Icon of Coil

You just released an album, what happens now? Another album or is it to touring that's next?
Andy: - "We are working with new material all the time, but right now we're on tour. We are working with some new tracks and we will keep working with that during the tour, but what's to happen the next months I don't know. We are also working with the live production, organization, management and development of the homepage. When new material is ready we will put up some clips on the site www.iconofcoil.us."

How would you describe Icon of Coil?
Andy: - "We are not Futurepop. I hate that term. The whole trend sucks. It has nothing to do with the bands, but the whole genre is so wide. It's like saying all EBM is Futurepop, or to say that everything industrial is noise, or that all techno is house. We play Electro, electronic music. We have influences of techno, industrial, old and new EBM, house, rock, yes anything. I don't believe the future in pop wants to hear that kind of music; it's just more and more Enrique Iglesias on MTV. It's less alternative music."

Are you trying to develop your music more or do you feel you found what you were looking for?
Christian: - "We both gone through both the albums and we have noticed what works well and what doesn't. So we take the old elements and mix them with the new and continues to develop when it comes to the music production, lyrics and tries to be better and better and getting closer to where we want to be."
Andy: - "We have found the thing that is "us", but it is just experiments, experiments and it will probably always be like that. It's not just up to us to say what is our sound but more up to the audience. We do have a certain sound on the production, on the melodies and so on, but we don't want to stop, we have a development for each album. There is a red line through each album, but we flirt with different genres too, so that we don't put out the same album every time which unfortunately so many EBM bands do."

Do you help in any way to promote the smaller Norwegian artists?
Andy: - "Yes, we do some promotion on other bands, but we don't work with it. We try to show that there are a lot of good bands from Norway."

Where do you feel that Icon of Coils works best? Live, on record or on the dance floor?
Andy: - "We give all we have to make a good record and we give all we have to do a good performance. We simply do as well as we can on both. Some tracks that work on record doesn't work so good live. It's two different things and we try to make the best out of them both. But we do feel we get out the most when we perform, the energy from a live show, but you also get the visual and the contact with the audience. But in the studio you can adjust things that work on the dance floor or on record that doesn't work so well live."

You have earlier been on tour in USA with VNV Nation. Did you feel small in comparison or was it on the same conditions?
Andy: - "We played first and VNV Nation last and there was no doubt that VNV Nation had the biggest audience. But we absolutely got some good review and feedback from people and we read some on the net, on chat rooms and message groups. A lot of people went to the show to see Icon of Coil and that feels better when you know people actually came to see us. So we don't feel so small. And after all we do know them. So we didn't feel small, even though we maybe are."
Sebastian: - "The important is that we were so well received and the American audience is absolutely fantastic and we love to be in USA."
Andy: - "You could feel it when you walked out on the stage what a reception we got and with the performance we did and with that audience it didn't feel bad in any way when we left the stage and VNV Nation went on, because we couldn't wish for anything more."

What's it like to be on tour with Assemblage 23?
Andy: - "So far it's very good. It has been super fun. It's always like this when you don't know someone so well it takes a few days to get to know each other and get the right vibes. It just gets better and better and we haven't been on tour so many days yet. It's a very good band and good people and if it continues like this it's really good."

Do you have any band you really would like to go on tour with?
Andy: - "If it had been 15 years ago I would have said Nitzer Ebb. Underworld and Hardfloor would have been cool. But if we would have play with Underworld the audience just would have waited for them to go on. That's why it's better to be on your own tour. If you take for example Fad Gadget during Depeche Mode when everybody is screaming and waiting for Depeche Mode."
Sebastian: - "Vikingarna!"

You played live in Rotterdam on New Years Eve. Is that the perfect way to start the New Year?
Andy: - "We were absolutely fine; Christian was run over by a taxi! The audience was good, we couldn't expect more from an audience in Rotterdam that we never played for before. But it could have been in Miami or in Atlanta instead."

This interview was made 2003 and initially published on Neurozine.com