As I was searching for some Omarion updates for you all -- I came across a very interesting interview with J. Que -- from the super talented songwriting team, The Clutch [the people that wrote “Ice Box“]. In the interview, he talks about different projects that he helped write on and of course he talked about how “Ice Box<” came about. I only posted the part about Omarion though. To read what else he had to say about other artists that they worked with, CLICK HERE.

SE (Seven): You have a point there. So now, let's talk about the current projects. You co-wrote Omarion's new single "Icebox" along with the rest of The Clutch family. It's been getting great response from radio as well as online. Many people are saying that that song is what Omarion needs to take him to the next level. Tell us how that song came about.

J. Que: Umm, "Icebox" was actually real cool because Omarion's project was a project that we wanted to get on, but just dealing with some scheduling conflicts we were never really able to put it together. But, my little brother in crime, Eric Hudson, ended up getting the "Entourage" record, so we were really happy and excited for him about that. But we got a call from Sony, asking if we would be able to go in with Tim to do a record. And, you know the days they were trying to schedule it for just happened to be like two or three days when we weren't in session.

So we were like "Yeah, you get us all there and we'll mash out." Of course Keri is already signed to Tim, so were like, "Whatever needs to happen...we're in." So we get out to L.A. and I remember because the day of the first session was my last day in session out in L.A. so I was double booked. I ended up getting out of my session pretty late, but [I] got over to the studio and O [Omarion] was already there and he had two tracks that had come from Tim's camp.

He played one for me and I was like "I'm not really crazy about that one." And then he played me another track, which immediately caught my attention because it was definitely darker and I'm kind of into darker music. And that ended up being the "Icebox" track.

So we sat around for a second and Omarion's absolutely full of ideas. So he's throwing ideas out, and he ended up saying he wants to write a song called "Cold." I wasn't necessarily crazy about calling anything cold because I told him, at the end of the day, I don't think people are going to flip [his] CD over, see a title called "Cold" and be like "That's my shit, I got to find out what that's about." I'm like that name's just not interesting enough.

So we messed around and chopped that up and I listened to the track a little bit more and O screams at me "What about 'Icebox'? What about 'Icebox'?" I was like "What about icebox?" He was like, "I mean for the title of the song." I was like "Hell naw, nigga that aint hot!"

SE (Seven): (laughs)

J. Que: And then he was like "Naw, naw I think you said it had to look cool on a piece of paper. It has to look great. I think it looks great written down." So I went back to where he was, and we looked at it written down and I was like "You know what, nigga I aint even mad. It does look good on a piece of paper." So I was like, "Cool, just give me a second." And I turned up the track real loud and sat there and bounced to it for second, and maybe two minutes later...a minute and a half later I was just screaming "I got this icebox where my heart used to be, I got this icebox where my heart used to be." And he was like "I like that."

So I was like, "Cool we'll mess with that as the hook." And then, I sat down and threw a couple of melodies and ideas at him, about three of them, and we ended up going back to the very first one that I threw at him which was [the melody to].... (Singing) "Girl I really want work this out, I'm tired of fighting." And he was like "I liked that." And I was like "Well alright, let's figure out what we're talking about."

He and I talked for a second and ended up coming up with the idea of being cold because I still liked his idea about the cold thing because the record felt really moving. And so I was like "What makes cold make sense... with icebox and having an icebox where my heart used to be?" And then I was like, what's the point when every dude...or not just every dude, but every person gets to that point in their life when they're just not the same? They've kind of become more guarded, and colder in a sense.

I'm speaking for a dude...that's all I really speak for; you get to the point where you kind of open up and you give everything to a girl. And it seems like the first girl you seem to give everything to, just really does a number on you. I mean, just to be very frank with it, she fucks you up. You know you put it out there on some "I like you, I'll do anything for you," and she's like "Alright cool, you're a sucker. " And then you get fucked over. And then after that, you're just a little more harsher towards everyone you deal with.

SE (Seven): Right.

J. Que: So we did the B-section and the hook was done. I started writing the B-section and I ran it by him. And he had one or two suggestions if I could just change this up a little bit, that up a little bit. We did that. We started recording. I purposely didn't write it all because I know what the rest of the crew brings to the table. We've done enough records to know that it's going to be better with everybody involved than it would be with just me just doing it.

So they got there...I played it for them. They were like "I got it." They ran out the room while we were recording and came right back in the room immediately...like it couldn't have been twenty minutes, came back in the room and were like "Alright, this is it," and sang it down. I was like "Nigga, that's it." So they went on and sent Omarion home, and I jumped in the booth and I did the demo and O came back the next day and we just started cutting it.

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