A Conversation with Incubus’ Brandon Boyd – HuffPost 7.29.13
Mike Ragogna: Brandon, you’ve been at work with some social-minded projects work lately.
Brandon Boyd: Yeah. You know, over the past, I had done little bits here and there before we started our non-profit with Incubus, the Make Yourself Foundation in 2003. But we started slowly into that doing the bootleg series and donating all of the proceeds to a couple of other non-profits we were working with. But it’s sort of slowly but surely been ramping up and getting more fun and more interesting, so I’m super excited about all of the things that I’m able to be a part of and it’s a wonderful place to be for sure.
MR: Basically, you’ve used your celebrity and success to help take care of the planet.
BB: [laughs] I would like to think so. The word “celebrity” is a word that’s always made me kind of cringe and truth be told, it still does a little bit. But when you put it in the context that you just did, it doesn’t irk me as much. I see it more as like a small platform to, for want of a better term, do the right thing. If you have a way of reaching a lot of people, it seems a wonderful opportunity missed if you don’t do everything in your power to bring light to certain things. There’s so much always going on in our busy little planet and so many of them get kind of crushed under the weight of what, in my opinion, are so many other uninteresting and unimportant stories. If this is me on my small little platform in this brief amount of time that I have and I can bring light to certain things, I consider it my responsibility to do so.
MR: Incubus is associating with The Urgency Network, where many artists such as you guys, Paul McCartney, Linkin Park and Metallica are contributing time and efforts in concerts, et cetera. What are your thoughts about what’s going on with the Arctic, one of the causes being addressed by the organization? Like how do you feel about how the politics of this are playing out? Do you think that raising the level of consciousness through bands like your own and other knowledgeable people and organizations like Greenpeace, but also considering the power, money and resources that multinational companies that resist many of these efforts have, will succeed in making significant changes finally?
BB: You know, we’re definitely walking against the wind in this case and in any regard where there are one or more multinationals. There is a very clear agenda about certain things. Mostly because you’ve just had all of that financial money you’re working against and, a lot of the time, you’re also working against the will of governments who also have a financial end and a sociopolitical end in their crosshairs. So it’s definitely an uphill battle, but I do think that something is able to happen through influential people like Paul McCartney. He’s a perfect example, and I’m so glad he’s a part of this. He has a voice in our culture and has had for a long time and people listen to him. When he comes out and says something, people pay attention, and on a much smaller scale, a band like Incubus gets involved in something and our relative listening base will get involved as well. I honestly think that any and all meaningful change when it comes to environmental issues or political issues aren’t going to come from a government. I know this doesn’t even get said often, but I really believe it–it’s not going to come from a government or a multinational, it’s going to come from popular opinion. So in this position that we have and we’ve been talking about, if we have a chance to sway popular opinion, we’re going to take it. It’s one of those things that I think the climate change deniers… I honestly don’t believe the ones that go on TV and say, “The jury’s still out,” the ones that proudly fly that denial flag. I think there’s some kind of financial gain for them and there’s a sociopolitical end that they’re pointing towards. To me, that’s the most foolish thing that anybody could ever involve themselves with.
MR: It does seem like a large percentage of the masses get fooled and work against their own interests by not following the next logical thought in what’s being presented to them by politicians or persuasive ad campaigns.
BB: An example is the automobile industry. There’s so much government assistance in propping up these old companies for lots of reasons that I can understand; a lot of them are the backbone of our economy. But there is so much need and popular desire for newer technologies and cars that it takes a privately funded technology company–like Tesla and Elon Musk–to come out with something that is really going to change it and it has nothing to do with what the government has been doing. There are all these efforts to sideline it as well with all the tried-and-true sabotaging ways that those industries have used. Case in point with that New York Times article. I don’t know if you read that, where they tried to skewer it, but then Elon went on the defensive about it and it seems like he kind of came up smelling like roses in the end because that car is winning, it seems like, which is so hopeful. That’s a huge uphill battle that he’s fighting and it seems like he’s doing really well. I haven’t read the statistics on the car sales but you can’t turn your head in any direction in LA without seeing one of those cars zooming by quietly.
MR: You know it does seem people taking control–not by anything radical but in subtle ways like using economics–might shift the economy to more green initiatives, so to speak. There are some alternative energies that are proving to be financial windfalls for some people and newer companies. You also have “sustainable living” slowly weaving its way into the fabric of the culture. People are talking about these topics on a daily basis.
BB: I think that’s a perfect segue into The Urgency Network’s “Ten Island Challenge” idea. You’ve heard about this, I’m assuming?
MR: Yes, yes.
BB: They’re going to create these islands in Aruba as sort of these living examples of ways that we can have a sustainable economy. They’re creating these little pods that are examples of how it could work and if they work–and I think that they can work if they have all of the right ideas and all of the right people working on them–they could prove to be hugely, financially successful. So I think those types of things are taking it to the next level.
MR: Brandon, you have an EP.
BB: Yes. The EP came out on the twenty-fifth of June and the full length comes out on the twenty-fourth of September.
MR: On the album, you’re evoking The Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson, The Flaming Lips…
BB: This project was kind of made a bit more in the spirit of how I grew up, drawing and painting, which I still do often. It’s a very joyous expression for me, to paint, and making music is another medium for me. It was only one other person I was collaborating with, Brendan O’Brien, and he’s such a wonderfully effortless musician in so many ways. I’m a much more labored musician, definitely much more of a lyricist and a singer. I have some good ideas as far as the mechanics of the music, but that goes a little bit more slowly. With this, we didn’t have a clear-cut idea of what we were going to be doing or when we would do it, what it would sound like, what it would look like in the execution, nothing. We just wanted to work together because we had worked together for over a decade on Incubus projects. We did three records with him. I think he and I were more curious to see what it would be like to just kind of go one on one, just him and I in the studio bouncing back and forth just to see what would happen.
Back to my original point. The way that it came out is a lot like the way I draw or paint a picture: I don’t know what I’m doing, all I know is there’s a blank sheet of paper or a blank canvas in front of me and an overwhelming desire to make something hopefully beautiful or evocative emotionally or intellectually or something. So in that sense, with the music, we went into the studio with the desire and the studio was a blank piece of paper. We just started drawing. What came out was very interesting because it was coming through his influences and his reference points, both spoken and unspoken, as well as mine, and this sort of weird amalgamation of all of our different reference points from the past–probably twenty years–started to come out from both of us. There’s a lot of that layered harmony Beach Boys thing, and I grew up with Harry Nilsson. He probably was referencing things that were causing me to unconsciously reference things that I don’t even know where they were coming from because he was able to reference a whole other generation before me. It was really fun. I’m really excited for the rest of the album to come out because it goes considerably deeper into those kind of weird random references. But it all kind of comes out sounding as this accessible weird pop thing that it does. We both grew up on pop music. It was a lot of fun.
MR: I also love that it goes from extreme to extreme. In some respects, you can’t get any more square than The Beach Boys but you also couldn’t get any more progressive or experimental than The Flaming Lips. It ran quite a gamut.
BB: Right on, thank you.
MR: I also wanted to throw out there that although you’re experimenting with various era’s sounds, it does still seem like that same guy who sang “Drive.”
BB: [laughs] Right, thank you. It is. The thing that I think is probably the most significant “through line” between all of the albums and different projects is my intention is the same, and the intention is to be as true to whatever voice is in that moment. I actually can’t think of a moment in my music career so far when I said to myself or out loud, “I want to write this kind of song,” “I need to write a ‘pop song,'” or “I need to write a ‘rock song,'” probably, a lot of times, much to my own demise. What’s great about working with the guys in Incubus, too, is that a lot of the time, they have the same or similar ethos about writing music. They want to write music that has a sense of integrity in it, so you can’t fall back on your tried and true methods. We could have, so many times, been like, “Ticket sales are going down,” or “Album sales have gone down, it’s time to pull out the next ‘Drive.'” That would have been so sad. I think that would have really taken the steam out of our engine a long time ago had we fallen back on that method. We never have and I feel really blessed and grateful that we’ve had the opportunity to remain almost childlike, in a way, with the way that we approach this, even though it has become like a business–and a big business in certain respects. We’ve still been able to remain childlike with it. It’s almost like our playground or our sandbox, and has been able to just kind of grow and grow and grow. It’s a really wonderful feeling.
MR: Hey, what advice do you have for new artists?
BB: That’s a wonderful question. In coming up as a young artist, there was a lot of advice flying around from other bands and industry people and managers and things like that, and I learned early on that it would probably behoove my creative spirit to be wary of advice. That’s what I always tell people when they’re like, “Do you have any advice for me?” “Yeah. Be wary of advice.” In other words, follow your inner compass. Only you know what the right thing to do is. Everybody’s path is just a little bit different at the very least, and sometimes, drastically different. Even if one of your heroes is giving you advice and it could sound like really great advice and it could be coming from a really pure place–coming from the voice of your hero–but everyone’s path is different. So definitely follow your inner compass and be wary of advice.
MR: Cool Now what do you think was the best advice ever given to you?
BB: Lighten up. [laughs] Don’t take this s**t too seriously, not just in the music industry, but probably life in general. There is a time and a place but most of the time you should probably lighten up. That’s definitely been some good advice for me.
MR: Looking back at your hits and looking back at the success you’ve had with Incubus, at this point in your life, what are your thoughts on it all?
BB: I feel almost entirely an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the opportunity to do it. I resigned myself a long time ago to a life of being kind of a starving artist and I just knew from the time I was a child that I was supposed to draw things and sing things and there’s no road map for a way to have a career in doing that. I always thought, “Okay, I’m going to be very happy but sort of simple in my lifestyle. I’ll just be an artist and if I can live in a tree, that’s fine.” I think that accepting that shrank the vessel of my expectations and my desires, and as a result, I just feel this constant state of “Holy s**t, I get to go and sing in front of ten-thousand people tonight? Okay!” [laughs] “I get to write music with one of my musical heroes growing up, Brendan O’Brien? Okay! I’ll be there!”
MR: Hey, do you see this unity between you and Brendan, this partnership, extending beyond Sons Of The Sea with your solo career?
BB: Yeah, yeah. We’ve actually been making music together now for about twelve years or so in some capacity, so the Sons Of The Sea thing is just a new chapter that we’ve turned onto. I loved the process of making the record with him. It was so much fun and we were really kind of laughing and enjoying ourselves the whole time, so I very much look forward to making more music with him. It probably will be with Incubus but I would also love to do another Sons Of The Sea album.
MR: Will there be touring for Sons Of The Sea?
BB: Yes, probably later this year and into the beginning of 2014.
MR: Brandon, I really appreciate your time, this has been wonderful. Thanks much.
BB: Right on! Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne