IKE BIO 2008
It took the near-disintegration of their band and personal relationships for John Faye and Joann Schmidt, the last ones standing in IKE, to make the most compelling record of their career. Where To Begin, their new 14-song album, puts a magnifying glass to the ups and downs of staying together and starting over...

Where to begin?
Over the span of 7 years, the members of IKE created super-melodic pop rock revelations, releasing 4 full-length albums and a DVD, receiving airplay on major radio stations, and generating the kinds of opportunities usually relegated to major-label acts. On the strength of the powerhouse vocals and top-shelf song writing of front man John Faye, himself the former leader of a major-label band (The Caulfields), IKE quickly ascended to the upper echelons of Philadelphia's burgeoning rock scene. The quartet, which featured Faye, guitarist Cliff Hillis, drummer Dave Anthony, and bassist Joann Schmidt began as The John Faye Power Trip, touring relentlessly for nearly 3 years in support of Faye's 1999 solo album of the same name. Sharing stages with REM, Matthew Sweet, and Better Than Ezra, the group gelled into something far beyond its original conceit of a solo artist and a backing band. While recording new material in 2002, the foursome renamed the band IKE and went on a rampage of creativity, releasing Parallel Universe in 2003, Bumper Sticker Wisdom (DVD) in 2004, and In Real Life in late 2005. Then things got really interesting.

The highs are high; the lows are oh so low...
IKE was riding high at the start of 2006, with their hometown anthem "Into Philadelphia" (which was really a rock lullaby written for Faye's newborn son) in regular rotation on mainstream radio giant WMMR and at the home games of seemingly every pro sports team in town. Opening stints for artists ranging from arena legends Bon Jovi to Elephant Six-ers Elf Power and the "Best of Style" award from Philadelphia Style Magazine followed. The band found itself on just about every major concert stage in the city and even managed to record a stellar live album, tailored after their "Story Tellers"-style Living Room shows. By all outward appearances, life was good. Internally though, trouble was brewing. Guitarist Cliff Hillis, who tragically lost both his parents within months of each other in early '06 began to re-assess his personal and musical goals and started to slowly withdraw from the band. "I don't blame Cliff at all for his decision; if ever a there was a time for him to take stock, that was it," says Faye, "but there was a long time when we weren't the best communicators with each other and no one knew what anyone was thinking. He would never want to be the one to let us down, so I think he stayed a lot longer than maybe he should have at that point." Not wanting to let the band down was also on the minds of the other members of IKE. Behind the scenes, Faye was struggling with the balance of life as a working musician and as a family man with two kids, while Schmidt and Anthony, the group's crack rhythm section, were doing their best not to let their own 3-year off-stage relationship affect the band.
But change was inevitable.

Wish me well, break the silence...
Faye called a band meeting after a gig in early December of '06 and after months of unreturned phone calls, pent up frustration, and speculation, the four friends were seated across from each other in a diner finally talking to each other. The band parted ways with Hillis amicably that night. "It went about as smoothly as anyone could have hoped," Faye states flatly. "I think it was just a huge relief for everyone. I think deep down we all knew it was the right thing." What Faye didn't know that night is that Schmidt and Anthony had ended their relationship that same day and that Anthony would soon announce his plans to leave IKE and relocate to Atlanta. "That was really mind-boggling - the same four people for all those years and then BOOM, half the band is gone in the course of just a few days. You couldn't help but wonder if that was it."

Maybe this is where we belong...
Taking nothing for granted, Faye had to ask Schmidt point blank if she felt she wanted to continue with IKE. There was no hesitation in the response; musical soul mates for seven years, including a two-and-a-half-year stint pulling double duty with Philly indie rock darlings The Jane Anchor, they had been through too much, both together and separately, to give up now. Faye had started his professional music career on a major label with 90's alt-rockers The Caulfields, weathering the rough break-up of that band, after having scored the Top-40 Modern Rock hit "Devil's Diary" and touring the world over. Schmidt got her start slugging it out in Philly clubs with artists like Cory and Nancy Falkow, even playing drums in the all-female Dirty Triplets. "The only choice for us is to keep growing," offers Schmidt. Quelling long-time fans' concerns about whether IKE could continue without two of its founding members, the band recruited lead guitarist Brett Talley of the northeast Philly band Outset and drummer Tom Kristich of power pop veterans The Jellybricks from Harrisburg, PA. "The chemistry was there from the get-go with both Brett and Tom because they were our friends first, which was a huge relief. If we had to actually put ads up on Craig's List and go through auditioning people we would kill ourselves," laughs Faye.

Stick to your guns and explode...
With IKE back in business, it was time to focus on making an album out of the songs Faye had written over the course of the band's roller
coaster year. Many of the tunes on Where To Begin started out as demos Faye was recording in his dining room during the months leading up
to the original lineup's demise. A loose, home made quality pervades songs like "11:11" and "Late Bloomer," whose narrators contemplate the
end of a relationship and the start of a second act - virtually all the tracks from these demos, including Faye's multi-layered vocal simulations
of flutes and theremins remain intact. With Faye doing much of the ground work ahead of time at home, the band spent a mere 8 days in the
studio to complete tracking for the album. Loathe to call it a "concept album," Faye admits there are some obvious thematic and musical
threads that run through the record, even delivering the line "it's a song-cycle road we're on" in the album's optimistic opener
"The End Of The Rope." The raw emotion of tracks like "White Of My Eyes," "A Curse Is Not Enough," and the wistful "Carried Away" digs
in the dirt of love's complexities, while the hard-hitting radio single "We Like Sugar," the murderous "The Way I See It," the subtly political
"Message Of Love," and the snarky "Say, Luvva" (an ode to faked pleasure and the classic struggle of man vs. machine) show IKE's
bitingly playful side. The classic pop melodicism of "Atomic Rose," "What I See In You," "Damage Control," and the closing title track show
Faye at his best, combining soaring vocals, big hooks, and lyrics that are at once confrontational and confessional. Ever youthful,
ever optimistic, Faye and Schmidt show no sign of giving up, slowing down, or losing validity, with an album that acknowledges how hard
it can be to keep going and rebuild what's broken, while looking forward to the limitless possibility of things to come.

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IKE BIO 2005
We overdosed on modern reality… so get your ghost on and see what you want to see.
The opening lines from the title track of IKE's second full-length CD In Real Life find the Philadelphia-based indie rockers diving head first into the album's core premise: in a world where fabrication is constantly portrayed as truth, why not create your own reality? Themes of escape, self-delusion, and emotional exile, pervade the record's ten songs, in which characters, faced with their demons, long to "slip away… straight into the belly of a dream." According to IKE's songwriter and frontman John Faye, "This record is the sound of the four of us being dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood, something we've all been putting off for a very long time. So much has happened in our personal lives since our last album, and the songs reflect that." That 'last album,' 2003's Parallel Universe, was a stunning debut which consummated the musical courtship that Faye, guitarist Cliff Hillis, bassist Joann Schmidt, and drummer Dave Anthony began during the singer's John Faye Power Trip solo project. IKE achieved impressive success for an independent act, selling nearly 5000 copies of Parallel Universe and scoring the regional radio hit "Deathbed (Na, Na, Na)." But, as with most independently released albums, the promotion and touring budget eventually ran out and Faye was back to writing songs for another record (a well-received DVD Bumper Sticker Wisdom kept fans happy in 2004). It was during this period that the A-word seemed to keep creeping into the band's lives. Faye became a father for the second time and even took a side gig teaching songwriting at Drexel University, Hillis took out his first mortgage on a house, and Schmidt and Anthony moved in together. "A lot of what we've experienced recently is stuff almost everybody goes through, but when you throw all those things in with trying to be a functioning rock band, essentially, it becomes a breeding ground for drama. We used to be 'the band in the bubble' living in a very insular world, then all of a sudden we had to grow up. I think we all want that feeling of the band being our escape hatch again" laughs Faye.

Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Phil Nicolo at Studio Four, In Real Life is the first album IKE stayed home to make, opting not to record in Atlanta, GA as they had done in the past with producers Don McCollister and Butch Walker. Again, reflecting the circumstances of their personal lives, the record took over a year to complete, as the quartet juggled schedules and priorities, converging in the studio only when time and finances allowed. As with the band's past two projects, IKE's most loyal fans donated money to partially fund the recording. Despite the encouraging fan support, the band lacked focus at first. "I think we just had so much on all our plates for a while," Faye states flatly, referring to the heavy 2004 promotional schedules of both Hillis' solo project and The Jane Anchor, in which he, Schmidt, and Anthony perform with Philly songwriter Kara Lafty. Both acts had albums out, and with IKE on the tail end of promoting both Parallel Universe and Bumper Sticker Wisdom, it was going to take some extra motivation to get the band back into a state of forward motion. That motivation came in the form of new songs. In Faye's words: "I think the less we were concerned about being a band, and the less time I had at home to write, the more interesting things became in my subconscious. Eventually, that stuff all comes pouring out, whether you have time for it or not." True enough. Songs like "Beautiful Thing" (which makes the distinction between spirituality and religion), the dreamy "Red" (which Faye claims was started in his sleep), and the uber-hooky "Into Philadelphia" (in which he addresses his newborn son) seem to come from a place other than the waking mind. "Just A Moment" and "I Knew You When" serve as the band's strongest somebody-done-somebody-wrong songs to date. To-the-point lyrics like "Just try to break my heart, I dare you" seem to call for a direct approach to recording and the band credits producer Nicolo with keeping the sporadic sessions moving quickly, with little concern for over-thinking and plenty of attention to keeping the vibe positive. "Phil recognized something up front that we didn't necessarily have the confidence to presume - this band can play, and he used the fact that we play so well together to insist we track almost all the songs live with all of us in the room together" Faye recalls. Taking the old-school approach, the band splurged for 2-inch tape and the tracks never once saw the inside of a Pro Tools program during recording - Nicolo was adamant about that. IKE took as inspiration those classic albums where the "production" is the sound of the band plugging in and just nailing their songs; records like This Year's Model, Outlandos d' Amour, and even Back In Black, are the sonic touchstones of I.R.L.'s straightforward approach.

In the face of their real-life circumstances, the four band mates retain a stubborn sort of optimism, one that is well-versed in the survival mechanisms needed in a world where nothing is as it seems. And who is to say that the world isn't all in your head?