had three more tracks that weren't on the album, and we needed to do another single, so we also used R. G. Jones in Wimbledon, Strawberry North, Angel Studios in Islington, Berry — all over.

"We always felt that when you did an LP, you had to go somewhere and stay there to record it. This one was an absolute nightmare. We said 'we're gonna do an album in the South of France, WOW!' but we were miles away from anywhere, isolated. It was like being in Colditz, and we were having terrible arguments with Wally Brill, the producer. We were trapped. When we do the next album, I think we'll do it in London, where you can go out to a club if things go wrong."

Has the music changed since the first records, when you were swirly and romantic — a sort of pop-psychedelia?

Chris: "Someone said it's a lot more varied, though it's hard for us to tell. It's a lot more mature, there's a lot more experimentation going on. On this one song, 'Rapids', we use this French classical pianist — Jacques Loussier (the man responsible for jazzing up Bach piano and inventing the 'Pulsion' variant of jazz-rock) and there's another one called 'Perambulators', which is a lot more rock. There's more variation."

How did Loussier come to be playing with you?

Chris: "We were doing 'Rapids' and someone — "

Ian: "It wasn't me."

Chris: " — said it would sound great with a proper piano on it. 'Let's ask Jacques!' — and we thought, silly idea, like, but he was really great about it. Seeing as we were recording in his studio..."

Ian: "We'd only recorded the backing track when he did his bit, and it sounded really nothing. He was putting all this grandiose piano, fantastic arpeggios 'n' stuff, and it just sounded ridiculous. But when we started layering everything else on it, like strings and vocals, it sounded really mighty."

Chris: "Everyone was scared to tell him it wasn't right — we were all in awe of him."

You use brass for the first time on the new single, "All The Daughters"; was that part of the French connection?

Ian: "Sort of. When we were in France, we were still playing hunt the single, and I'd just written 'All The Daughters'. I thought great, I'll go and play it to the producer. But then I changed my mind, because it really had to be done Tamla, with a brass section, and we were stuck in the middle of France, and would have had to do it with synths. So we left it till we got back, and recorded it with Geoff Muir, our sound engineer. We've never done a soul thing before."

Chris: "The brass section came from downtown Salford — great lads."

Ian: "They're friends of Geoff's — he knows everyone. We're doing a country track at the moment, so he's found us a pedal steel player — really authentic."

Talking of authenticity, I noticed you were using an undistinguished-looking Ibanez on stage...

Ian: "I use the Ibanez live (Ian didn't know the serial number, but research has shown it to be a gaffa-clad Musician), but I've also got a Tele, a Strat, a Gibson 345, a Yamaha SG, and a Gretsch Tennessean. With all the different kinds of music we do live, I have to have a guitar that can do everything reasonably well, that why I use the Ibanez. It's too much hassle changing guitars, as you can lose momentum. And if I move away from the mike, Chris starts telling jokes."

Chris: "All my jokes are self-composed."

Ian: "I've also got a Ricky twelvestring, but I don't use it live as my fingers are too big."

Why don't you try another twelvestring?

"If you get one, you gotta get a Ricky. All the others are better, but they're not Rickenbackers.

"The amp I use is a Peavy TKO 80, which is absolute junk. I can't stand amplifiers with too many controls. I like to just be able to plug in, turn it on full, turn the treble up, turn the middle down, put a lot of bass on... I don't want to bother around. All you want is a good twang. Electric guitars need to be raw, not beautiful. You can work on a bass or a keyboard sound, but just shove a mike in front of a guitar amp, and that's it. They're raw by nature."

Can you work on a bass sound, Chris?

Chris: "My live sound is apparently horrific, because whenever I go into the studio and set up, they say 'well — yer can't 'ave it like that.'"

Do you get your own way? You must be using odd equipment...

Chris: "No. I use a Trace Elliot, which I keep switched to the graphic pre-shape, and a Fender 'Frankenstein' bass, with bits of other stuff stuck all over it. And, by the way, Chris (Sharrock) the drummer uses Ludwig drums and Zildjian cymbals."

What about effects?

Ian: "Well, Sharrock tends to speed up."

Effects pedals, dummy...

Ian: I just use the amp's overdrive, and a Boss Chorus occasionally — I saw Chrissie Hynde using one, and if it's good enough for her"

Chris: "I use an analog delay, with all different settings. It gets booted around the stage so much, you end up with all sorts of funny settings."

If the new record takes off here, have you got any plans for reconquering the States?

Ian: "Providing we can reach an agreement with Arista. The album's too live sounding for them. We've already remixed three songs, added that Government-approved snare drum, and they're still asking for more. There's one song on the album, called 'Book Of Reason', which is like a Who thing. We did a version of that for them, with Wally Brill programming sequences using an RX11 drum machine. It's good, but it's very alien to us, that sort of feel."

Ian: "A lot of people can't handle the nature of this band, the way we swap from style to style. I think what we're gonna have to do is put out a couple of records that are consistent in style, to get the idea across. At the moment, we're just flying over people's heads."


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Playback

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Boss Micro Rack


Publisher: One Two Testing - IPC Magazines Ltd, Northern & Shell Ltd.

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One Two Testing - Aug 1985

Donated by: Colin Potter

Interview by Jon Lewin

Previous article in this issue:

> Playback

Next article in this issue:

> Boss Micro Rack


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