From Trickle to Torrent

The perks of being on the covers of pop culture and music magazines everywhere are many. Not the least of which, Mike Einziger, the guitarist for Incubus will tell you, are the free duds. "I don't spend too much time shopping for clothes," he recently said from a tour stop in Ohio about his fashion sense. "I get most of the things I wear from photo shoots…people bring us clothes and I just take them. That's pretty much it." Luckily he adds, the band's stylist and friend knows each of the member's tastes and chooses their clothes accordingly.
"Yeah," continues Mike about his recent spate of cover and publicity shoots that have graced the likes of Spin and the Synthesis magazines, "I've never gotten so much free stuff in my life."
That's what will happen to a band that's just come out with one of this fall's highly anticipated albums, Morning View, Incubus' third full-length on Sony / Epic / Immortal records. Especially because it follows their multi-platinum record Make Yourself, an album the band has been touring in support of for the better part of the last two and a half years.
These guys have been as busy as accountants in tax season. This past summer they went out on Moby's Area 1 Festival, a drastic change from their previous summer on the rap-metal heavy Ozzfest. "I had a lot of fun on both tours, it just happened to be that the Area 1 was much more in tune with my personal tastes," Mike says of the nuances of being on a more eclectic bill with the likes of Outkast, Paul Oakenfold, and The Orb, as opposed to dunderheads like Methods Of Mayhem and Static X.
"We're big fans of The Roots, so getting to play with them every day was really fun. Outkast was amazing. All the guys in their crew and Dre [Andre Benjamin, Outkast], they would come hang out with us and watch us sometimes. No egos, just great guys, especially Moby," he adds, speaking of the tour's patriarch and organizer, who hand picked the acts and sandwiched Incubus, a patently straightforward rock group, in between these more hip-hop or electronica acts. It seems he expected them to be more of "the rock band" bringing all the chicks backstage.
"He'd always wander into our dressing room and say 'Where's the rock 'n' roll party?' and we'd be like 'Man, you picked the wrong band for that." Which isn't to say the L.A. quintet doesn't know how to unwind. "We're pretty mellow guys, so we like to party…but we definitely don't party as hard as some of the bands on the Ozzfest, that's for sure."
That mellow vibe comes across on their new record, one that was recorded as frontman / heartthrob Brandon Boyd describes, "Free from that creepy dentist's office vibe which seems to permeate every recording studio." The band opted instead to rent out a palatial beachfront Malibu home and set up recording equipment in the living room where they could serenely watch the sun come up and shine down on the Pacific Ocean waves - hence the title Morning View. The references that critics have made to this album being "more flowing" than previous efforts S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and Make Yourself is one Mike finds valid.
"That's how I would explain it too." He elaborates: "S.C.I.E.N.C.E. to me is like an experiment in what to do, and almost what not to do. That was the first record we made after we got a record deal and at that point we hadn't traveled the world yet, we hadn't done many of the things we did by the time we did Make Yourself. It's like S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was a cool record and there were some interesting things on it but in all honesty when I listen to it, it makes me cringe."
Don't think that Incubus is at all ashamed of anything they've done. Their rise to rock stardom has been a very gradual one, being that the band formed almost ten years ago when childhood friends Boyd and Einziger started jamming together with drummer Jose Pasillas, eventually tapping bassist Dirk Lance to join them along with DJ Kilmore on turntables a bit later. Fame has its drawbacks, and though the band has achieved this new level of success there is a new pain that must be dealt with.
"We've always had kids come up to us at the mall or the airport or wherever, the only noticeable difference is now these fucking eBay people show up at every show and pretend like they're fans and want us to sign all these magazine covers and glossy photos that they're just going to sell. So it's gotten to the point that when people bring those up, I just don't sign them. They follow you around and then they try and guilt you into signing 'Well, Tom Cruise wasn't too cool to sign my pictures.' And you're like 'Well, I'm not Tom Cruise."
Despite this apparent bummer, the white-man's-afro-sporting Einziger explains that most of the experiences he's had dealing with people as a member of the platinum-selling Incubus is pleasant. Especially when you take your new pets, two tiny Yorkshire terriers named Henry and Oliver, out of their carrying cases on an airplane. "You're not supposed to take them out because it's against the law but the stewardesses always freak out over how cute they are. So I'll just get them out and nobody will really say anything." Little did Mike know on one occasion that the dog wasn't accustomed to such excitement and had a weak bladder. "One time I was just sitting there holding the dog up on my chest and I just feel this blanket of warmth all over me and I was like 'Oh my god, please help me!' and my girlfriend grabbed the dog while I went to the bathroom and changed my T-shirt. Luckily I had an extra shirt with me."
Even though it looks as though Incubus is going to be busy as hell touring for this record for the foreseeable future, Mike looks forward to getting home someday to record a funk album. "Nothing that will get in the way of the band" he says, but something different just to have fun with. "Just all good, old-school funk music. No singing or anything probably." He describes it with noticeable passion, "Just average white band style…with, like, flava." There is a possibility something could be released on the label, and also that band-mate Boyd could do some back-up vocals on the record, but it's all up in the air, as yet. "We'll see. It just depends on how it comes out." So for now one would have to hope, for all the funk-loving Incubus fans out there, that it comes out well.

Bookmark: