The Flight Of Icarus

For a while now, I’ve been wondering as to whether I still had in my possession the original Kerrang article which announced Aaron North’s exit from The Icarus Line stable. Luckily, I was able to find it recently (in Kerrang #1044 February 19 2005), and am posting it here below:

Also, and I think I might have missed these, but during a recent venture on Youtube, I came across the following interviews below:

The first is a rather recent(ish) interview with Joe Cardamone in which he denounces the milestone event of Aaron North “liberating” Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar as being no big deal. According to him, “things like that were happening all the time”. Joe Cardamone also professes to considering Mono as being rather more special than Penance Soiree – if only because of what the album represented during the band’s brief career at that point.

The second interview I believe was conducted around 2001 (Mono era) even if the publish date is 2009. One can tell as Aaron North and Lance Arnao were still in the band at this point. And yes, I know that Lance Arnao has since rejoined the ranks, but he was gone for the longest time until relatively recently.

Lastly (and this may be somewhat off-topic), but given that Aaron North stated an intent to write a (phantom?) autobiography in Spin, would it not be great if there was some sort of a ‘Get in the Van’ style first-hand account of what Aaron North had to endure whilst being an active participant in the music industry?

“I had a Kerouac phase after I quit music where I thought I was going to drive around and write all the time. See the back? See the carpeting? I figured I’d sleep in my car. I did that, but I never really did the Kerouac thing. I should’ve written three books by now and I haven’t finished one yet, so what’s the fucking point?

That’s why I’m working on a book about what’s happened to me.” (Aaron North)

Even if Aaron’s book does offer a somewhat skewed account of his days within The Icarus Line, the mind just boggles as to what Aaron North could opine about given that he was also associated with the caustic-era days of Buddyhead when both him and Travis Keller would both publicly ridicule various cock-rock and nu-metal bands with their lawsuit-baiting tactics. Yup, even if Aaron North and Travis Keller were both online “trolls” (before the term was even coined), they did all of this “for the children” and to stop people buying bad music. Oh, and because they were bored teenagers. Obviously…

Elaborating on the idea of a Henry Rollins style book, and given that the early days of The Icarus Line were reminiscent of Black Flag, the idea of an all-encompassing biography (ala ‘The Dirt’ by Motley Crue) sounds appealing. I know that Stevie Chick penned the amazing Loose Lips Sink Ships mini biography, but he also wrote ‘Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag‘ (which I have yet to buy / read). Given that I have written about him and his articles before in the past, it seems appropriate to name-check Stevie Chick here as being the most appropriate and qualified choice since not only is he a professional writer, but he’s also professionally name-dropped The Icarus Line before in the past. As an example, he lists Slave Vows and Penance Soiree as being his respective favourite albums for their years (even if I don’t have concrete proof for the latter – just second hand info gleaned from a forum).

Stevie Chick even knows a little bit about the LA scene too, having interviewed associative friends The Bronx in the past where guitarist Joby Ford has said that his “favourite bands have always been the ones you either love or hate, like The Icarus Line… I’ve seen them clear venues, because the audience didn’t ‘get’ what they were doing. I love it, because they want a reaction, anything other than indifference or mediocrity”.

Aaron North and Stevie Chick, you both know what to do… Although I think Travis Keller may well have pipped both of you to the post as he’s already well on his way to stealing your thunder.

Working title for my book: ON THE LASH… Thoughts? It's Aussie for going off/getting wasted & joe has a song too http://t.co/9RxnqxfjcP

— ɹǝןןǝʞ sıʌɐɹʇ (@buddyhead) April 23, 2015

According to Travis Keller’s Twitter account, the new book is “a memoir about moving to LA at 17, starting Buddyhead & touring around the world. Also plenty of my thoughts on music”. Looks like we’re going to get our very own (Buddyhead approved) ‘Get in the Van’ style autobiography after all.

Travis Keller is going to rock it so hard come 2015-2016. That guy just came in with the sneak attack and is well on his way to scoring the touchdown!