‘Ice’ signifies the birth of Magic Dirt.
Myself, Dean [Turner] and Daniel [Herring] were living in a share house in a Geelong coastal town called Breamlea. I wrote ‘Ice’ there sitting in the living room. It’s in this really weird time signature.
We’d already written an EP, and a few other songs and I was really prolific at that time, being young and ambitious. I was still learning the guitar and still experimenting, so I was discovering different rhythms and different chord progressions. It felt instantly powerful playing these chords. Then I just started putting random words to it.
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It’s funny, the lyrics were inspired by a dog. Our then-manager Gavan Purdy had a white wolfhound cross and he was such a sweet, interesting dog. His name was Ice. I loved him so much, the name stuck in my head and I guess the song is named after him but it’s not about him. Usually I need just one word, one phrase or one idea and the rest of the song just bursts out. But it’s all thanks to Ice, the dog.
It was a very fluid experience, very instant. I had no control. It just came out of me.
Later, we were looking for a drummer and ‘Ice’ was the litmus test when we were holding try-outs. Adam Robertson came to the house to jam there with us. He was the only drummer that could play a beat to that song. We knew this was the guy. We found our drummer.
It was quite a pivotal song for us as it not only solidified the Magic Dirt line-up but it also was our breakthrough single. I remember doing the clip. We were all so young; we didn’t know what we were doing but we were having so much fun.
Everyone remembers the silver suit I was wearing. I was a grunge kid who lived in jeans and a cardigan. I’d never glammed up, I never wore make-up and I never styled my hair, so it was all new to me. It almost felt alien. Everyone was like, ‘The silver suit looks good’ — it was almost tongue in cheek. It was like, look at us, we’re grunge kids glamming up!
Sonic Youth led the way for me, showing that you could spend money and you could get away with being produced in a positive way — like fucking shit up with the mainstream.
Looking back, the video doesn’t look mainstream. I think it looks cute. At the time though, I was uncomfortable — just some of the moves I did. I think I had a go at the director. I was like, ‘I don’t wanna do these moves’ — but that was young Ads, and I stand by that today, because you don’t want to do anything that makes you feel really uncomfortable. But it’s a great clip and I love it.
‘Ice’ is still one of my favourite songs. It’s withstood the test of time.
Extract from SOUND AS EVER: A celebration of the greatest decade in Australian music 1990 -1999. By Jane Gazzo and Andrew P Street, published by Melbourne Books. SOUND AS EVER, out September. Pre-order melbournebooks.com.au
