Within 24 hours of interviewing Milwaukee concept band The Singing Flowers, I bought a bouquet of spider mums from the supermarket, ate two packages of Chower's violet candy and scoured three liquor stores in search of dandelion wine.

"You can't escape the flowers," band member Nicholas Frank told me during our interview, and he was right. Flowers are everywhere, and after an evening of drinking beer and talking about the particulars of petals with this lush new bunch of music-makers, I was officially flora loca.

And apparently, I am not alone in my newfound garden lust. According to co-Flower Jennifer Geigel, Rutgers University recently conducted a study concluding that 99% of all people like flowers. "One percent are either allergic to or afraid of carnivorous flowers like the Venus Fly Trap," expounds Geigel. "I'm a vegetarian," says Frank.

At this point, I urge you to buckle your daisy-patterned seatbelt, and get ready for a raucous ride down She Loves Me Not Lane. And be careful, because remember, you simply can't escape The Flowers ...

OMC: How many songs about flowers do you have?

Jennifer: We have 70-odd songs, and most are directly about flowers. We do, however, leave room for metaphor.

Nicholas: At first, I thought it would be limiting to sing songs only about flowers, but it turned out to be freeing. There is great potential in the horticultural realm.

Jennifer: Actually, we're kind of like botanical artists who paint pictures of flowers their whole lives.

Nicholas: But we're far less boring.

OMC: Tell me the names of some of your flower songs and some of your favorite lyrics?

Nicholas: "Beer is a Flower," "The Language of Flowers," "Stay in My Vase" ...

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Jennifer: "Lily," "Lonesome Lily," "Petunia," "Morning Glory" ...

Mike: "Fertilizer" ...

Jennifer: My favorite line is from Nick's song "Beer is a Flower." It goes: "I am a flower, I need water, the clouds have the power" ... That is so true!

Mike: I like all the ooh ooh ooh's in our songs.

OMC: In your song "Lily," there's a line "The gold sunrise upon the hill illuminates the lily's will." What is the "lily's will?"

Jennifer: That song is about a lily who has a crush on a gardener. You can imagine that happens a lot: this nice guy comes to take care of you every day, and often he is operating heavy machinery and has his shirt off. What flower wouldn't love that?

OMC: How would you describe your band?

Jennifer: Three guitars, three voices. (The voices and guitars belong to: Jennifer "Jasmine" Geigel, Nicholas "Nicky Nasturtium" Frank, and Mike Mikulay, aka M. Vermiculite.)

OMC: What's a Nasturtium?

Nicholas: It's an edible flower. It has a piquant and peppery sort of flavor that makes a nice addition to your salad.

OMC: If The Singing Flowers had a tagline, what would it be?

Nicholas: "Songs That Smell Good" ... Or "Songs That Sound Good But Smell Even Better" ... Or "Songs That Bathe Fans in a Bouquet of Floral Beauty."

Mike: Those are all pretty solid.

OMC: I notice the three of you are wearing very similar floral T-shirts. Why?

Jennifer: This is just our leisurewear. We are planning an entire floral line.

Mike: My mom gave me my shirt. I like it. It has glittery finches and poppies on it.

Nicholas: My roommate is a huge T-shirt collector and I borrowed this one.

OMC: So how did the band start?

Mike: Nick and Jennifer approached me with a secret proposition. They said, "Meet us at this place, and bring your guitar and your beautiful tenor-boy voice."

Jennifer: We knew that we all loved flowers and it just came together.

Nicholas: The idea actually came into our heads fully formed and simultaneously. We knew a bunch of flower songs were already out there, and we were going to cover them. Then we decided to scrap that idea, and write our own.

OMC: Are there any flowers that you don't like?

Jennifer: I have a visceral dislike for mums and carnations.

OMC: Why?

Jennifer: Carnations are stinky, and there's no escaping homecoming and funeral connotations with mums. We are really trying to change the connotations of some flowers through our music. Like the tulip. Tulips have an amazing history, but people only think of some guy with a ukulele when they think of tulip songs. I mean, we like Tiny Tim, but ...

Nicholas: The striations on tulips come from a virus, and the viruses are actually cultivated along with the plants.

OMC: So can you identify every flower by sight?

Nicholas: Yeah, we can. Or we can just make something up. Either way.

Jennifer: People should feel free to come to us with all of their gardening questions.

OMC: So you three must have amazing gardens?

Nicholas: My dad has the greenest thumb I've ever seen. I got none of that, so I put it into my music.

Mike: I just had a poinsettia die.

Jennifer: I like to call myself a "hands-off" gardener. I'm letting God tend to my garden.

OMC: Tell me about your shows. I heard you wear matching floral outfits on stage?

Jennifer: We all have matching floral suitcases full of flowers on stage with us. We try to have as many flowers as possible involved in our show. You never realize how many flowers are out there until you go shopping for clothes at a thrift store. You really can't stop the flowers. They are transcendent. And they aren't from any one era. You can buy a floral dress from the 1930s, or one from right now. They never go out of style.

Mike: I'm the "button-down guy." I don't really wear flower clothes. But I do wear a boutonniere to shows.

Nicholas: We really appreciate Mike's subtlety. And I think he wears flowered underwear.

Mike: Yes, 60% of my underwear has flowers on it.

OMC: Recently, I watched the film "Harold and Maude" and Maude asked Harold, "If you could be a flower, which flower would you be?" How would you answer that same question?

Nicholas: Foxglove. It's both a poison and a cure.

Jennifer: A chicory flower. It's blue and wild.

Mike: A hop flower, so I could be immersed in beer.

OMC: How would you describe your shows?

Nicholas: Just write down the word "festooned."

OMC: How does your band feel about playing out?

Jennifer: As a new band, we didn't know where we wanted to play and we didn't want to grovel for an opening spot, so we decided to "play-in" instead of "play-out." I converted my storefront into "Jasmine's Juke Joint" and each of us invited a group of people to come over. We did a bunch of floral songs on a stage that we found earlier that day in the street.

Nicholas: And we made cupcakes with flowers on them and sold them for $1 or a kiss.

Jennifer: The whole place was decked out in flowers.

Mike: It was festooned.

OMC: What are your aspirations as a band?

Mike: To get on The Ed Sullivan Show and to grow old together.

Jennifer: To be the house band at The Domes. I hope the citizens of Milwaukee will donate The Domes to us someday. I also hope every American will plant 4,000 flowers during their lifetime.

Nicholas: I want to see flowers growing on the moon by the time I'm dead.

OMC: All flower-talk aside, your songs are really pretty and the harmonies are superb.

Jennifer: All of our songs are three-part harmonies.

Nick: The entire point of the band was really to sing harmony. When I hear harmony, I melt. Nothing gives us more pleasure than three-part harmonies. It melts our kneecaps.

OMC: Who is the leader of your band?

Jennifer: We don't have a leader. Flowers don't operate that way.

OMC: If you could open for any band, living or dead, who would it be?

Nicholas: The International Submarine Band.

Jennifer: Bill Monroe at a County Fair or The Carter Family in a one-room schoolhouse in the Ozarks.

Mike: Cheap Trick.

OMC: What Milwaukee bands do you get into?

Jennifer: The F'n Bobcats and Bam Bam.

Nicholas: Competitorr.

Mike: Am I the only one who likes The Mosleys? (Weird silence, and then ... )

Nicholas: Fred and Ethel are great too. I saw them at Quarters a while back, and I didn't really get into them until they started doing Led Zeppelin covers.

OMC: You have a show coming up Thurs., Feb. 28 at Quarters (8:30 p.m.). What can we expect?

Jennifer: We're playing with the F'n Bobcats, and if you wear flowers, the kisses are free.

Nicholas: We'll shower you with flowers if you wear flowers.

Jennifer: We'll festoon you with flowers.

OMC: Is there anything else you want to say to Milwaukee?

Nicholas: Just remember this: you don't have to know what a flower is called to know how nice it smells.

Visit The Singing Flowers online here.