The Icicles from Grand Rapids, Michigan, which you might know from earlier posts on this site, are due to release their second full-length album on April 9th. They also hit a jackpot recently when their song "Sugar Sweet" was featured in a Motorola advertisment. This seemed reason enough for me to embark on an interview with the bass player, Emily.

1. How and when did the band form?

One day in 2000, Gretchen and Korrie (our original drummer), who were friends from college, decided to form a pop band. They decided that a keyboardist would be necessary and contacted their mutual friend Joleen who after deciding to join them began practicing and playing as The Icicles.
At the end of 2002, the original bass player decided to leave and I was selected as his replacement which made us an all-girl band, at least for a while. Eventually Korrie decided it was time to leave the band and Greg filled in and eventually became her replacement.
We asked Rebecca to join us for the recording of the upcoming album and we had so much fun and enjoyed the new sound that we asked her to be a full fledged member.

2. what are your influences?

We all mostly have our own individual influences, as a band we enjoy music that we can dance to, but each of us has our own idea of the ideal song.

3. what's with the mobile phone ad?

The Motorola commercial was mostly just luck. We did our own promotion for A Hundred Patterns and sent albums out to a ton of different places. In addition our label, Micorindie was actively sending all their releases to various agencies and places. Between the two sets of mailings one of our albums made it to a Music Placement company in New York which included Sugar Sweet in a pitch that was presented to Motorola. All this happened before we even knew about anything so by the time we were contacted a bunch of legwork had already been done and Motorola was already interested.

The whole thing has been a great thing for us because we were able to record the new album and work with Britt Myers again. We had been moving slowly on our record due to limited funding but we were able to finish the recording, mixing and mastering for a spring release. Also, we’ve been getting more attention so we’re hoping that the new album might be heard and bought by a lot more people.

4. new album?

We recorded the album in Grand Rapids, we originally began with 4 songs that we could use to find additional distribution, and eventually sales, since we were paying for our own recording costs. However after the Motorola deal was solidified we were able to finish the other 7 songs without waiting for additional distribution. We then sent the finished recordings to Britt Myers in NY for mixing.

The new album doesn’t go in a different direction than A Hundred Patterns, but we’ve definitely matured as a band. With the addition of Rebecca on lead guitar, we have all had a chance to try some more different things since there is more of a full sound. The album contains songs mostly written by Gretchen, but once again Joleen has a song and Greg collaborated on one too.

5. what's your own favorite icicles song, and why?

Greg: My favorite is "Ralphy Rodriguez" because it's such a fun song to play and it never fails to inspire a bouncy chair dance.

Gretchen: My favorite from the new album is "Fall Day" because it sounds so pretty recorded with a piano. However this changes daily :)

Rebecca: My favorite song is "Snappy" because I love rocking out to joleen’s crazy organ.

Emily: My favorite from the last album is "Sunday Song", but that changes all the time with my mood.

Joleen: "Margie", (from Pure Sugar E.P.) because the whole songs just makes me smile.

6. what's with the matching clothes?

It started as a way to differentiate ourselves and we’ve had so much fun with it over the years that it has become our signature, especially at live shows. It’s a lot of fun to see the reaction we get from the audience and people we meet.

Watch the commercial and download "Sugar Sweet".
Get a copy of A Hundred Patterns
The Icicles website
Ye Olde Icicles on Myspace

MP3:
Greg's favorite - Ralphy Rodriguez
Emily's favorite - Sunday Song

And the band will have a CD release party in Grand Rapids on March 24th, and play in PA's Lounge in Somerville, MA on April 27th.