I read it somewhere before that Indie bands are bands on their own, without a record label but I've found out that almost ALL Indie Rock bands have the same sound (Clean tone guitars and lots of harmonics).

So, what is Indie Rock?

My second fav band are the Plain White T's.
(you know the song "Hey There Delilah"?)

This is an Indie Rock band. And they have a record label.

"welcome to plainwhitetsfans.com, the official fansite for the chicago indie rock band plain white t's. being the only fansite for plain white t's - pwtsfans will try and bring you the latest news before it has been posted anywhere else. with a wide range of media - photos, videos & more! enjoy your stay "
--link below

it stands for independant rock, even if they do have some kind of lable that helps them. They still do pretty much everything else alone. There are the unsigned bands, the indie bands, then there are the major lable bands.

a genre... i ? indie rock!...the kooks are amazing!

"independent" = indie.. so it's SUPPOSED to be bands who aren't on a record label.

bbuuuttt... the public has pretty much made it into a certain sound as you wrote about.

dinosaur jr, sonic youth, meat puppets. don't let yourself be confused with crap like death cab for a cutie that's not indie that's just crap

Genre, usually has a similar sound, different from rock or alternative rock, very similar to college radio/rock.

yeah i agree
i always think of indie as a certain genre