Incubus recently announced a headlining 2022 summer US tour, with support from Sublime with Rome and The Aquadolls. Prior to the tour news, Brandon Boyd caught up with Heavy Consequence to discuss his new solo album, Echoes and Cocoons, as seen in Part 1 of our video interview. During the conversation, the singer also gave us an update on potential new music from Incubus.
It’s been five years since Incubus released a full-length studio album, 2017’s 8, although the band did issue the EP Trust Fall (Side B) in 2020. We were curious if the wheels were turning on new music, so we asked Boyd that very question.
“It’s wild that it has almost been five years since we put a record out — that’s so crazy,” Boyd responded in Part 2 of our video interview (watch above). “We’re always talking about making new music together, and it’s really fun and wonderfully challenging to write music with the guys in the band. I have no doubt that once we just get into our band room and just start playing that new music is going to emerge. That’s usually how it happens. When we get together to rehearse for some upcoming shows, we’re swiftly reminded how much fun it is to be in the band and to make new music.”
Prior to the summer outing, which launches on July 24th (tickets available here), Incubus are playing a couple shows this Friday (March 25th) and Saturday (March 26th) in Las Vegas. That means they’re likely rehearsing in their “band room” this week, so perhaps new music is being created at this very moment.
Boyd continued, “I have to say that it’s really a wonderful place to be, to be able to write music together as it sort of naturally occurs. We’ve done the thing where we [released] albums back to back to back to back, and that was amazing, and we’ve probably put out some of our best work during that period of time. It’s like exercising a muscle. We’ll probably lumber through the first few [new] tracks, and nobody will ever hear them, and then we might come up with something good again. [Laughs] I have high hopes.”
Going back 20-plus years, Incubus achieved mainstream success as part of the late ’90s / early 2000s hard rock scene that also saw the emergence of bands like Godsmack, Staind, Linkin Park, Papa Roach, and other acts. We wondered how Boyd felt about being grouped in with that movement, considering that Incubus’ music had perhaps more of an alternative vibe.
“It’s a good question,” remarked Boyd. “It’s a little bit complex because … from my point of view, I’m a little bit too close to it to be able to make sense of it completely. … If you ask me, personally, it was amazing to be able to play shows and tour with so many of the bands you mentioned. So many of them were so good at what they were doing, and they were forging into new territory, and it was creating it’s own … big scene.”
He added, “But I always felt like I was on the outskirts of it looking in. … I feel extremely grateful to have been able to play alongside so many of these artists, but I never, myself, fully identified with the genres we were being lumped in with. And it bothered me for a while. It did, truth be told. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand that it’s very rare that artists get to choose [their own] genres.”
Boyd went on to acknowledge that there are certainly some similarities between Incubus and the aforementioned acts. “The music does have some of the same trappings,” he observed. “We’re a rock band, for all intents and purposes. We dressed the part. We showed up to the same gigs, so it made perfect sense. But when you really look at it more granularly, and [go] through it with a fine-tooth comb, there are things that deeply differentiate us from those groups of bands. And I think that’s good — just like those bands were differentiated from us.”
Watch Part 2 of our interview with Brandon Boyd above, and pick up tickets to Incubus’ upcoming tour dates here.
Trouble viewing the interview above? Watch on YouTube.