Ducksicle isn't your typical alternative-rock band. In fact, they're far from it.

They're not looking to be the next new group on MTV's "TRL": they just want to make good music. And with solid bass rifts and catchy pop melodies that blend almost effortlessly with the stark lead vocals of Tony Conley, it's clear where their priorities lay.

"We take ourselves seriously as musicians, but it's not to the point where we need to carry our image through our music," bassist Erica Stevens said.

For a band that started only a year and a half ago, there seems to be an indestructible bond between the four of them. They're more like an old group of friends than band-mates as they finish each other's sentences and crack jokes that soon end in a series of laughter.

But their history is more complicated than what meets the eye.

In 2000, Conley met guitarist, Helmut Aretz, after he posted an ad in the "Metro Times," looking for someone to play music with. Aretz, who had moved to the U.S. from Germany only about two years prior to 2000, soon joined Conley in a duo they simply named, "Helmut & Tony."

It wasn't until 2003 that they met bassist, Stevens, followed by their original drummer, Georges Eou Serhal, in 2004 and started making music together under the name, Metro Gnomes.

But, as they soon found out, that name had already been taken and the group was left scrambling for ideas. So, when Stevens and Aretz went out drinking one night they came up with the name, Ducksicle. It seemed like the perfect fit as it enveloped the precise mix of humor and fun that the band carries throughout its music.

"Then we came up with all these random ideas," Stevens said."Like, you know, we could give away freezer pops and like, you know, all these random things associated with ducks and popsicles, and it seemed like fun."

And they've come a long way since they started getting air play from as far away as Australia, as well as the release of two CDs and a five track EP that just came out this past June. They've also welcomed a new addition to the band, drummer Erik Jensen, after Serhal left the band last December.

Jensen, a seasoned drummer who's played in a dozen industrial bands, that have spun the range from punk to "rockabilly," has taken Ducksicle's songs and given them a more diversified sound.

And, as Jensen points out, all four of them have varied musical tastes and backgrounds, making each song unique. For instance, Aretz's primary influence with his guitar is blues while Stevens sometimes finds rhythms for her bass lines from her sister's cheerleading days, which she says, ends up sounding like "a cheerleader that ate a lot of garlic or something."

For the rest of the band, Stevens is a vital source to them-- not only as they're bass player but also as their primary publicity agent. Since they started, she's been the one who's publicized their name to various radio stations and media outlets, giving them recognition outside of the metro Detroit area.

Conley points out that part of what makes Ducksicle different from other bands is that everything has been created within the band-- from their Web site (www.ducksicle.com) to the T-shirts that they make with their duck logo.

It's nice to have a say in how things happen, Stevens said.

With influences ranging from the B-52's to Sloan and The Dead Milkmen, they aren't interested in putting creating music specifically for the purpose of being on the radio.

Their songs, all written by Conley, are put together collaboratively by the band, as each member fine-tunes it in the recording studio.

"It's like putting pieces together that already exist and were written, like, independently and they just work together," said Aretz. "We rarely ever spend a long time in a group writing a song."

You can catch Ducksicle at Ypsilanti's Elbow Room on Sept. 10 and at the Midpoint Music Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio in late September.