Taking the time to incubate

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.

Dead Rock West

Frank Lee Drennen takes another career twist with a new band

By Chris Nixon
For the Union-Tribune
January 4, 2007

The early days with Christopher Hoffee in a duo called Homer Gunn (named after his grandpa); the gritty country rock of the Hatchet Brothers with friend Gregory Page during a lengthy residency at the Ould Sod; the visceral rock of his on-again, off-again band Loam ... from country troubadour to distortion-driven rocker, former San Diego musician Frank Lee Drennen discovers imaginative ways to reinvent himself with each turn of his multifaceted career.

Dead Rock West features Cindy Wasserman and Frank Lee Drennen, a former San Diegan who still fronts the band Loam.

With his new band, Dead Rock West, Drennen finds himself strumming pleasant roots rock with vocalist Cindy Wasserman, multi-instrumentalist Phil Parlapiano (mandolin, organ), drummer Bryan Head and bassist David J. Carpenter.

“I'm definitely one of those people that feels most comfortable doing a lot of different projects,” Drennen said recently from his home in Los Angeles. “But Dead Rock West is easily and by far my priority. Side projects are good for me to help stir my imagination.”

Drennen will be pulling double duty at tonight's show at The Casbah (which also features San Diego's Truckee Brothers), both with Loam (expected to release a new disc in 2007) and Dead Rock West.

His “priority” band is set to issue “Honey and Salt” this month. Driven by the vocal harmonies between Wasserman and Drennen, this beautifully constructed album finds the veteran San Diego musician in rare form.

On the chemistry between Wasserman and himself, Drennen admits: “It just really clicked, the two voices. It was something special that you don't get very often. I learned how to harmonize listening to Byrds' records. I love harmonies.”

Mixed by the well-traveled Richard Dodd, “Honey and Salt” oozes the well-crafted country rock feel of some his former employers: early Wilco, Tom Petty, and The Traveling Wilburys. After recording the album in L.A.'s Echo Park, Drennen cold-called Dodd to gauge his interest in working with a relatively new artist: “I asked if he would ever consider mixing someone who wasn't rich or famous.”

Dodd gives the album a subtle mix, seamlessly blending the harmonies, strings, pedal steel and mandolins into a cohesive whole.

“The thing I'm personally proud of with this record is it doesn't hit you over the head,” Drennen said. “But after you listen to it a few times, it starts grabbing you. My hope in this age of instant gratification is that people will give it the time to sink in. Because musically, we put everything we've got into it. And lyrically, I'm super proud of every song.”

On “Honey and Salt,” Drennen and the rest of Dead Rock West decided to stick with analog recording on 2-inch tape, as opposed to the industry standard of digital recording with programs like ProTools. According to Drennen, you can't hear the difference between analog and digital recording much these days. The primary distinction derives from the recording process.

Drennen explains: “With digital, you don't have to wait for the tape machine to rewind. So it's instantaneous: fast, fast, fast. You've got an unlimited number of tracks. But you could record 24 vocal tracks and edit them all together to make this super-Über Cindy or super-Über Frank.

“Working with tape is a little slower, but it allows you to gather yourself while you're rewinding. The record represents what we're able to do. It's not a fake version of what Dead Rock West is. In this day and age, it really makes us unique.”

On the topic of songwriting, Drennen collaborated with some of San Diego's elite musicians on “Honey and Salt.”

“I've actually done some co-writing with people from San Diego: 'Pretty Disaster' I wrote with Dave Howard; 'Desert Rose' I wrote with Jeff Berkley; 'All I Know' I wrote with Gregory (Page),” Drennen said. “There's a lot of San Diego representation. And just so you know, I live in Los Angeles, but I consider San Diego to be my circle, my original circle. That's where I learned to do what I do, from playing with those guys and going to their shows. That's my touchstone for me, and it still is.”

Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.