Iva Davies, singer-songwriter and the creative force behind the iconic band Icehouse, will be returning to Adelaide to perform at this year’s Clipsal 500, playing the hits that defined an era of Australian music. Returning to perform live only in the last few years after a decade and a half sabbatical, we got to sit down with Iva and ask him how it feels to be back on stage.
Q: Your upcoming performance at Clipsal 500 coincides with the release of a new live album ‘Icehouse: In Concert’. I take it that after your break from playing live that it has been an invigorating experience?
A: Well it has been very interesting from a number of points of view. You could imagine some of these guys have been playing together for 30 years so by now it’s beyond a normal band relationship – we are all very old friends. We are very fortunate too because we have a number of extremely keen wits in the band so apart from anything else we have an incredibly fun time. Things happen in a live context that when you have got the kind of humor that these guys have and give them a microphone it becomes a very funny event. So it’s pretty good to have a laugh, which is the best medicine, particularly when I forget lyrics and do stupid things like that – it becomes a band event.
Q: Is this relaxed attitude a reason why you recently released ‘Dubhouse’, a reworking of Icehouse songs with reggae, bluebeat, dancehall feels?
A: Yes, the point was it was great fun.
Q: Is that also a reason why you have also been incorporating an acoustic break into your sets, to reinvigorate or breathe new life into the songs as it were?
A: Indeed, and to have someone like Michael Paynter is actually very good therapy as well because as you would probably know he is an enormous talent but he is also vastly younger than the rest of us and he brings a different perspective. So when I hand over the lead vocal duties to him on a couple of songs he doesn’t come with a pre-conceived interpretation of them, so it’s very interesting. He was responsible for the acoustic version of ‘Street Café’ during the set, and probably because he didn’t know the song in as much detail as we do he went “It could possibly go like this…” and it just took off!
Q: Will you be doing some of these acoustic parts at Clipsal 500?
A: We will be, and in actual fact, in a funny sort of way it’s almost my favorite part of the set because it changes the focus. It kind of frees the key elements of the songs and you get to look at them again with a different perspective. You see it or you hear it in a different way.
Q: Talking about bringing in a different aspect, during your sabbatical from performing live you wrote some music for films, television and ballet, something that you explored early in your career, how was that experience?
A: Honestly none of these things I really knew how to do. I had never written a film score before. I had certainly never written a ballet. The whole process was as much a learning curve for me as much as was anything else. Even coming back to write the score for ‘Master and Commander’, it had been more than 20 years since I had done my one and only movie score. And of course we were in a completely different league. Working in Hollywood in the Fox lot, probably the most famous scoring studio in the world with the number one orchestra for movie scores in the world… it was a completely different league, and there I was a baby in this environment!
Be sure to catch Aria hall of fame inductees ‘Icehouse’ live this weekend at the 2016 Clipsal 500 where they will be joined by the inimitable ‘The Church’.
Words and interview by David Manning.
We are giving you the chance to meet Icehouse this weekend, just head here to enter this amazing competition!
When: 3 – 6 March
Icehouse Concert: Saturday 5 March, performances commence from 6.30pm – Icehouse onstage 9pm
Tickets: Buy tickets here
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