Very imp-ressive

Polished marble floors, 40 foot palm trees and a swanky glass ceiling adorn the West London Hotel and the appropriately attired doorman makes quite a change from the unshaven burlishness of the archetypal Dublin bouncer. Considering the fact that the majority of interviews take place over the phone or in some conveniently quiet and musty old man’s pub, the uber posh surroundings of my encounter with rock-band-of-the-moment, Incubus, deserve a mention. Incubus and discoversd a band that have conquered their demons.

Caught up in the midst of the promotional swirl surrounding the release of their fifth album, Morning View, and a pending European tour, Incubus are being lauded as the instigators of a new wave of rock fusion, a sort of emo-rock if you will. The power and ferocity of heavily distorted guitar lines, surreal phasers and DJ scratches contrast with bare guitar acoustics and the powerful, emotive vocals of frontman Brandon Boyd to create a vast melting pot of rock diversion.

“From the get go, our earlier material was very, very reminiscent of the bands we were listening to – Primus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mr Bungle…,” says Mike. “That was a decent motivation for us to do something that reflected our own personalities. I think we had a unique situation in that this was the first band that any of us had ever been in and our musical growing up was very well documented in our material.”

“Prior to Make Yourself, our experience of the world was very limited,” explains Brandon. “We all lived with our parents, we were making records based on what we knew of our lives as they related to Calabassas, California, from there to the beach, from the beach back and our short little trips to Arizona or Las Vegas at the furthest. But how much were we going to really relate to people around us, cos we had no real experience? That was the Enjoy Incubus, Fungus Amongus and SCIENCE – us, literally scrambling around suburbia, where all we had were our influences.”

Their musical evolution took a leap forward prior to the recording of the epic Make Yourself, with a two-year stint on the road including a European tour with Korn.

“It was amazing, a complete eye opener,” says Brandon. “We’d never played in front of more than a few hundred people at the most, and they (Korn) put us in front of audiences of over a thousand people. Then we did Family Values and the Ozzfest in ’98. We were very quickly learning so much about ourselves and the music world and how we were going to potentially relate to it and see ourselves as a product.”

“Bands like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock and Korn were at their largest,” says Mike. “They were the most popular bands at the time and there were a million other bands out there trying to copy. we had no desire to be a part of or associated with that type of musical movement. We’ve always felt alienated. Even before, when we were doing things on a more local level, we were always surrounded by bands we had nothing in common with we’d be playing these shows with ska bands and metal bands, because those were the only bands we could play with and people would say that we sucked or weren’t heavy enough s we always felt alienated. I think it was intentional though. We like being the odd band out.”

“When we went to record Morning View, each of us were very excited to be making a new record. There were certain things in Make Yourself that were not easy, alot of that record was very laboured over. During the writing and recording of Morning View, the whole thing was alot more free flowing. It just kinda happened. A lot of it had to do with the environment, the timing and the fact that as songwritiers, we had progressed to the next level. We were ready to make this record.”