Icehouse are an Australian rock band, formed in Sydney in 1977 as Flowers. Initially known in their homeland for their pub rock style, they later achieved mainstream success playing new wave and synth-pop music and attained Top 10 singles chart success locally and in both Europe and the U.S. The mainstay of both Flowers and Icehouse has been Iva Davies (singer-songwriter, record producer, guitar, bass, keyboards, oboe) supplying additional musicians as required. The name "Icehouse", adopted in 1981, comes from an old, cold flat Davies lived in and the strange building across the road populated by itinerant people.
Davies and Icehouse extended the use of synthesisers, particularly the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 ("Love in Motion", 1981), Linn drum machine ("Hey Little Girl", 1982) and Fairlight CMI (Razorback trailer, 1983) in Australian popular music. Their best-known singles on the Australian charts include "Great Southern Land", "Hey Little Girl", "Crazy", "Electric Blue" and "My Obsession", their Top Three albums being Icehouse (1980, as Flowers), Primitive Man (1982) and Man of Colours (1987).
Icehouse were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame on 16 August 2006. ARIA described Icehouse as "one of the most successful Australian bands of the eighties and nineties... With an uncompromising approach to music production they created songs that ranged from pure pop escapism to edgy, lavish synthesised pieces..." Icehouse has produced eight top-ten albums and twenty top-forty singles in Australia, multiple top-ten hits in Europe and North America and album sales of over 28 times platinum in Australasia alone.
1977–1980: Flowers
Flowers were formed in Sydney in 1977 by Iva Davies (vocals, guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, oboe), a classically trained musician, and their main creative force; with bass player Keith Welsh. Davies was working as a part-time cleaner at a Lindfield squash court managed by Welsh's mother, they lived nearby and were both interested in forming a band. Additional musicians used by Flowers in 1978 were Michael Hoste on keyboards and Don Brown on drums. The band built up a strong following as a live act around the pub circuit, providing distinctive cover versions of songs by David Bowie, Lou Reed, T-Rex, Ultravox and Brian Eno. The band performed at Cloudland on 28 July 1979, with The Numbers and British group XTC. By the middle of 1979 John Lloyd (ex-Paul Kelly and the Dots) replaced Don Brown on drums, with Anthony Smith (who was sometimes called Adam Hall) on keyboards, replacing Michael Hoste, who remained associated with the band and later rejoined.
After signing to the independent Regular Records label, distributed by Festival, Flowers released their debut single in May 1980, "Can't Help Myself" (written by Davies), Note: requires user to input song title e.g. CANT HELP MYSELF which reached the Australian Top 10 in June 1980. This was followed by their debut album Icehouse, which reached No. 4 on the National albums chart and became one of the year's biggest-selling albums in Australia. The album, co-produced by Cameron Allan (Mental As Anything's producer) and Davies, made use of synthesisers, including the Minimoog, Solina Strings and Oberheim OB-1. Hoste co-wrote four tracks with Davies and played additional keyboards, with Smith continuing to provide the main keyboards. Further singles "We Can Get Together" and "Walls" from Icehouse also hit the Top 20.
Flowers' popularity was recognised when they were awarded the 1980 TV Week / Countdown Rock Awards 'Johnny O'Keefe New Talent Award' ahead of The Dugites, INXS and Karen Knowles. They were also nominated for 'Best Album' and 'Best Album Cover' for Icehouse but lost on both to Cold Chisel's East, Iva Davies was nominated as 'Best Songwriter' but lost to Cold Chisel's Don Walker. At the award ceremony, Flowers performed "Icehouse" with Davies framed within a cube of white neon tubing. In early 1981, Flowers signed to Chrysalis Records for European, Japanese, UK and U.S. releases; they had to change their name due to legal restrictions and to prevent confusion with a Scottish group The Flowers. Their last performance under the name Flowers was on 27 June 1981 at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney, they chose the name of their album to become known as Icehouse.
1981–1989: Icehouse As Icehouse, the band spent the second half of 1981 touring the UK, Canada and the U.S., whilst Chrysalis released most of their Flowers material under the name Icehouse. The single "Icehouse" was released in Europe and created some interest in the UK, partly because of a video directed by Russell Mulcahy, while in the U.S. the song peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart in 1981. "Icehouse" had been written by Davies when he lived at 18 Tryon Road, Lindfield, in an old, cold flat of a two-storey mansion – across the street was a dishevelled house, peopled by short-term residents, that had its lights on all night. Davies later learned it was a half-way house for psychiatric and drug rehab patients. The first U.S. single "We Can Get Together" peaked at No. 62 on the Billboard Hot 100. A single-only release, "Love in Motion", was recorded by Davies using the Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, and became the first new recording credited to Icehouse; it hit the Australian Top 10 in November 1981. Icehouse split up late in 1981, Keith Welsh later becoming manager of Australian bands Do-Ré-Mi and Boom Crash Opera.
1981–1983: Primitive Man, Fresco EP In January 1982 Davies recorded Primitive Man essentially as a solo project, it was co-produced with Keith Forsey who had worked with Giorgio Moroder and later worked with Simple Minds. Forsey supplied additional percussion; Davies supplied vocals, guitars, keyboards (Prophet 5), bass and programmed the Linn drum machine. Released on September 20, 1982, as an Icehouse album, Primitive Man reached No. 3 on the National album charts and provided their international breakthrough single, "Hey Little Girl", which peaked at No. 7 in Australia, No. 2 in Switzerland, No. 5 in Germany and top 20 in UK, Sweden and Netherlands. The album was less successful in the U.S., where it peaked at number 129 on the Billboard 200 and the song "Hey Little Girl" appeared on the Billboard Top Tracks chart for one week at number 31.
Another single, "Great Southern Land", made the Australian Top 5, and was later featured in the 1988 Yahoo Serious film Young Einstein. To promote Primitive Man on tour, Davies re-assembled Icehouse with Hoste and Lloyd, and new members: Robert Kretschmer (guitar, backing vocals), Guy Pratt (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Andy Qunta (keyboards, backing vocals). Fresco was a five-track EP released in 1983 by this line-up, they supported David Bowie on the European section of his Serious Moonlight tour. Love in Motion was released in 1983 by Chrysalis for the UK market, it was the Primitive Man album with "Love in Motion" replacing album track "Break These Chains". Back in 1982, Russell Mulcahy had directed two of their video clips: "Hey Little Girl" and "Street Cafe" (released February 1983), after these Mulcahy asked Davies to record the score for his film Razorback; it was entirely instrumental, and featured Davies' first recorded use of the Australian designed Fairlight Music Computer. The trailer for the movie was released in 1983, the film itself in April 1984.
1984–1986: Sidewalk and Measure for Measure Icehouse's third studio album Sidewalk was released in 1984 and peaked at No. 8 on the National albums chart with singles "Taking the Town" peaked at No. 29 in May, "Don't Believe Anymore" peaked at No. 31 August and "Dusty Pages" peaked at No. 82 in November. Davies used the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesiser exclusively.
Davies was commissioned to compose and record the score for the Sydney Dance Company production of Graeme Murphy's work Boxes. Davies only used Kretschmer, with percussion being supplied by Masaki Tanazawa. Boxes was first performed live at the Sydney Opera House on 7 November 1985. After the Boxes project, Icehouse was Davies, Kretschmer, Pratt and Qunta with former Members member Simon Lloyd (sax, trumpet, keyboards) and Steve Jansen (drums, percussion).
In 1986, their fourth studio album, Measure for Measure featured Brian Eno as an additional performer; it provided the Australian singles of "No Promises" No. 19, "Baby, You're So Strange" No. 12, "Mr. Big" No. 14 and "Cross the Border". Further inroads into the U.S. market occurred with "No Promises" peaking at No. 9 on Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and "Cross the Border" reaching No. 19. In Canada, "No Promises" reached No.61. On tour for Measure for Measure, Icehouse were Davies, Kretschmer, Lloyd and Qunta with Glenn Krawczyk on bass (replacing new member Vito Portolesi after nine shows) and Paul Wheeler on drums. On 14 August 1986 their performance at New York City's The Ritz was recorded as Icehouse: Live at the Ritz, directed by John Jopson, and broadcast on U.S. TV on 9 September 1987 and on Australian TV on 15 November 1987; it was released on VHS and NTSC formats. Jopson was subsequently used to direct four music videos for Icehouse. Stephen Morgan replaced Krawczyk on bass during 1987.
1987–1989: Man of Colours and Great Southern Land
Their best-selling album is 1987's Man of Colours, which contained the Australian hit singles "Crazy" which peaked at No. 4 in July, "Electric Blue", co-written by Davies and John Oates of U.S. band Hall & Oates, peaked at No. 1 in October, "My Obsession" No. 12 in December, "Man of Colours" No. 28 in February 1988 and "Nothing Too Serious" No. 29 in May 1988. It was the first Australian album to have five singles charting in the top 30, it remained at No. 1 on the Australian album charts for eleven weeks and has sold over 700,000 copies.
In Canada, "Crazy" reached No. 22, "Electric Blue" reached No. 10, and "My Obsession" reached No. 84. With U.S. chart success for "Crazy", which reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 10 on its Mainstream Rock chart, and "Electric Blue" peaked at No. 7 Hot 100 and No. 10 Mainstream, the band had reached their zenith of popularity, the album Man of Colours reached No. 43 on the Billboard 200. Man of Colours was lauded in Australia during 1988, it won two ARIA Awards, 'Album of the Year' and 'Highest-Selling Album'. The associated song "Electric Blue" won 'Most Performed Australasian Popular Work' at the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Music Awards in 1989 for its writers, Davies and Oates. The cover artwork, designed by Davies and Kretschmer, depicts a human figure holding three different coloured flowers.
In 1988, Davies and Kretschmer also wrote and recorded the track "Dance Of Life" for Yukihiro Takahashi's 1988 album Ego. The only Icehouse releases for 1989 were a single "Touch the Fire" which reached No. 13 in Australia in November and a compilation double album and video collection Great Southern Land. December 1989 saw the release of "Jimmy Dean" as a single, which reached No. 47 on the ARIA singles charts.
1990–present: Iva Davies and Icehouse
1990–1992: Code Blue, Masterfile Qunta left at about this time with Icehouse recording their next album, Code Blue released in October. Singles released from the album were "Big Fun" which peaked at No. 47 on the ARIA singles charts in August, "Miss Divine" at No. 16 in October and "Anything is Possible" at No. 49 in January 1991. For Code Blue recording, Icehouse were Davies, Lloyd, Morgan and Wheeler, for touring they added guitarist Paul Gildea and keyboardist Roger Mason (ex-Models). In 1992, EMI released a compilation, Masterfile containing a new version of "Love in Motion" also released as a single featuring Davies in a duet with Christina Amphlett of Divinyls.
1993–1995: Full Circle, Big Wheel, and Berlin