alternative

Icon For Hire

1 festival played →

Ariel Bloomer's hook-driven alt-rock project, funded and released independently by a famously devoted audience — electronics, big choruses, blunt lyrics.

Icon For Hire took shape in Decatur, Illinois, after Ariel Bloomer and Shawn Jump met in 2007 and began writing together. Drummer Adam Kronshagen and bassist Joshua Davis joined that November, completing the line-up that played the band's first show for a small crowd of family and friends. The name was chosen as a jab at the music industry itself.

The band released two independent EPs, a self-titled effort in 2008 and The Grey in 2009, before Davis left. The music combined alternative rock and pop-punk structures with electronic production and big choruses, its lyrics addressing mental health, self-doubt and personal struggle directly.

Tooth & Nail Records found the band through Myspace in 2009 and signed them the following year. Producers Rob Hawkins and Aaron Sprinkle helmed the debut Scripted, released in 2011, which reached the Billboard 200 and posted strong numbers on the hard rock, Christian and alternative charts, aided by the single 'Make a Move'. Bassist Josh Kincheloe joined that year.

A self-titled second album followed in 2013, after which the band split from Tooth & Nail. Since then Icon For Hire has released albums independently and through crowdfunding: You Can't Kill Us in 2016, Amorphous in 2021 and The Reckoning in 2022, each funded directly by the band's audience.

Read more

alternative