Incubus came in from years on the road to unwind, reflect and energize itself
By Chris Nixon
For The Union-Tribune
January 11, 2007
Give us time to shine / Even diamonds start as coal sings Incubus vocalist Brandon Boyd on “Diamonds and Coal,” a track from the band's sixth full-length studio album, “Light Grenades.” Boyd uses the metaphor to describe a burgeoning romantic relationship (and learning to love instead of squabbling), but the 30-year-old singer could be talking about himself.
After 15 years honing his songwriting skills and maintaining a career in music, Boyd fine-tuned his vocal skills to evolve into one of rock's best singers.
“We formed the band in 1991,” recalled Boyd recently, as he prepared to start the band's current tour in Vancouver, B.C. “We started playing concerts shortly after that, playing people's backyards and bar mitzvahs and whatever we could get. When we started, I didn't know what I was doing. I can say that with pure confidence. I just knew that I liked it, and I knew there was an energy there that was very infectious.”
Born in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas, Incubus fought and clawed for gigs until earning a major-label contract with Immortal/Epic Records (a subsidiary of Sony) in 1996. The band's third studio album, “Make Yourself” (1999), yielded a single in “Pardon Me,” catapulting the five-piece group into the national spotlight. Mixing crunching guitars by Mike Einziger, scratching and samples from turntablist Chris Kilmore and Boyd's riveting melodies, Incubus built a sound all its own: softer than Korn, harder than Pearl Jam.
After five albums, years on the road and a nasty contract renegotiation with Sony, Boyd, Einziger, Kilmore, drummer Jose Pasillas and bassist Ben Kenney were mentally and physically exhausted.
“As a young band we just stayed on the road for 10 years,” said Boyd. “We'd come off to make a record, rest for two weeks and then go right back onto the road. We wanted to build our career by keeping that kind of pace. After doing that for 10 years, we got pretty burnt out with all the traveling and everything.”
Boyd and company ended up taking a year off to reflect on the past and create the material that would develop into “Light Grenades”: “During the break, everybody had a chance to rest and reassess and unpack and get to know families and friends again.”
“We basically let our lives fall apart and put them back together again; all the stuff you have to go through as a human being,” continued Boyd, who spent many weekends with grandparents in Chula Vista growing up. “So when we went back to start writing this album, there was no shortage of things to write about because we actually had a chance to live on the other side again. Touring is an amazing experience, but it's very sheltered and bubble-esque. We needed to break out of that.”
From the opening notes of the trip-hop tune “Quicksand” to the all-out rocking title track, “Light Grenades” shows a young band hitting its stride.
“I feel like this is our strongest record, in that it sounds more multidimensional than it does chaotic,” admitted Boyd. “On our other albums, one of the dark qualities, but also one of the endearing qualities, about us is we're all over the place. We do a little bit of this, little bit of this. On this record, we are still doing that, but it's in more of a mature way. We've found a way to do it that's not scatterbrained.”
By surviving the trials and tribulations of life in the music business, Incubus has emerged as a more cohesive unit. “Over the years we've not only learned restraint, but we've actually learned how to craft a song and how to craft a memorable album and how to put on a memorable concert and how to do it in a sustainable fashion. (And ) In way so we can actually do it every night.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
