Iceage consists of four Danish lads in their very early 20s. They released their first album, New Brigade,in 2011 and it was a cacophonous punk record that’s noisiness belied a rich splendour reminiscent of early Boys Next Door. From here, Iceage were signed to US mega-indie Matador Records (Interpol, Darkside, Savages, Kurt Vile) and they released the album You’re Nothing that while not steering too far away from the band’s punk roots, it began to demonstrate depth and texture particularly on the tracks Burning Hand and Wounded Hearts. However, it was this year’s Plowing Into The Field Of Love that saw Iceage’s restrain their youthful punk exuberance, push the vocals forward in the mix and allow the songs to take on a brooding yet more digestible post-punk aesthetic (a humorous note on the clarity of the vocals on Plowing Into The Field Of Love is when vocalist Elias Rønnenfelt admitted to Pitchfork earlier this year that one of the reasons the vocals/lyrics are more prominent is: “[He’s] just better at English now.”).
Beat’s caught up with Wieth ahead of Iceage’s Sugar Mountain festival appearance. He begins by discussing the music Rønnenfelt, bassist Jakob Pless, drummer Dan Nielsen rallied around as teenagers forming a band.
“We all started getting into punk when we were quite young, around 12 or something, and hardcore as well. But we never set out to make a punk band or make a hardcore band ever. I’ve heard people say that we were a ‘post-hardcore whatever something band,’ but I think that is completely false,” says Wieth, matter-of-factly. However he makes an admission that slightly placates his staunchness against the hardcore label: “But I did grow up listening to hardcore music for sure – we all did but it is not the main influence of our music at all.”
The two lead singles from this year’s Plowing Into The Field Of Love, The Lord’s Favourite and Against The Moon,are musical triumphs that ostensibly, and according to almost every review of the album, pays homage to Melbourne acts Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, and Dirty Three, but there’s also a distinct modernist construction, particularly in Against The Moon,that seems to take queues from post-dubstep act, Weeknd. Wieth tackles this topic by discussing Nick Cave’s influence on his band: “I don’t think that actually any songs or any sort of feeling on the album is inspired by Nick Cave. A lot of people have put that on us and said that about the record,” explains Wieth.
Again, however, as seems to be his way, he lightens up on this hardline of Nick Cave not influencing the band at all: “I will listen to a Nick Cave record, [but] personally I like Roland S. Howard a lot, lot more than I ever liked Nick Cave. You will find some records that we all have of his but he was never an influence of the music that we make nor the new record,” he says.
When pushed on his penchant for Roland S. Howard, Wieth goes into more detail on why he likes the famous Melbourne musician; recently Port Phillip Council approved for a laneway in St Kilda to named after Howard. “In every sense of the way, [it’s] not just the way he plays guitar, but his whole being is an [influence on me],” he states.
It’s clear Iceage is a band that takes their music very seriously. It’s a credit to their commitment to musicianship that the band has become so widely revered. However, there’s one aspect of their international renown Wieth doesn’t really dig and that’s being added to international mega-festivals that are essentially targeted at mass audiences, but Australian festival crowds are pale in comparison to the hundreds and thousands of punters that attend European and American festivals. “I don’t think I have any particularly memorable festival experiences because personally I am not too fond of playing festivals,” he confesses. “I had a very memorable festival experience in Mexico, not because of the show, but just because it was quite beautiful to be in Mexico,” he says. “[But] festivals are like going to a shopping mall, they’re like window shopping and I never thought they were a good forum festival for music. It is place where people go to get drunk and act like idiots.”
However, he changes his tone and concludes: “Some festivals are, of course, different… We are very excited to come to Melbourne to play Sugar Mountain festival and we will certainly not be toning it down.”
BY DAN WATT
