As The Icarus Line‘s somewhat endearingly aloof front man Joe Cardamone describes it, the band’s latest release Slave Vows “kind of slithered out over the last couple months” and “didn’t really have an official release.” From his infamous association with celebrity gossip site/record label Buddyhead to his volatile onstage antics, Cardamone embodies the underground anti-establishment attitude that has defined rock ‘n’ roll since its inception. And with the psychedelic leanings and aggressive sounds of Slave Vows (actually released in August), The Icarus Line finds itself defying categorization and being even more unorthodox than ever before. As the band embarks on a brief West Coast tour, followed by a longer European tour, Cardamone talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the new album.

The Icarus Line has continuously been compared to Iggy and The Stooges, yet Slave Vows has a decidedly more psychedelic sound. Was that an intentional direction with this album?

I take my shirt off sometimes when I’m onstage, so I guess that makes people think we sound like The Stooges. I love The Stooges, but I don’t really think we sound like them that much, to be honest. We kind of maybe feel like them, that’s probably closer to what’s going on. So people will draw comparisons based on a feeling more than a sound a lot of the time, or at least in our case. A lot of the time finding parallels isn’t that easy. We’re not really a genre group, so sometimes they just don’t know what to make of it. Hey, I’ll take The Stooges. I don’t care.

It could be worse.

It could be way worse.

You played most of the guitar parts on this album. Was that a big difference in the writing and recording process with you handling the main guitar parts?

The only real difference with this record, more than previous records, is that my true intentions were actually committed to tape. I’ve always kind of relied on other people, or should I say delegated to them because I want everyone to share in the experience and have some sort of romantic ownership over the music because we don’t make a lot of money. By virtue of diplomacy, that’s one way to keep people involved and emotionally invested in a project if they feel like they’ve put in. But for this record there was no one around that could really do the job that I wanted done, and I was kind of sick of having to translate my ideas to people. So I just did it myself. I’m glad I did. I should have done it a long time ago, to tell you the truth.

Why is that?

I don’t know. Because I’ve just been kind of getting a Xeroxed version of my ideas for a long time, sometimes with desirable results and often with results that left me wanting. I’m pleased in the sense that exactly what I wanted to come out of the speakers is happening that way.

So that’s the case with the new album?

Yeah. That hasn’t always been the case.

Have you toured in support of this album yet or is that something that is coming up soon?

It’s coming up. We’ve played some shows and did a release celebration sort of thing and a couple of small festivals around the L.A. area. But we’re going to hit the road later in October. We’re doing the West Coast, then we’re going to the U.K. and Europe directly after that. We’re playing All Tomorrow’s Parties with Television, which will be cool. We just played a show with Primal Scream in L.A. We were actually the first and only American band that they ever took on tour in the U.K.

You’re also toured with bands such as A Perfect Circle and Killing Joke. How do these bands find out about you guys? Are they just fans of their own accord or do you have mutual friends that made those connections happen?

Fuck if I know, man. However anyone finds out about anything, I guess. Probably Facebook.

Although you don’t seem like the type of band to do very much licensing of your music, you do have an aggressive and confrontational aesthetic that might work well in certain settings. Has your music ever been used as entrance music for wrestlers/fighters or anything like that?

Not that I know of, but it should be. I like boxing. I was always a fan of Mike Tyson in the ’80s and thought he was fucking badass. I’ve even watched some Ultimate Fighting Championship that can be entertaining to a certain extent. And I even like Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and stuff.

After the tour dates you mentioned, what’s next for The Icarus Line?

We might try to record a new record over the holidays. We’re not going to be touring then, so we can just make a new record. I mean, we made Slave Vows in about a month from start to finish. So I don’t see why we wouldn’t just do another one.

Your former guitarist Aaron North joined Nine Inch Nails a few years ago, then just kind of disappeared. Do you have any insight into his whereabouts? Is there any chance he might return to The Icarus Line at some point?

I don’t know anything about anything.