Music: Morning’s Glory

Longevity and success in the music business are almost as unlikely as getting struck by lightning on the day you win the lottery. Ask any band struggling to make it to the “big time.”

Ask Incubus. They’ve done it.

Through relentless touring, inventive videos and increasing radio airplay they’ve given us hard, aggressive Rock as well as sublime, unbounded melodies. They’ve delivered eccentric tales, laced with Funk and traces of Hip Hop. They’ve made us think with intelligent lyrics and smacked us in the face with their high-energy live performances.

Incubus’ latest and most sensitive release, Morning View, takes us on a lazy-day ocean drive, riding shotgun with the band in their introspective and diverse approach to popular music. This most recent effort seems to have found a happy medium between commercial success and critical approval in the modern world of genre-hopping AltRock, while avoiding ever coming across as forced or generic.

The latest sound from Incubus is “definitely what we’ve grown and matured into,” explains drummer Jose Pasillas.

“We never sit down and conceptualize what we’re going to do — what’s the next concept of the next album,” he says. “We just kind of write what’s natural to us. We have a singer who can really sing. He does beautiful melodies and that is definitely a focal point for us. We basically go there, into the studio and write what’s comfortable to us. We’ll always hit all the elements. We’ll hit Funk, heavy elements, soft elements. Somehow we make it work and we really have all those different styles in there. We don’t limit ourselves. We’re completely open. I think it’s just a natural progression, an evolution that we’ve gotten into.”

The five creative forces from Calabasas, Calif., that make up Incubus came together at a very young age. Vocalist/percussionist Brandon Boyd met Jose Pasillas in elementary school. Guitarist Mike Einziger and bassist Alex Katunich — aka Dirk Lance — came aboard shortly thereafter. Two years out of high school, they were signed. It wasn’t until 1998 that Pittsburgh native DJ Chris Kilmore replaced DJ Lyfe, who had joined the band in 1995.

Enjoy Incubus, the band’s first EP produced by Fourth Street’s Jim Wirt, was released in 1997. The first full-length LP, S.C.I.E.N.C.E., also produced by Wirt, was released later that year. 1999’s Make Yourself, finally had people taking notice of their unique style via successful singles like “Pardon Me” and “Drive.” In two years it sold two million records. Since it’s release last year, Morning View — their “most free-flowing work to date” — has sold over 1.4 million copies.

The Immortal/Epic album produced by R.E.M.’s long-time producer Scott Litt was written and recorded in four and a half months in a Malibu mansion on Morning View Drive. Boyd has described the ingredients of the album as “stratospheric string orchestrations, Disney-esque, Trip Hop escapades and lyrics about contentment under a full moon.” (Pasillas agrees that the view and surroundings were most inspirational.)

The band uses different instruments like the “ko-kyu,” a Middle Eastern string instrument donated to them by legendary guitarist Steve Vai. Boyd works an African drum called a djembe into the mix and occasionally picks up the aboriginal didjeridu.

Earning a spot alongside today’s serious artists, Incubus’ hard work and dedication is paying off. They now travel with not only a personal chef, but a personal massage therapist/yoga instructor. Getting there, however, has been a slow process.

“We’ve been a band for 11 and a half years,” Pasillas says. “We’ve taken every step that you possibly can without skipping any. I think it’s great that we can just continue doing what we love to do and more and more people are getting into it. That, coupled with touring and supporting our album, is just an amazing feeling.”

Incubus has been on tour for five years, including a straight string of dates for the past 14 months. They’ve gone from playing small parties and clubs to touring Europe with Korn and headlining sold-out arenas. It was a big change for the band members, yet something they are starting to get accustomed to.

“It’s definitely been a different sort of world, but it’s been really cool,” Pasillas says. “We’ve gotten used to having room. Everyone’s movin’ around more.”

As a touring musician who has witnessed all types of concert scenarios, Pasillas has a unique perspective on the lifting of Cincinnati’s festival seating ban. The ban, instituted in 1979 after the tragic death of 11 concert-goers attending Riverfront Coliseum’s Who concert, will be lifted for Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming performance at the same venue.

“I think lifting it (the ban) would be cool because that was a long time ago and security measures weren’t up to what they are now,” he says. “So I think it’s going to be a huge difference. We’ve been playing huge 80,000 people festivals in Europe, for example, and they have been doing it for so long. They have good means of security and they rarely, rarely have incidents. Even if you have seating, you can have an incident. It’s still possible. It’s come a lot further than it was.”

In a time of major label mergers and sinking record sales, Incubus is out to prove their staying power. Pasillas says that comes from an increase comfort in the creative process.

“We can go in at any situation and write an album no matter how we’re feeling at that moment in time,” he says. “I think we are creative people that can be creative no matter when. We do look forward to the next moment in time when we can relax and concentrate solely on creating music.

“Time can only tell where any of us are going to be in 10 years, let alone a couple of years from now. What I do know now is that I enjoy doing this very much. It’s my passion and my love. I hope to continue as long as we’ve done it so far, if not more. We’ll see what happens.”

This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2002.