Musically, when Flowers produces Icehouse and signs with Chrysalis what do you get? You get Primitive Man and an invitation from David Bowie to tour Holland and the UK. And that's how it was Australian music legend Iva Davies during the 1980s.

A man well known for his part in the genesis of Australia's popular music, his ability as a guitarist, singer and composer is also an Associate in Music Australia (Distinction) and a formally trained classical musician in oboe, piano and composition.

Iva Davies has 13 years extensive performing in Australasia, USA, Britain, Europe and Japan. He has worked with such numerous notable musicians as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, Yukahiro Takahasi, Elvis Costello, Simple Minds, Peter Tosh, Robert Palmer, XTC, Psychedelic Furs and many more.

Playing and supporting performers and bands in the music world who read like an A-list scroll of who’s who, Iva credits his grass roots approach to music to his upbringing in country New South Wales.

“Both my parents are musical. My mother was a very confident pianist. My father was always a very keen singer, most especially opera and light opera. When I grew up they were always involved in local choirs. We’re talking in the days before television there was a lot of the traditional idea of the family piano and them bringing their friends over.

“In fact my father was always a member of musical theatre groups. I can recall seeing him perform, so I had a great education into classical music as part of our lifestyle, but also vocal music. I guess I always assume everyone could sing,” Iva enthused on ABC radio.

Iva’s first serious musical training was during high school. His outstanding potential as an oboist won him the first of a number of consecutive scholarships to the NSW State Conservatorium of Music where he continued tertiary studies in the Performer’s Diploma Course. His parallel interest in popular music and ability as a guitarist singer/composer led, in 1977, to the formation of the Australian musical group Flowers, later known as Icehouse.

Iva explained to David Kennedy on the ABC Goldfields-Esperance Morning program, the band name had to be changed from Flowers to Icehouse due to copyright reasons.

“This is a situation that has happened to a few Australian bands and I’m sure happens to bands all over the place. We released our first album, which was called Icehouse and it was a success. It was such a success it generated a lot of international interest. We had record companies coming from all over the world, eventually we did sign to an international record company who wanted to release that first album,” he said.

Iva said a band name is like any business trading name, where a search must be done on the territory a band intends to travel and play. What Iva’s band didn’t realise was its original name had already been copyrighted.
“When we did a search in North America and England, we discovered that there were a number of people using Flowers as a trading name. We had no choice. We had to find another name, “ he explained.

Iva went on to say Australian rock group The Angels went through a carbon copy situation when they wanted to travel and play abroad.

“Our thinking was very simple. We were only known by 2 things in Australia; the name of the band and the name of the first album Icehouse. So we simply swapped them around. We started using Icehouse internationally,” Iva said.

For Sydney’s Millenium Eve Celebration, Iva was invited to Great Southern Land, his seminal song about the nature of Australia, into a 40 minute composition, drawing together composers and musicians from all over the world to produce a complex collaborative work. In the minutes before midnight when the clock turned from 1999 to 2000, the work, Great Southern Land, was performed on the northern forecourt of the Sydney Opera House.

It was broadcast internationally to between 3.5 and 4 billion television viewers and is recognised as an important part of Australia’s contribution to the vast international Millenium Eve celebration.

“It was something else. I must say I don’t think I had a grasp on what it was going to be like until the night itself. There was a huge amount of preparation that went into the piece and that’s what I was focused on for nearly a year. I don’t think it really struck me on what it was going to be like until I was standing there and it was all happening in the harbour. The real moment for me…was when we got to the end of it, the Lord Mayor handed me a glass of champagne and all the fireworks went off above my head. That’s when I really knew where I was,” he shared.

As leader and founder of Icehouse he achieved substantial success both locally and internationally over a period of twenty years. Icehouse produced, over that period, roughly thirty local hit songs including Hey Little Girl, Crazy, Electric Blue, Touch the Fire and Great Southern Land, a number of European and American Top 20 hits (including international Number 1s).

Album sales are presently approaching two million in Australasia alone.
Icehouse has also accumulated awards including nine multi-platinum recordings and multiple awards from ARIA (Australian Record Industry Association), APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association), ASCAP (USA Writers and Performers Association), Ampex Gold Record Awards, “Mo”, Variety Club and many others.
Iva said his favourite is Measure for Measure.

“I’m very fond of the songs of that as a recording and of getting the craft right Measure for Measure is probably one of the best produced albums and I don’t take credit for that. I give the credit to the 2 producers. The fact that it was one of the first 3 fully digital recordings ever made, it’s a beautiful recording,” he said.

He also spoke of the unexpected success of Icehouse’s 1988 release, Man of Colours.

“It was completely unexpected. We put a lot of work into the preceding album and an awful lot of touring work. I must say we really did do a lot of work playing and touring everywhere. I think because of that reason it had a very good place to start. I think Man of Colours was setup by sheer touring work," he said.

It sold 600,000 copies in Australia alone and more than likely clocked that figure as the last official count of the album was recorded at the peak of it’s career; 1988. A decade and a half later, Iva Davies now writes, composes and records soundtracks and music for the big and small screen. His most recent project was producing a soundtrack for The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant, which screened on Network 10.

“It was a huge job for me because of the deadlines involved. It was more than 2 hours of work in 11 weeks and that written and recorded. It’s like writing and recording 3 albums in 11 weeks,” he said laughing.

As a composer/songwriter, Iva Davies has written over one hundred published songs. In the film score area, he composed the soundtrack music for Russell Mulcahy’s thriller Razorback, which won an AFI nomination and an APRA Award in 1986. In 1985 the ballet score Boxes was commissioned by Sydney Dance Company and the resulting work conceived by Iva Davies, Robert Kretschmer and Graeme Murphy opened on 5th November 1985, and achieved local and international recognition. In 1995 Iva was once again invited by Graeme Murphy to create an original score in collaboration with Max Lambert for a new dance work titled BERLIN.

The new millenium heralds the emergence of Iva Davies as a major solo talent who, as his work matures and his musical palette expands, is looking beyond the neat landscape of sharp pop and finding new worlds of greater complexity, subtlety and innovation.

The not so icy times of Icehouse:
1980 Countdown Johnny O'Keefe Award for the Best New Group
1980 Ampex Gold Tape Award "Icehouse"
1982 Countdown Award - Most Popular Male Performer
1982 Ampex Gold Tape Award "Primitive Man"
1984 Ampex Gold Tape Award "Sidewalk"
1984 A.F.I. (Australian Film Institute) Awards Nominations for "Best Musical Score" for "Razorback"
1985 APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association) Most performed Music for Film "Razorback"
1987 ARIA (Australian Record Industry Award) Best Album "Man of Colours"
1987 ARIA (Australian Record Industry Award) Highest Selling Album 'Man of Colours"
1987 13th Annual "Mo Awards" (Australian Variety Artist Association) Nomination for "Best Rock Group"
1988 APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association) Most performed song "Electric Blue"
1989 ASCAP (American Performing Rights Association) Among the Most Performed songs "Electric Blue"
1990 13th Annual "Mo Awards" (Variety Club of Australia) Nomination for Best Rock Group
1990 Aria (Australian Record Industry Award) Final Nomination Best Cover "Code Blue"
1991 16TH Annual "Mo Awards" (Australian Variety Artist Association) Nomination for "Best Male Performer" - Iva Davies, for "Best Rock Group" – Icehouse, for "Rock Performance of the Year" – Icehouse
1991 Ampex Gold Tape Award "Code Blue"