October 20, 2005 9:45

Test Icicles: 'Our Album Is About Musical Drug Dealing'

The band reveal the bizarre album sessions

Test Icicles have revealed the unexpected influences that have gone into their forthcoming debut ‘For Screening Purposes Only’.

Released on Halloween (October 31), the band explained that the record was inspired by 1999 gang movie ‘Thicker Than Water’, about a couple of drug dealers trying to make it big in the music biz.

“The whole album’s based on that film,” explained band member Rory Aggwelt, admitting they pinched their record’s title from it too.
“In the film whenever bad shit goes down, the legend: ‘For Screening Purposes Only’ appears on screen," he explained. "The first song on our record ‘Your Biggest Mistake’ is about that film. The album is like life imitating art. There’s a TV on the cover so that makes some sort of sense.”

However the Ice Cube movie is only the first in a list of unconventional influences, including Slayer DVDs, Metallica’s ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ documentary and popular internet community My Space, which all dominated the band’s sessions.

“Dev (Hynez) was on My Space all the time,” explained Sam Merrann. “I remember walking over to Dev’s room in the night and he wasn’t sleeping, he was just there in a dark room hunched over a computer. It was really funny.”

So not only did the band produce a fine debut, they made a lot of friends in the processes? Er, not quite.

“I was on My Space for 24-7,” recalls Hynez. “It was too much! In the end I deleted 1000 friends in France and quit my Live Journal."