Members
Charles Jenkins
Derek G. Smiley
Douglas Lee Robertson
Marcus Goodwin
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BROKEN UFO
“It’s about time we get to do what needs to be done,” Charles Jenkins sings on the Icecream Hands’ new album, Broken UFO.
It’s a simple statement and the group the Sydney Morning Herald says is “Australia’s best guitar pop band” had a simple aim - to make an album of great songs.
“I’ve been saying on stage that it’s a masterpiece,” Charles states, “and even though I say it with a grin, I think it is.”
The band wrote 30 songs for Broken UFO, and on a Saturday night last November - as the Howard Government swept to another term - the Icecream Hands were having an election of their own, deciding which songs would make the album. “Stylistically, we weren’t trying to make any sort of statement,” Charles explains. “The intention was just an album of great songs.”
The band made Broken UFO at Yikesville studios with producers Shane O’Mara (Rebecca’s Empire, Paul Kelly) and the semi-legendary East Van Parks. Words cannot explain the enigmatic Van Parks; as for Shane O'Mara, Charles says: “He was so important to the making of this record. His ability, his ear, his attitude. Without him, it wouldn’t be the record it is.”
Yikesville cost half as much as the studio where the band made Broken UFO’s predecessor, Sweeter Than The Radio, so the band took twice as long, fully realising their vision of how the songs should sound with brass, strings and pedal steel and keyboards.
The album takes its title from one of Charles’ keyboards. “It’s got all these different sounds,” he explains. “Sound #122 is ‘Broken UFO’. Sound 121 is ‘Fat Woman Falling Down The Stairs’ and we couldn’t call it that.”
The Icecream Hands took their name from a Robyn Hitchcock song, Flavour Of Night, from his album I Often Dream Of Trains (“And you, yeah you, with your icecream hands/You, yeah you are my friend”).
Recalling the band’s early days, Charles says: “We were defiantly oddball, very cheesy, playing such pop oddities as the theme to the ABC’s Countrywide, Randy Newman’s Political Science, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme. It was absurd.”
Then the Icecream Hands mastered the art of the three-minute pop song, delivering gems such as Supermarket Scene, Here We Go ’Round Now, Dodgy, Yellow & Blue and Nipple.
Now comes their finest collection of songs - Broken UFO. “I think we’ve nailed it,” Charles says.
It’s the Icecream Hands’ first full-length release since their ARIA Award-nominated Sweeter Than The Radio. This time around, they’re wanting to put that ARIA Award-winning sticker on the cover.
Yep, Australia’s Great Pop Contenders have stepped up to deliver their knockout punch.
Broken UFO … landing on your desk today. Icecream Hands Website:
http://www.icecreamhands.com.au |
