Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Brandon Boyd of Incubus

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Listen in as Brandon Boyd of Incubus joins Joel Madden on the latest episode of Artist Friendly in a candid conversation exploring art, music, early life, and over 30 years with Incubus.  Incubus are gearing up to play Aftershock Festival and celebrate the anniversary of their fourth studio album, Morning View, by playing it in full at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. “It was such a massive moment, a shift in my life and in the guy’s lives,” Boyd told AP of the album. “It wasn’t just that we were peeking our heads above ground as a band.” ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Joel Madden and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking to songwriter, artist, and the lead singer of Incubis, Brandon Boyd. The band is celebrating the anniversary and the re-record of their multi-platinum album Morning View. We'll get into that and lots of other things. Let's go. I have this theory about 90s, alternative rock. Hit me with it. But in the world of like rock and roll in the 90s, that was born in the 90s and all those miles that you earned on the road, all those shows you did from zero to to stadiums, right? And I think we're now living in a time where plenty of bands are forming every day and there will always be, I think, like rock music will always be represented in its kind of

organic form and bands will be born. But there's this era of music that will never be again. It's just not possible to recapture that era in that time. The next decade of art telling that story is going to be great soundtracks and great stories and great movies. And this was before information was shared the way it is now and so quick. So there was all the aspects of that, whether it was the darker side of it, and then the peaks of joy you could feel if you had success at that time, which you guys did. That's what our idea of classic rock, like if you got the chance to see Led Zeppelin,

if you got the chance to see these incredible bands, right? To me, it's like this timeless music that you're one of, think about it, even if it was hundreds, you're one. of hundreds and then of those hundreds how many are still vital and can make yeah music and art are still like each other still like each other are still healthy yeah stayed healthy yeah found a way to live a real life yeah yeah that's a big part of it and not become like a shadow of a person that like a shell of a person that just kind of limps along through life because they they they couldn't figure out how to be a real person yeah surviving the experiences you

a huge part of what you're talking about, I think. It's, and it's something that doesn't really get talked about in our wider kind of like entertainment culture or our art culture is that our line of work has a weirdly high kill rate. Yeah. It like, it kills a lot of people young. The mortality rate is not good. It's wild. Yeah. And so if you kind of spot that at an early enough moment, you have the opportunity to, like we were saying earlier, you and I were talking about the very clear kind of like pitfalls, or the minefield, whatever you want to call it. If you can spot it, it's, you can learn to navigate it. It's hard. And you're going to, you know, you're going to step on some minds here and there. But if you, if you expect it coming,

it can keep you humble and it can also help you survive the experience. Because it is, I mean, It does have some incredible things to it and some of the opportunities that it affords. And the ability to make a living expressing yourself and becoming a multifaceted artist, that that was always my dream, is that I would just be able to express myself. I didn't care if we were gonna be famous

or if we were gonna make millions of dollars. I was just, I just knew from a very, very young age that I needed to paint and write. whatever that looked like. And so it was actually kind of surprising once we started finding some success in the music world because I did not grow up necessarily dreaming about being a singer of a band.

I thought I was going to be a painter. But as it turns out... You are a painter as it turns out, but... Yeah, but to me, writing songs is painting. Yeah. They're so similar. They're different in very clear ways and the results are different,

but then a lot of the results are very similar. too. It's just a painting is a more tangible, touchable version of the process, you know, like the wider process. I think that's why I love it is because one day I'll have a melody swimming around in my head that is sort of unattached to anything and you'll just, maybe it's similar for you and you'll just walk through your day kind of humming it. You're like, this is a cool melody. Yep. Majors and minors and giving me a certain feeling. Is that this song? No. piece of this song maybe and you just kind of let it sit with you and it's sort of in the background and then all of a sudden a phrase will attach itself to it that doesn't really make any sense

and then you start to refine it in the back of your head and you're painting essentially is what you're doing when you're actually physically painting and you're putting a brush to a canvas it's just a more tangible immediate version of that process in my experience at least yeah does that makes sense. It totally makes sense. And as an in an incubis fan, it's awesome to hear. Because your lyrics, they feel to me, they have always felt like poems to me. They've always felt like poetry. It's always felt like someone was sitting there writing like a little bit of an sometimes less abstract, sometimes more abstract, but it all felt like metaphorical. It all felt like, but it felt like it started in a, it started in a book of writing.

and like if you usually does and that's the thing to me is like god i would love to like get that book like i'd love to read through all the book and read the lyric they read some of the lyrics that never did come out the the writings that no one ever got to see that are like probably brilliant and too hard to shape into a song or whatever but like there's something there that i think is like really special and i'll i'll bet you any amount of money that if you release that book one day of old writing, that shit would be, that shit would be dope. Or people would be like, ah, man, this is awful. They really did pick the good ones. Maybe they did just write the good ones. No, I actually have been, I started a substack about a, I think it's about a year ago,

you know, substack. Yeah. And I wanted to share kind of my longer form writings and disparate poems and song ideas that never quite made it to the cutting room floor. And over the last year or so since it's been out, I've shared maybe, I don't know, eight or ten of those acoustic demos that I record at home that I at some point had sent to the guys in the band, be like, you know, along with many, many others. And these were the ones that didn't get a response. but there were something in them to me that still struck some kind of emotional chord or intellectual chord. It's important to you.

Yeah, and I was like, it's not garbage. Maybe it's not worth developing into a full song, but it's kind of like looking into someone's sketchbook. There are certain sketches in a sketchbook that you feel compelled to turn into a larger and more sort of grandiose piece of art. And then there are some that want to live just there and they're cool like that. Yeah. you know so that's what my substack has kind of become and it's um how do people like go see it where do they go they just just go to um brandon boyd on substack i think my substack is called a wink and a nod yeah yeah uh and you can there's like a free tier and then there's just a subscriber tier as well

where they get the cooler shit you brought me this game you did called two doors yeah thank you're welcome what how did this happen uh this was i was i I like we were saying before, I grew up, really, I watched movies because we had, we had a television and we had a VCR, but we didn't have cable. Yeah. And we had no like reception. I grew up in like the hills outside of Los Angeles.

And so spent a lot of time outside, spent a lot of time drawing, writing. But when we were really bored, we played board games. Yeah. This was a thing of a bygone era. So did we. But it has a place in my heart. heart. Totally. So one of the games I remember, one of the first games I remember was memory games. Yeah, totally. Where you basically mix up the things, you turn them over and you flip one over,

and you try and find its match. So I did this series of paintings called Portals a handful of years ago, and there were a bunch of them. I did them on like four by four or six by six pieces of paper, and I made duplicates of all of them and then I found synonyms for doors across just all of them and there's a bunch of great beautiful words that are synonyms for doors and then so it's a memory game

so you're looking for the match and they're all based on the paintings and then they have the synonyms for the doors so you're looking for two doors. It's awesome dude. It looks cool right? It feels good to hold in your hand. I mean just the packaging

and the way it looks is cool. Yeah, it's fun. And then the other thing, thing is just a regular ass jigsaw puzzle based on a painting I did a few years back. Based on one of your paintings, which is amazing. This kind of stuff, though, is like my favorite stuff. I love this stuff too, man. Like making toys is essentially what we're always doing. We're writing songs, drawing pictures, making toys. But so many of them are intangible. So I have this thing where I like to still hold something. Yeah, exactly. We're just careening into the future

of this nobody touches anything. We don't connect with each other in real time. Everything's digital, digital, digital. It all lives in the cloud, you know. It's more fun to play with things. Sometimes you've got to put your hands on stuff and collect things. I can see. You know, you get the feeling.

Little trinkets along the way that have little personal stories or meanings or you just like them. Yeah, and they remind you of a moment in your life when you went and got them. Yeah. Thank you back to a happy place. Isn't it wild how far like skateboard culture has come? Surf culture as well, but skateboard culture was always more kind of like, like the hoodlums skateboarding. It's the hoodlums and it's the rabble-rousers and the troublemakers as they're treated that way anyways.

It used to be illegal to skateboard in most places. Yeah. And we would get chased by security and cops and stuff. And that was sort of part of the fun in the late 80s. Yeah. Like you start getting chased on foot by security, but you had this thing that let you glide across concrete. So it was like kind of excited.

Yeah, you could get away. Try and catch me. Half the time, you know? But I like the story because you have this thing that is dismissed for so long. And the world at large that decides what's valuable. And it's usually the most square, not creative, lame people who have decided what is acceptable, what's not. what's valuable what's not yeah and you have this company started with skateboarders in mind that are promoting and and nurturing these these kids that are hanging out at their shops yeah

and essentially um you know i know there's a lot more to the supreme story but in the the basic idea is we have this this idea that everyone agrees is those punk kids over there in oh they're printing their t-shirts. Yeah. And over time, you have this really cool group of people starting to engage other cool people. So you see the collaborations they did. And over time, it becomes this brand that, you know, at the peak, they sell the brand for, I think like $2 billion.

And think about that. That's wild. So they created this value in the world all while being told it's not valuable. or, you know, we're going to arrest you if you skate out here on the street. All the things that came with it shifts to you have people investing, serious people in the world that otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable walking in the store 20 years ago. Right. Now.

They're lining up to get into the store. Yeah. And now people are making whole careers on resell, reselling. Yep. So the, now think about the answer. market around that culture and the brand, a culture that brand kind of sat in the middle of along with some other brands, right? And I'm sure a lot of streetwear purists and people could come and argue this and that with me and I would be open to. But the idea that this brand that

was a cultural movement in the end, what that was born out of to where it got to me is the aspirational story of what you can do when everyone looks at you. goes, yeah, you're not worth anything. And those little hobbies that you're into, forget about it. Watch off of those kids. The ones that are into the things that are so disregarded. It was the same thing with surfers, too.

Yeah. And these are, I love looking at skating, because I grew up obsessed with surfing and skating. Surfing was kind of first for me. Right. I was. Because you're like a jump and a skip to Malibu from where you grew up. Yeah.

Yeah. There was a beach bus that actually would come and pick us up and drop us off. That's cool. Yeah, it was super, super cool that the town provided that for us. But yeah, skating, surfing, they're these beautiful adaptations, creative adaptations to environments. So with like skating, the people that get the best at it come from these like deeply urban jungle type environments.

And to look at them, it looks like it's just concrete everywhere, billboards. you know, there's no nature around you. And this sort of like pervasive human creativity broke through in young people where it was like, I'm going to dance on that shit. I'm going to do flips and stuff with this piece of wood all over this environment you created. And you're going to tell me not to you for a long time. And then it's going to become a multi-billion dollar industry at some point.

Nobody would have known it was going to happen, obviously. But watching its trajectory, which has been swift, by the way, like we were saying, like when we were kids, they were chasing us out of parking garage. for skating. Now there's skate parks everywhere, you know, and it's producing incredible skaters. And professional athletes. Professional athletes, yeah. Aspirational goal for people who get into skating is maybe I could become a pro. Yeah.

And that's like, it's a real future. There are people, there are parents who invest thousands and thousands of dollars into their kids becoming better skaters. Yeah. Because there's an actual in game if you become a pro. Yeah. That's a real thing. We think about like, that is what I get so excited about is like that same idea that kid could start writing songs in his bedroom, that band could start in their basement or

their garage. And now, you know, you have kids that can create magic on their laptop. And there may be more traffic as far as what we're up against getting people's attention. Yeah. But there's going to be genius that comes out. Every once in a while there's going to be an artist that you cannot stop their creativity. That's the stuff that really excites me about music in particular is that the entry level has gotten so, it's been so democratized. Yeah.

You know, where we have now on our laptops a better studio that existed in the state of the art studio 20 years ago. And you have just right on your laptop. I don't love most of the music that's being made that way now. But I know it's just, it's just a matter of time. before people they hit payter you know what i mean and something incredible happens that we could never have anticipated coming i i feel the same way i don't love a bunch of it yeah i'm waiting for like the punk version yeah of digital music and it has little little things happen or like the hardcore version where you're like what's this you know what i mean yeah it's the first time i heard

refused that was like yeah what the who are these swedish dudes wearing suits and more what are they so angry about? I love it. And it's, and they created a classic timeless piece of music history. Yeah, it's true. It's pretty cool. Highly imitated as well. Yeah. Over and over again. Yeah. And we've done our best to steal from them from time to time. But I think that'll come. They'll like, they'll absolutely be some genius artist who makes some art digitally and we're all just blown away at how they did it. And maybe it already exists now. and it's just the nature of the digital culture that makes it harder to find because we're so used to just kind of swiping through things. And if something doesn't immediately catch our attention, we miss it.

Yeah, or harder to tell what's original. Yeah. Because the minute someone puts out a piece of digital art, it's someone screenshots it, takes it, recreates it, puts a filter on it. And it's really hard to like create something that's seen as original when within, when something pops. even just in a little way and a small group of people attach onto it. Yeah. A bunch of people take it. It's easy to steal.

I mean, they start recreating it. It's kind of the norm for it to just get sort of repurposed and recreated and that's why some people say it's better now. There are actually, I believe there's 100% absolutely aspects of like releasing music today that make everything easier. Yeah.

But I think it's harder now. To break through. To break through. Yeah. and to create something original and actually get credit for it or, and the new conversation will be a different kind of argument over like, if that's the real authentic article. We used to,

all of us as bands in the 90s, we all used to get criticized for, you sound like them or you sound like that. Like that was normal. Yeah. Every band went through that. Yeah. But it was still a simpler argument.

Right. Then what now I think you have people like tracking the digital life of something and like figuring out. like where did this actually where was this born but originality will will will break through yeah as it always does there'll be things that that come through that confound people yeah you know and that's what that's what's so exciting about the the genre of just in music in general or art is there always be there'll be periods of stagnation and then it'll be something that just blows everybody away and they struggle to understand it yeah and then it gets figured out and then it's

over and then that artist has to go through that whole process. But one of the cool things about Incubus to me is where you come from and then where you're at. The legacy, it's just going to be very hard for bands to create these kinds of legacies. And I think some will. I think it'll be fewer and far between, but I think that some will. And there are certainly like really great rock bands that that are in the last five to 10 years. And even in the last two to three years, great rock bands that will continue to come and make great music. Yeah.

But there's something about to me the rock in the 90s, it's going to be, I think, appreciated for the rest of time. I agree with you. I probably every couple of years I go back to some of the albums that made me want to write music, maybe want to be in a band. And I think I check in with them for any number of reasons. Like maybe I'll hear one of the songs on the radio. I'm like, I've got to go check that record out. Part of me is trying to figure out if I'll still feel the same way about it or if it like still holds water for me.

Still hits like it used to. And so many of these sort of seminal records. And I'll go through some of them, if you don't mind. I would love to hear the records. They still kind of fuck me up in the best way. Which records are they? So I turned 15 in 1991. This is when we started our band.

And that year, I got Nirvana, Nevermind. I got the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic. I think Bad Motifinger by Soundgarden came out 91. and soon thereafter was super unknown. And I also got Allison Chains Dirt, I think, that same year. I love Allison Chains, dude. Same. I fucking incredible.

There are, but I could just stop there. I won't stop there. I mean, you just keep going. That year was pretty horrific in like records. Yeah. But then the, just a couple of years after that, then you had like, you know, I discovered PG Harvey and then in the later 90s, I discovered Jeff Buckley. and then amongst that period of time

I discovered Faith No More and Mr. Bungle and then did I mention Bjork? You didn't mention Bjork but I love Bjork? Yeah, like there was just and all of it was it was there was some rock, there was some electronic, there was some sort of indie, there was some punk, there was some hardcore and we were open to all of it and we wanted all of it.

We're just hungry for all this stuff as I'm sure any 15 year old would be but there's something about that grouping of bands that was so impactful to I can just speak for myself I know the guys in our band share in a lot of those opinions but we were lucky enough to grow up in L.A. where these bands were coming through regularly and I got to see Nirvana I got to see Pearl Jam Man full time. I saw Nirvana with the Red Hat Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam at the forum. Wow. I think I had the very very top nosebleed scene. seat. So all the guys were like this big, but it was still amazing.

I think still one of the best like bigger venues you can see a band at is the forum. I think it sounds good. Yeah, it's great, especially now, just they redid it. Yeah, since they redid it for sure. It's much better. But yeah, one in particular that I go back to, one album I go back to probably the most from that period of time is super unknown by Soundgarden. The whole record from front to back just destroys me.

Like it simultaneously makes me want to quit and keep trying. You know, Chris was something. He was like an alien. I mean, when you think about the elements that make a great band, right? So you have the musicians. So the guitar work. Yeah. And then the voice.

Yeah. And then you get to the melody and the lyrics. Yeah. When you listen to Soundgarden. And then think about like the time that those bands were making those records, they were just writing songs and recording them. Yeah. There wasn't a committee, like with, they were just a band.

The songwriters coming in to get the chorus right or whatever. Uh-uh. No, it's just dudes in a room. Guys in a room. Pearl Jam. Yep. Nirvana. Yeah.

And Allison Chains, man, Allison Chains, for whatever reason, maybe it was the time when I discovered, like, rock music or whatever. And they were on the radio, and all the songs on the radio. But that band, like, I listen. I have a playlist. of all those bands. Really? You guys are on it.

Oh, nice. It's my, it's my rock. It's like my rock playlist. Yeah. I listen to it every day. Oh, that's awesome, man. So I listen to your band every day. No way.

Yeah. That's so rad, man. Thank you. And I think it's probably like, it's a growing playlist that I keep adding songs to as I remember. Did you ever get into Jeff Buckley's stuff? Love Jeff Buckley. Yeah, he was incredible, man.

Do you ever get into Shutter to Think? Yes. I mean, I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't become a huge fan, but the stuff that everyone knew I knew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were a sleeper band for me. Like, I first heard him in it, I didn't really understand it. And then I saw a side project they had called, I think it was called Mind, science of mind, if I'm not mistaken. And Buckley was playing bass. And it was the only time, and he wasn't singing. It was the only time I ever saw him on stage in person. And then, you know, he died so young and so soon. It's crazy. really sad, but he was an incredible talent. I go back to his record grace quite a lot too. Yeah. I still really enjoy it. That's the one that I had that I listened to. Letters to my sweetheart, the drunk was the posthumous double record that came out. Remember the lemon hits? Oh yeah. They were cool too. I love them. Yeah. What's his name? Evan

Dando? Yeah. There was so much good music in that period of time and so many compelling personalities. It was a wild time when you think about it. I actually saw something the other day and it was like, never mind, dirt, that sound garden record. Was it a cassette, pictures of cassettes? And they were all within like 30 days of each other. That's what I'm talking about. I was 15 when all those records came out. Crazy.

I got most of those records in one sitting. I took all my chore money. Smashing pumpkins. Yeah, love smashing pumpkins. Yeah. Those records, but it was the 90s, man. Like there was so much good musical nutrition. Yeah.

Doesn't it make you wonder like what about what was what was in the water that made it so there was so much, it was such a rich period of time creatively that doesn't always happen. No. A lot of people moved to Seattle during that period of time because there was like what's going on up there. We want to be a part of this. Even like I had friends that had bands down here when we were teenagers and they, like packed up their shit and moved to Seattle.

That was going to be the secret ingredient, you know. Well, yeah, I mean, it, it was a movement, a cultural movement. And I think it was deeper than just, I think the music was the soundtrack. But I think that it was a, I think it was actually like a time. It was like a, it had to be some kind of like time in humanity of some kind where like we were on the cusp of like the, the, the, we were everyone was kind of pushing to the new age because I think that's when you know if you think about when the digital age started in the 2000s it was being created then yeah yeah it had to be yeah so it was like a cultural movement to push the envelope and the boundaries of like what we

accept how we do things it was probably to me was probably also culturally like the first decade where we were challenging what people would accept as the norm are okay. And I think music was reflecting like that anger, frustration with the past and optimism for the future or something. Sure. There is a healthy skepticism for establishment in that period of time. I think every generation has its version of that. Where like what kind of world do I want my kids to be able to participate in? I want my daughter to be able to grow up in a world where she can be yourself, make decisions she feels like she needs to make, do have the experiences at any given time that she has to go through and be able to exist in the world as herself and not be shamed, controlled, caged.

This is a really interesting point, actually, and it actually takes me back to what we were talking about earlier with growing up having the courage to express yourself. If there's anything, I don't have children yet, I hope to at some point, but like I'm sure this has been high on your list of wants for your kids in the world. You probably want them to be free to make mistakes. Make mistakes and then also be able to look at your parents as people that are just like you. Yeah. We were kids. We grew up. We stumbled into adulthood. Did some stupid shit. Tons of stupid shit.

Some cool shit. Some of this, some of that. And like I could go back and try to explain where I was at the time. Some of it I probably could. Some of it I probably can't. Right. In your case, they could like open a magazine and be like, explain this. Explain this. What you said there, what you said there.

And you can try, but you're not going to satisfy everybody's need to like prove you wrong about it. Yeah. You have to accept that. And then you also have like as artists and entertainers where people have at least they've documented their idea of what you were doing. Because a lot of that's also like off. It's just like 20 degrees off.

And they didn't get it right. But it became the headline or the narrative. Like that's the other thing about entertainment. Actually growing up. Yeah. You go to your Wikipedia page. And it's just the headlines of like the articles that were kind of officiated as completely true.

Yeah. And it's all just like versions of something. You want your kid to kind of, you, you don't want them to not respect you or, but you also want them to know, like, I'm just like you. I had to like grow up, figure it out, got some stuff right, got some stuff wrong. Yeah. Learned a whole bunch. The term that comes to mind is freedom to fail.

Yeah. There's something so beautiful. in failure and there's not enough of an importance placed on it. We're all, it seems as if we're all doing our best to not fail and it's not as if we aim to fail, but failure is kind of the norm. Successes are extremely rare, especially in a world that's as competitive. You could just choose one line of work, music. Most of everything we do fails. Most of it's a failure. By any metric by metrics yeah by those yeah but every once in a while as a result of all of those failures something breaks through the cracks yeah and sees the light of day and it's a miracle that it does

because of those same metrics it's like you're looking at how many people are trying at the same time you are and so if one thing breaks through it's insane it like doesn't happen and so what gets focused on is the shiny object of the you know the little green thing popping through the concrete, but what we're not looking at is that what it went through, how many times it tried and failed and tried and failed. In our case, it's like we're writing like multiple albums. Yeah. Over the span of a quarter of a lifetime, that's mostly failures. Right. It's all the turtles that didn't get off the beach.

Exactly. Yeah. But we keep trying and you keep trying. And so I think inherent in that is, it's very apparent that it's the desire merely to make art. make music. That's the strongest thing. And to connect with each other. And to connect. Yeah. But yeah, the freedom to fail and to trip and stumble. I think that these are some things that are kind of being lost in our culture because kids are so afraid to even, they're so afraid to fail that they don't want to try. Because that's the thing is like, you can't fail anymore. Because if you show failure, it gets memorialized and it's trending. Yeah. And your failures failure trends now as big as any success you could have and a failure could become your legacy

yeah and um and it's just not realistic it's not reality yeah how life works yeah um but it is the reality the perceived reality we live in is that most people are spending a certain percentage of their day whether it's 10% or 50% in the phone on one of a dozen platforms right um connecting with people I think that's why they're doing it. But they're participating in this kind of false reality of like a highlight reel. I'm always kind of the older I get, the more careful I am about posting something personal and something that looks perfect. Yeah.

Because it's just not. It's so true. I'm like, me and Nicole have been together for 17 years. We were talking about it. That's 17 years of trying and failing in some places. Sure. But like. But how necessary?

were those failures. Big time. And how much did they teach you? And we're better today. Yeah. But 10 years ago, we were not in the same position. What's the secret of marriage? There's no secret to marriage.

It's just try until you can anymore. Right. And just keep going down the road. And that's why we also, like, and I've said this before here, I don't ever judge anyone on their failures. What they would maybe, what people would perceive as a failed marriage. It might not be a failed marriage. It might be some information they got out of that.

Yeah. Or they could actually go and be happy. Yeah. And I always, I always really like respect and admire the people that can consciously break up and do it gracefully in a world that doesn't want that. Everybody wants a fight. Everybody wants like, they want to watch the exciting, entertaining, messy fight. And it's almost like we all get drunk on it. And then we wake up the next day and hope no one remembers what we were,

the shit we were throwing at them and we move on to the next train wreck of someone else's pain and misery. That's something that alarms me about where the digital culture has been going is, it's sort of showing a strong masochistic streak in amongst our culture. And it's frightening. It's not, it's one thing to, you know. It's dangerous. Yeah, it really is.

It's one thing to be like, did you see this thing where this. person failed so hard ha ha ha and then when you start to realize that those are the things that are the most popular it's like oh yeah you we're learning something about ourselves that isn't necessarily good and it might it's dark a little bit of deeper reflection it's it's dark it's really dark but and like real people's lives can get ruined so you have people that really do kill themselves yeah you have people that really do lose their jobs you have and and then like I said sometimes there's some justice Sometimes there is someone who needed to be taken down. Needed to be removed from that position.

Those cases are, I think, fewer in between all of the crazy shit. I do think, though, that I really believe that, like, at the core, people are good. Most people are good. And given the opportunity to do something good, they will. And so, I mean, that's what I have to believe to, like. Yeah. To at least participate a little bit because, I mean, this, doing this, I'm participating in the digital culture.

Yeah. You know? It's not as if there aren't incredible things that can happen as a result of the new tech. I think that this new technology, in particular, this forum, like sort of the podcast forum, has incredible potential as a sort of decentralizing mechanism. Yep. you know the media was so top down for forever just until recently just until you know less than 10 years ago and then all of a sudden this new tech comes up where it decentralizes it to a point

where it rattled the tree and it shook off all the dead leaves and there were a lot of dead leaves that kind of stuff needed to come down and needed to be shaken up i think we're still probably in a period of overcorrection where there's a lot of people saying things on successful platforms like this that are confusing a lot of people too. Yeah. But it's going to be, you know, with every correction, there comes over correction. And so this is just the way we work, you know. It's like this, we have to run the gamut all the way, knocks it over on the side,

and then we correct for it and knocks it over over here. And we'll find some kind of equitable middle of some kind. I agree with that. I think it's going to take some time. Authenticity and originality and things that are compelling always kind of break through. What do you find yourself normally like talking about on this podcast? We've run a bit of a spectrum here, but is it all over the place or is it music-centric,

art-centric? It always starts in music or art. I really like think we talked about therapy. I think that I learned how to have conversations that I got a lot out of. And I think that I started to carry that out in my life in a real way where I don't feel like I really waste any conversation with anyone. That's wonderful. I found myself surrounded by artists and having these conversations in studios.

And it could be about music. But generally always comes down to people sharing insights or tools. that they discovered that have helped them. And I do think that there's the people that listen to this show, I find it to be like a group, and a growing large group of people that are looking for more insight into how they can evolve and improve their own life. And so some of it's a little philosophical sometimes.

But I really do think it's like actually the reality, of our life is the real life we're living. And those decisions we make actually have an impact on our future. Yeah. And if we can start to introduce ideas that are better than the ones we held, we can evolve. Yeah. And I didn't really believe in that before I discovered it. I wasn't aware of it. I wasn't aware of myself. I wasn't aware that I could change. I thought that I would have, you know, coming from, you know, essentially like coming from poverty, which I think was the biggest, we had the biggest effect on me. And having, you know, things in my family like addiction and all different kinds of kind of

the abuse spectrum, neglect, things like that. You jump out into the world and you carry all this baggage with you and you don't realize you can kind of unpack it, make sense of it, and leave it. Yep. And that was the work I did probably in my third. was really just like learning about that. Yeah. And then wanting to share that with people I could see hadn't discovered they could do that as well.

And not everybody has access to therapy and things like that. It's easier today than probably it's ever been because there's apps and stuff that can really be helpful. Yeah, there's also been a huge kind of demystifying of the therapeutic process and it's you know, being televised. There are really popular shows on network TV. Exactly. Whether it's Dr. Phil or someone like Tony Robbins,

it's like a lot of people are interested in improving their quality of life. Do you find that the stuff that you learned, you were saying like in your 30s, found its way in some way, shape or form into your songwriting? Everything. Okay, so that's the place where, in my opinion, art, is impactful and i think that artists if we have a cultural function of some kind i like to think of artists as um translators yep because we have something that's sort of inert in us that is hell-bent

on making sense of our experience here and everyone's trying to make sense of their experience to a degree but the um the mediums we choose as artists are sense-making apparatuses and we are doing our best to make sense of our own, the chaos in our own lives. And sometimes there are ideas that break through poetically, whether it's our use of metaphors or our storytelling or even the melodies we choose that can be incredibly helpful and insightful to somebody listening to them. And I'm saying that based on what I have been able to glean from my experience with music in listening to it. And then having the experience of writing songs with our band Incubus has been such a fascinating tool.

It's a sense-making apparatus. Ultimately, I am doing my best to make sense of my time here and the things that I've experienced, the things I experience, and then pushing forward the things I hope to experience. And it's all coming out in the medium of music and art. and I hope like in my in my heart of hearts that it has like the tiniest resemblance to the experience I had with music growing up because I made sense of my young chaotic life through music and through art did that make sense yeah I mean I'll tell you from my you know my view um because I can only share with you like what I like watching you guys from the beginning and our guitar player in our bed Billy is like the biggest think he was fan really like a good like a whatever your whatever fan club or anything you guys he's a member i'm sure of it but from my perspective you guys you guys did that you've always done that and it's very rare that you see a band and then coming through being a fan like a real fan um then wanting to be like my my idols

and starting a band and then having success doing that and then getting on the other side of it and being like a functional productive person in the world that goes out and lives his life and is raising kids and trying to work and do businesses and things like that. This is a function of life, right? Like finding a way to make a living and be here. I've gotten like a weird view of all these different sides. And you guys are one band that's just like in coming from a time where that was really hard to achieve this in my opinion because as great as I say, the legacy of rock and roll that was born in the 90s. It's this, like we said, those records that all came out in the span of a month in 91,

think about the decade of music that came out. And it's just, well, you can't, it'll blow your mind if you stacked all those records up. Yeah. It was a magical time. You guys were part of that. On the other side of that, if you weren't dead, addicted to drugs, a mess, how did you become this grounded group of productive? members of society, right, and still can make art and still can go out and do the biggest shows.

Incubis touring must be, from my perspective, it's bigger than it's ever been, even though you may not tour as much. The shows are huge to be able to like function as a band still, all still like each other. Right. We love each other, actually. Which is incredible. We have a phenomenal time still. So think about that.

How do you, to be able to achieve that kind of balance. and still have your and still be able to walk around in the world every day and have a real life that functions like again like i i think there's it's something like they say dysfunctional family most families and then there's functional families right and a band can be a dysfunctional family or a functional family relationships can be dysfunctional or functional right and i think like how how did this group of guys continue to function and be so grounded and still do prolific shows, make prolific art, make prolific paintings, but also be in the world and not float around.

That's an achievement. I think it's probably the greatest achievement, in my opinion. I really appreciate those words, man. And my appreciation for them is I could just stop at like, that's so nice of you, thank you. But I also know, because I've been there the whole time through it with this band. I know everything that we've gone through. We've gone through all of the same stories that every band has gone through.

There's really only like five stories in rock and roll. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And any one of them can take a band down. Yeah, take you out. Whether it's drugs and addiction or... Jealousy.

Jealousy. Ego. Ego, all of these things. We've had all of them. Every single one of them, but we have, there's probably a number of factors that are not available to me in a conscious way. That it could be the deciding things that I'm not aware of at this point in my life. But what I am able to observe is that we have a pervasive love and respect for each other, which I think probably goes a really long way. I think that we are appreciative at a base level and then on the best day, kind of an awe of each other's individual abilities, what each person brings to the table.

Like, I'm an awe of Michael's talent as a musician when he, what was simple for him. Since we were children, I'm just like, how the fuck do you do that? You know what I mean? Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Yeah. And then so each person brings something so unique. And I think each of us maybe through time spent has learned a greater and greater appreciation for it. And I think at this point, too, having been a band for 32 years, it can't be overstated enough that we've come to a point where it's like, this is a really cool job.

If you can survive the dangers of it and the chaos of it, it's super. it's super cool to go out and sing at the top of your lungs and people keep showing up and they are singing as loudly as they know how to back at you. So it's this wild like feedback loop that's happening that's just gorgeous and fulfilling. You know what I mean? I mean, you guys are playing the Hollywood Bowl. To me, that's like pinnacle. It really is. Greatness. Yeah, Hollywood Bowl is kind of like the venue. Yeah, when you think about, first of all, like amazing place to see and hear music. Yeah, something about it is magical. Yeah.

It's the open air and the, you know. Knowing that somewhere like a mountain lion is hearing you and going. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Coyotes are out there singing along with you. But to accomplish that and not to say you guys haven't already accomplished those pinnacles, but to accomplish that now, whether it's again and again, but to do it now, I just look at that and I'm fucking blown away at that whole idea that, like,

like 32 years into your life as a band, you're having this pinnacle moment. What I would say is like those pictures live forever. That lives forever. That picture of the band on stage at the Hollywood Bulls is iconic. You see that and you know exactly where that is. You see that band and it's just big and magical feeling.

But to achieve that at 32 years in versus 10 years in, 15 years in, Maybe there's an, maybe you can taste it a little bit more because you get the ability to slow the game down enough to actually enjoy it while you're there. That's a really good point. I remember the first time we played at the bowl, it was, it was overwhelming. The first time. Being backstage and like seeing the pictures of the Beatles and, you know, like, the backstage is small. Yeah. It's an old venue that they had these gorgeous black and white photos of the other bands that have been there.

It's iconic. And then I remember like every person that I'd ever met, including my family and cousins I never knew I had. They all came to the show and the backstage was just like so intense. And I was so nervous until we walked out on stage. And then when we were out there, as I'm sure you know, once you're there doing it and you're in the moment, you're not nervous anymore. It's the lead up. Yeah. That's where all the scariness and the pressure is.

But now like we've learned enough. We've played enough shows, I think, to understand where the nerves are going to be when they come up, how to kind of like... You can ride it. Yeah, you ride it. How to mitigate some of the chaos of your family and your friends all want to come and you want them to be there. But there's a way to do it and there's a way not to do it. Yeah. I think my favorite part about it at this point is getting my parents backstage parking.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like, you park right here. It's the little thing. And you just get to walk in and watch from the stage if you want to, you know, those little things make it super, super fun.

Because I can see, sometimes I see my parents in the audience and they're doing this. Yeah. And they're watching a little bit, but they're kind of, they're more like turning around and looking at the, you know, 20,000 people behind them. And that's a trip. Well, they're going to enjoy the details of it probably more than you will. Yeah. But it is like important that someone does.

And I think like it's not. the first time you played for 20,000 people. It's not about that. There's something iconic about that. Not everyone is invited to do that. That venue doesn't just book anyone. Right. And certainly there are people right now that could sell 20,000 tickets that aren't necessarily right for the bowl, but there's something iconic about it that I think is like, I don't know that you guys are zooming out and thinking this is iconic until someone like says it. to you right yeah it needs to be reflected back to us yeah through a loved one for sure yeah um but i think that that that's just interesting it's and just incredible to be doing that now

it's really it's special for us too because we grew up going to shows there yeah you know what i mean um i saw i've seen so many shows there i one of my favorite ones was um dead can dance i saw in like the early 2000s, which was late for them because they've been around since, I think, like, 1980 or something like that. But I had really good seats and I was sitting in the front. And I remember, have you ever gone to a show and just like started kind of tearing up? Yeah. For no particular reason other than it was just hitting all the right moments in you. It was special. Yeah. Happens to me more than I actually care to admit. But dead can dance at the bowl. It was like 10 minutes into the show and I was just like, I just started crying.

It's pretty great. It's so cool. It's pretty great. Yeah. But do you think growing up in nature and then like what sounds like a more art friendly, artistic, a lot of people would say probably like a hippie way, right, for our idea of it? Yeah. Do you think that gave you like a foundation of like of Zen or something that like allows

you to go through this wild business of... I think maybe. My brothers and I were what I call free-range kids. We not having television reception and no cable made it so that television wasn't, it didn't distract us. We liked watching movies and we watched movies almost every night, but we watched movies. There were no commercials.

Yeah. I didn't grow up with MTV. I watched MTV. I started watching MTV once they started playing our band on MTV. That's when I started watching MTV. And I was watching to see if they would play our band on MTV. And then they started doing it, which was kind of fun. We didn't have cable either.

Really? Yeah. I think it was, I think it's better. And we were always playing games and making games up. You were probably getting in trouble more, but you were probably also, you're definitely more creative. And you started solidifying a more sort of core identity about around who you were and what you wanted to do or at least point towards as a result of not

having those kind of like earthly distractions a hundred percent i think that the core of like also like all the businesses we do today me and my brothers do them together and growing up we always imagined things together played made up games together yeah same and had to entertain each other yeah and we did like watching we had a beta or a vhs yeah one or the other beta max was one format in VHS was the other. Right. So, beta was the small ones. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and then you had like five channels, like the five channels, whatever. Network. Yeah, network. ABC, NBC, whatever. We were outside all the time. We lived in the woods. Where did you grow up?

Maryland. Oh, right. Okay. Down in the sticks. Yeah. So we were like always outside playing, making games. And I really do think that like, then we went into our adolescence, wanted to be like everyone else, started trying to,

figure out, were we athletes, no, were we skateboarders? Not really tried, and that was cool. And then we found music, and then it re-engaged our imagination. I think that we had really exercised as kids. I actually do think there's something to what you're saying. Like there's a muscle, your imagination, your creative muscle, that if you're allowed to as a kid, run wild, you try all this stuff and you entertain yourself and you learn how to create stories. You learn how to make games. You learn how to like build worlds. And no one's

telling you not to. Right. And then you hit adolescence and you go to school and you're just trying to fit in because social pressure start to creep in. Yeah. And you, you know, you're trying to make sense of like you're growing up and you're starting to like girls and you're this or that, all that stuff starts to happen. And you just want to be like everyone else because you don't want to be an outsider. Right. And so that's the awkward in between. And then you, something about you is an outsider because the group has probably all been running in the same path and creative people tend to be a little bit of outsiders so then you have to go back to creativity anyways and that's where we ended up like we were a little bit misfits end up starting a

band we find our world again and we start building it out and imagining a whole world where like this matters yeah and um and then i had actually think that the core competency that we have is the ability to imagine something before it exists and then execute it and bring it to life. I'm not. And, like my music, my hair changes with me and has to be able to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, Potion 9, of Sebastian Professional, has all what my hair needs.

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own games and building your own world's thing which you're so right like when we're kids and

we have the opportunity to do that it actually creates life skills yeah it does

if you don't get eaten when you're outside crawling around in the forest. My dad, I'll never forget. He was all about letting us be free range. And I think to an extent my mom was as well,

and she had this giant brass bell that she would, when it was time to come home, she would just go, kong, kong, kong, kong, she would hit the bell. And it would echo through the hills and we'd hear it and be like, oh, it's time to go home. But my older brother and I in particular, my pop gave us a,

a good knife that had a snake bite kit in it and a compass. That's crazy. And he taught us how to treat a rattlesnake bite. Because that's a real thing in California. It actually can happen. Yeah. But we learned really quickly which animals did what, which ones to avoid, which ones we could pick up, which ones run away from.

We learned which plants would make you itch and which ones would make you small and which ones would make you tall. I'm kidding about that part. But, um, sort of, uh, which mushrooms are poisonous, which ones. Yeah, right. Don't eat more than a little nibble of it. Exactly. But as a result, like we were, we were like, um, we were literally cutting paths to the Santa Monica Mountain. We were just with our, sometimes we had a machete and we would be cutting paths through. We'd come home and the ritual was we would check each other for ticks. We'd pull the ticks off each other and we go in and eat dinner around the table and tell our parents about our adventures and you know we found a waterfall and or we you know we went into a cave and there was this crazy

spider and Darren picked up a snake and Darren's my older brother and so I think back on it I have very very fond memories even though there were moments where we were literally trying to kill each other it was a little like Lord of the Flies yeah occasionally and then sometimes it was like Lord of the Rings, you know. It just depends on which day. But I'm so, so thankful to have had an upbringing that was free range and also wasn't completely dominated by media. Yeah. You know what I mean? It didn't cloud your mind with like forced ideas of. Yeah. So we created our own rules. We created our own games like you were saying. And what an incredible blessing that was to be able to do. And then weirdly enough, it's like we entered into the larger world and it's like, oh, no, I got my own ideas.

You know, I'm not a painter, but I love painting. I love people's paintings and I collect art. Yeah. And it's always, it's not really, I'm not in the art game. I'm not flipping art. I've never sold anything. But I've definitely discovered some artists early that are, you know, bigger artists now. And that's really gratifying sometimes. But it's just as gratifying to own a painting of someone because you love it. Yeah. And you get to actually have it in your house. yeah and that's a really special thing to me for sure that print you gave me is like a treasure glad you like it man oh dude i'm so stoked that was such a surprise um because i because i like your art thank is there anyone on moonlight that just like you just love and i've been uh really fascinated by everyone we've worked with and the moonlight's relatively new it was um an idea born of the

isolation of lockdown. Yeah. And it was such a weird period of time because the whole world was going to shit, but people were buying art like crazy. It doesn't make any sense. Like the metrics of it don't make sense. The only logic I can find is that people were sitting in their houses or their apartments and looking at blank walls. Like I had to do something about that finally. So it was this thing where I wanted to, I'd seen what I had done in my own efforts around art and pay but then doing limited edition print series and showing my work and things. And I knew that there were other artists out there who we knew from, you know, bands and film and stuff like that who were really talented painters.

And so I was like, I'm going to find these people. I want to talk to these people. I want to talk to them about their process and just kind of get a rapport going. So I've been surprised by everyone. And we've done quite a lot of prints over. We're not even two years into it. But one person, you asked for one, I'll give you one, Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. Oh, wow.

Crazy artists. Super cool. He is, and he's prolific. He has just, there's no, it looks like there's no end to his creativity, visually, sonically. He fascinates me. What about Incubis? You guys going to make music? Yeah, we're, the Hollywood Bowl show, we're going to do our Alpsons.

album Morning View from front to back. Yeah. That's sort of the idea around the concert, and we're re-releasing Morning View. So we're doing like a re-record of it. Sick. So it's going to be Morning View 23 years later. Sick. For any number of reasons, but it's also kind of a fun exercise, because we still play most

of the songs live, but we've refined them in certain ways. They're mostly true to form, but there are like we've crafted new endings and things. to certain parts of them which have gone over really well on the live forum and then after that we're going to um and so this fall and this winter we're going to be writing new music we just signed a new record deal for the first time in a long time with virgin records awesome um we've been independent band for quite a long time and so it was time to get some help find a partner yeah find a a partner like that so yeah we're just be you know writing music um i'm going to be showing painting early next year at a gallery in Dallas called Samuel Lynn Galleries. They've been representing me

there in Texas for a long time. Working on another book, another art book. Awesome. Stuff. Just, you know, making stuff, making little worlds. Making stuff you like. Yeah. Dude, this was great. Yeah, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it, man. I can't wait to see. I'm going to be at the Hollywood a bull show. Are you cool? Yeah, I'll be there. Awesome. Awesome, man. Yeah, thank you, brother. Thanks, Steve. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of artist friendly. If you really liked it, you can follow, like, subscribe to the show, anywhere you listen to podcasts, Spotify, Apple, Amazon. We appreciate your support, and we'll see you next time.