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" ...

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.