Incubus Needs a Vacation

Dear Sony Music,

I am writing you today in regards to the band Incubus. On a recent stop in Northern California during this summers Ozzfest tour I spent some time with Michael and Brandon. While, as you will see below, they answered all of my questions in a concise and intelligent manner, these guys really need a vacation. Granted, maybe it was the heat (it was about 95 degrees) but, although I am not a expert in the medical field, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these guys need some time off the bus and some time kicking it on a beach with an umbrella and some hot little waitresses to provide both a steady flow of cocktails and eye candy.

The other guys looked tired too. They were walking around the bus like zombies. Don’t you like them — what’s wrong with you? You sign them and then you send them away — why would you do that? Did they do something wrong? The record is Platinum now — don’t you think it’s time they took a break? Whatever they did they probably didn’t mean it. It was probably an accident.

With quotes like "We are all kind of fried right now since it is the end of the tour. We can’t wait to get home, I can almost see home if I stand on the top of the bus" and "actually most of this tour has been in the rain. It has rained like 75 percent of the shows. Hot, humid rain; lightening; tornadoes in some places." This is not good people, I don’t see how you people can sleep at night. Maybe I’m the first person to bring this to your attention — I can only hope that is the case.

Mike, usually his spry self — was looking sleepy and barely said anything at all about his passion for Bjork. Brandon just sat in a daze — staring out of the window, gazing at the other busses while toying with his new laptop and occasionally yawning.

Sure, the accommodations you’ve fixed them with for the road are nice — nice bus, Sega Dreamcast, nice TV — everything looks really comfortable, but what about morale? What about good meals and rest?

This lack of time off did not affect their performance in any way — but these guys really need some freakin’ time off.

Below is a transcription from my conversation with Mike Einziger and Brandon Boyd.

Mike: It’s got six songs, acoustic versions of "Pardon Me," "Stellar," "Make Yourself," and a live version of "Favorite Things" and a live version of "Pardon Me" as well, and a song called "Crowded Elevator" which was recorded at the same time Make Yourself was recorded. It was originally meant to be on that album but we just saved it to use for something else, it was on the Scream 3 soundtrack too.

Mike: Well it was done like a year ago. It was done while we were doing Make Yourself. Loud Records, which is primarily a hip hop label, said they had this idea to put a compellation together with hip hop artists and rock artists combining their talents to do rock infused versions of their hip hop material. So we had a list of songs to choose from, we were actually one of the first ones to get involved in it, so we picked the "Still Not a Player Song" by Big Punisher primarily because Brandon is not much of a rapper and we wanted to maintain the integrity of the original song. So the song had a lot of parts to it, like singing and back up vocals and stuff so what we did was take the original vocal tracks laid down by Big Punisher — his rapping parts — we kept that and then we just totally twisted the music around and we sang all the vocal parts, the choruses. So we basically did a remix and it’s really cool, it has kind of a drum and bass funky, heavy type feel to it. It’s funny too because they had told us originally when we had done it that it wasn’t heavy enough and we were like "fuck that." But, I guess now we are doing well, at the time we weren’t, we had sold maybe 100,000 records or something, but now it’s like "oh yeah this song is great do what ever you want." But whatever, it was a fun project to do.

Mike: Not as far as we know. Well, actually I take that back, a couple of our songs are going to be in the new Adam Sandler movie Little Nicky, "Stellar" and "Pardon Me" are going to be in it so we are pretty excited about that. That will be cool, I think the next thing we’ll really embark upon will be our next record, we probably won’t start working on that until next year, maybe spring or even summer depending on how long we choose to work behind Make Yourself, if things keep going well we will just keep working.

Mike: Well, we don’t have it planned, I’m sure we will. We don’t know exactly what single it will be yet, but "Stellar" is doing really, really well so we are just going to keep working it until it’s time. That’s kind of what we did with "Pardon Me" as well. We didn’t think "Pardon Me" was going to do as well as it did.

Mike: Yeah, slowly… but it did. The same thing kind of happened with "Stellar". You know "Stellar" obviously had a good push from the beginning just because it was on top of the success of "Pardon Me." But any song that is going to do well has to stand on its own legs. And it has taken some time, but it has gradually moved up the chart position every week and I think it is up to number four now. So I can’t be happier about it.

Mike: I mean it is a trip, but everything that has happened to us has happened so gradually and slowly that I don’t really trip out until I step back and think "look where we were two years ago, look where we were nine years ago when we started the band." That is the biggest trip of all, but it has been an uphill struggle the whole way. I mean we have just been working, not that it hasn’t been fun, it has been great but it has just been very, very hard work and we will continue the legacy.

Mike: Hot, actually most of this tour has been in the rain. It has rained like 75 percent of the shows. Hot, humid rain; lightening; tornadoes in some places.

Mike: Actually, we were in Cincinnati and there was a crazy thunder storm. I stuck my head out the window to check out some of the lightening and I was leaning against the windowsill and a huge bolt of lightening came and made the loudest sound I think I have ever heard. It shocked me through the windowsill. I could taste it in my mouth, it was really bizarre — it scared the shit out of me.

Mike: No, nothing like that. I just didn’t expect that at all, it was just this huge fork that spread out over the entire sky and one little branch of it just came out. It must have hit the building or something. I felt the energy of it, it was so scary but it was cool. I’m fascinated by storms like lightening and tornadoes. Have been ever since I was a little kid.

Mike: Yeah.

Mike: Yeah, but we kind of prefer the Playstation. "Tony Hawk Pro Skater," "Tiger Woods Golf," a couple of the guys are really into "FIFA Soccer."

Mike: A lot of the bands are good, but a lot of them sound the same to me — not to name any specifics. It’s just the more you hear people cursing and stuff like that… but you know — whatever. All the bands on tour have been really cool, we haven’t encountered any attitudes or stuff like that. It’s cool too because when we are playing a lot of other bands come over and watch us, so it’s a good feeling.

Mike: Actually, just recently I’ve been listening to the new Fiona Apple album. It came out a while ago and I listened to it a bit then, but just recently I started to listen to it a lot. It’s an amazing record, it’s another one that you have to get into. But, just the production and all the instrumentation and all of the string arrangements on it are just brilliant.

Mike: I haven’t. I’ve been kind of like a hermit because it is just so hot, so I haven’t really gone anywhere — I just sit on the bus most of the time.

Mike: I don’t know, have any of you bought anything weird this summer? [to Brandon]

Brandon: Bought a new computer, but that’s not really weird. PowerBook.

Mike: Actually we bought Pro Tools. It’s in racks and we roll it into hotel rooms and dressing rooms. It’s cool, we are still learning how to run the thing, it’s pretty in-depth. I don’t know, it’s just a really cool thing and we are going to start working on newer material. We are pretty far off from working on the new album, but that shit creeps up on you really fast.

Yeah, we have been on tour pretty much solid since our album came out last October. Right now this is our 15^th week on tour straight and we have a month vacation when we get home, so we are all kind of fried right now since it is the end of the tour. We can’t wait to get home, I can almost see home if I stand on the top of the bus.

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