‘BLANK SLATE’
Icarus the Owl tries for fresh start on latest album
The tour hadn’t started yet for Joey Rubenstein.
It was a couple of days of travel before he got to his hotel room in Sacramento, but he’s looking forward to performing.
“It’s going to be a fun time,” he says of the tour. “We’ve been looking forward to this for a while.”
And while Rubenstein, singer for alternative rock band Icarus the Owl, gears up for the road, the band also has some new music.
Icarus the Owl released “Rearm Circuits” on Dec. 1.
Creating the album took time. The band recorded it over a year ago, and mixing and mastering took some time.
“We were super-picky about every aspect,” he says. “There were no deadlines or due dates. Everything had to be perfect to us. We really got close to paralysis by analysis. But we finished it, and we were super-happy with the record.”
Icarus the Owl formed in 2009 and wasted no time in completing its debut album, “The Spotless Mind,” which sold over 10,000 copies.
Over 20 tours and two more selfreleased albums later, the band signed a deal with Will Swan of Dance Gavin Dance’s label, Blue Swan Records, in 2015.
The band released its Blue Swan debut, “Pilot Waves,” in October 2015, placing on the Billboard Heatseeker’s chart for the first time in its career.
“We treated this record like a blank slate,” he says. “We almost stopped being a band after our previous release, and it really reminded us of why we play music in the first place. (It’s) passion.”
Rubenstein says Icarus the Owl was put to the test both personally and musically during the making of “Rearm Circuits.”
From being on tour in Paris during the 2015 terrorist attacks to taking an unplanned seven-month hiatus, it’s been a long journey.
“So much has happened to us in the last two years. I am ecstatic that we made it out the other side with what I feel is easily our best record,” Rubenstein says.
The band has also released a couple of videos for its first two singles.
“We like to stay very involved in the video treatment,” he says. “It’s pretty amazing that the first two videos are out and people are listening to them.”