The Icons were a former rock band created in St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 in 1989. At a time when the St. Louis music scene was dominated by cover band

Cover band

A cover band , is a band that plays mostly or exclusively cover songs. New or unknown bands often find the cover band format marketable for smaller gigs, and these bands may be known as a wedding band, party band and function band. A band whose covers consist mainly of songs that were chart hits is...

s, the Icons played all original songs, an eclectic mix of alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

, gothic rock

Gothic rock

Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...

, and funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

.

The Icons were composed of screenwriter James Gunn

James Gunn (film maker)

James Gunn is an American writer, filmmaker, actor, musician and cartoonist.-Career:Gunn began his career in filmmaking with Troma Entertainment, for whom he wrote and co-directed the critically acclaimed independent film Tromeo and Juliet...

 on vocals, Mike Meitner on bass, Jim Lang on guitar, and Dino English on drums. They were often joined by an additional percussionist, Paul Chickey, and a harmonica player, Greg Sharp. After the band disbanded in the mid-1990s, Gunn went on to become a successful film maker, and English plays in the popular Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

 cover band Dark Star Orchestra

Dark Star Orchestra

-References:* at the Internet Archive* - John Kadlecik's official website & personal pages**-External links:* , official website of Dark Star Orchestra* , official website of Dino English...

.

The Icons were mostly a regional act, playing around the Mid-West, but with some small national success after releasing their one album, Mom, We Like It Here on Earth (1994) on Ancient Lizard Records. They have had their music featured in the films and soundtracks for Tromeo and Juliet

Tromeo and Juliet

Tromeo and Juliet is a 1996 independent transgressive comedy film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet from Troma Entertainment...

 (1996) and The Low Life (1995).

In addition to the Icons, Gunn and Meitner played in the funk metal

Funk metal

Funk metal is a subgenre of funk rock that fuses elements of heavy metal and funk. Allmusic has claimed that "funk metal evolved in the mid-'80s when alternative bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Infectious Grooves, Mordred and Fishbone began playing the hybrid with a stronger...

band The Pods, Lang and English played in the band Janus Avenue, and Gunn and Lang played in the band M.O.M.