Icehouse is an Australian rock band, formed as Flowers in 1977 in Sydney. Initially known in Australia for their pub rock style, they later achieved mainstream success playing new wave and synthpop music and attained Top 10 singles chart success in both Europe and the U.S. The mainstay of both Flowers and Icehouse has been Iva Davies (singer-songwriter, record producer, guitar, bass, keyboards, oboe) supplying additional musicians as required. The name Icehouse, which was adopted in 1981, comes from an old, cold flat Davies lived in and the strange building across the road populated by itinerant people.

Davies and Icehouse best-known singles on the Australian charts were “Great Southern Land”, “Hey Little Girl”, “Crazy”, “Electric Blue” and “My Obsession”; with Top Three albums being Icehouse , Primitive Man and Man of Colours.

Icehouse’s iconic status was acknowledged when they were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame on 16 August 2006. ARIA described Icehouse as “one of the most successful Australian bands of the eighties and nineties… With an uncompromising approach to music production they created songs that ranged from pure pop escapism to edgy, lavish synthesised pieces…” Icehouse has produced eight Top Ten albums and twenty Top Forty singles in Australia, multiple top ten hits in Europe and North America and album sales of over 28 times Platinum in Australasia alone. As of 2006, Man of Colours was still the highest selling album in Australia by an Australian band.

In this interview from December 1984 Iva Davies talks to Mal Reding about his musical influences, playing as support band for David Bowie during the Serious Moonlight tour and representing Australia as the vanguard for popular music from ‘down under’.