Icarus the Owl have been quietly going about their business since 2009, amassing four full-length albums and clocking up several thousand miles on the touring odometer. Most recent record 'Pilot Waves' grabbed them the kind of attention they’ve been deserving for years and now that the momentum is with them, the band are looking to the future, with hopes of releasing more music in 2017.
If you’re unfamiliar with Icarus the Owl, their most recent video – a cover of Vanessa Carlton’s ‘A Thousand Miles’ – might not be the best introduction to their song-writing style, but it does give you a good insight into this technically accomplished, yet fun and quirky band. “We would always play that piano intro on the guitar during soundcheck at shows,” explains front-man and founding member Joey Rubenstein. “It would usually get a laugh or two, but we legitimately like the original song and our style of playing guitar is very percussive like a piano, so it seemed like a cool way to redo a song.”
It’s certainly a different direction to where it all began. In the early days, Icarus the Owl took influence from the likes of Thrice, which helped shape their songwriting philosophy : “their way of making complex rhythms and passages still sound catchy is a feat we aspire to. We all listen to different styles of music, but with the same goal of being accessible while musically interesting.”
This mantra has served the band well over four studio albums. As with most debuts, ‘The Spotless Mind’ was a journey of exploration, or as Rubenstein remembers it “throwing paint at the wall, trying to see if we could make something beautiful.” Follow-up record ‘Love Always, Leviathan’ refined that sound further before the band dialled up the technical aspects of their music with 2014’s self-titled record and 2015’s ‘Pilot Waves’. “The self-titled [record] was us pushing our musical boundaries as much as we could, and it was probably too long,” Rubenstein reflects. “Pilot Waves was a reaction to our super-techy self-titled album and was therefore more dialed back, moody, and concise. We try to pull ourselves in each direction and we learn lessons each time. Sometimes, we have to fall on our faces to learn a lesson. I feel like we have become smarter and more self-aware of what we can write. Although, nothing is off the table.”
This “super techy” philosophy will come as no surprise to those who follow the kind of circles that Icarus the Owl move in. As part of the Blue Swan Records family, the band are surrounded by highly skilled musicians that balance instrumental complexity with accessible melodies, something that attracted the band to the label in 2015. “We were touring with mostly Blue Swan bands and we all just sort of became friends. Donovan [Melero] from Hail The Sun is our booking agent, so he was paramount in that process. It made sense to be on the same label as our friends who play a similar style to us”. Label owner and Dance Gavin Dance guitarist Will Swan is certainly a man of influence in the experimental post-hardcore genre, which provides the band with an ideal role model. “Will is a great and super talented dude. Being signed to his label just makes everything more legitimate for us. It gives us this welcomed standard of professionalism”.
As Icarus the Owl look ahead to album number five, Rubenstein is hoping to build on these foundations to continue evolving the band’s sound. “I feel like our previous records are these templates that we can now choose from. The new stuff we are writing is a good average of all of them plus a little more aggression at points”. As well as drawing on their previous experiences, Icarus the Owl also recognise the importance of trying new things and are looking to explore this with new material. “The amount of musical notes is a finite thing, but the amount of stuff you can do with them is infinite. I feel like we more or less have a sound, but it’s completely malleable. I don’t want to be cemented in, because then people start expecting you to sound a certain way. If we don’t feel what we are making, then there is no point. [We’re] constantly changing how we feel because that is life – our music will reflect that”.
One element that won’t be fluctuating is the band’s long-serving producer Stephen Hawkes. “He understands our band very well. He knows how to anticipate what we want before we want it. Also, his studio is next to a pizza place we frequent!” That studio is in their hometown of Portland, Oregon, and is where the band have been spending quality time writing new material. When bands write such intricately layered and complex songs, the writing process can seem like alchemy to an outsider and even for Rubenstein, it’s not straightforward: “our music can be technically demanding. It takes some time to find the exact notes we want to play.”
Even after eight years as a band, there’s no real set pattern to creating an Icarus the Owl track; to get a variety of results, you have to use a variety of creative methods: “for certain songs, it’s more productive to be at home with a guitar and a computer to write out the more cerebral riffs. Other songs, that are a bit looser, are written in the room by jamming them out. I like both methods. We send files back and forth constantly and whittle away at songs until a compromise has been reached. You can find me between midnight and 5AM, in my underwear, writing vocal melodies into my iPhone voice memos!”
As for when we’re likely to hear the fruits of this creative labour, Rubenstein prefers not to commit. “Once we have a collection of songs we are stoked on, we will call it good. We are always writing, [but] we are trying to take our time on this one. We don’t want to rush anything, but we hope 2017 will see some new Icarus the Owl music.” Based on the quality of the band’s previous material, most notably the fantastic ‘Pilot Waves’, the results will be no doubt worth the wait.
‘Pilot Waves’ is available to stream/buy at Bandcamp.