Simply For The Love Of Music - The History of Incubus

Vocalist Brandon Boyd and drummer Jose Pasillas went to elementary school together. In 1990, when in 8th grade at A.E. Wright Middle School, Jose met guitarist Mike Einziger, who spent most of his time playing guitar in his bedroom. Later, while attending Calabasas High, the pair became friends with bassist Alex Katunich, who had just been kicked out of Jazz Band at the time for not knowing how to read music. The trio decided to jam a bit, simply for the love of music.  At first they mainly played Metallica and Megadeth cover songs, which Jose was not too interested in, but played nevertheless. These covers helped them land a few party gigs, and the three became the "entertainment for the neighborhood".

A few months later the trio came across Brandon's vocal abilities, and they decided to form a band, and gave up playing cover songs, in order to write their own.  The band's first song, "Love Sick", sounded like an incubus track, but it was totally stripped down, yet had elements of funk and thrash in it.  Other songs written in this time period were: "Purple Kool-Aid", "Sylvester Polyester", "My Soul (The Underground)", and "The Milkman Song".  Also in 1991, the group began playing parties, their first for a friend named Kristen. The group did not yet have a name, and they had to come up with one quickly.  Brandon stated "It has to be gnarly."  His suggestion, 'Spiral Staircase'. Another idea was 'Chimera', and Alex suggested, 'Chunk-O-Funk'. Mike however got out a thesaurus, and found the word 'Incubus', and read the definition.  The rest of the members thought it was a cool sounding word, and "it had sex in the definition, alright, that's great, lets use it." The show was a disaster according to the members;  At one point Jose got off the drums, and tried to run around them during a break in the song, but he ran into the drum set and knocked it over.

During the next few years the band was continuing to write, and some of the titles included: "Damnation?", "Backwards", and "Miss Bliss".  On top of writing original material, the band was taking any opportunity to play that was thrown their way, including a lunch-time show at their high school.  Soon after the band began playing party gigs, all-age clubs in the San Fernando Valley, and at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip. Their first gig at the Roxy only happened thanks to a hundred dollar bill Mike found on the ground. Brandon has been said to have drawn one flier for the show with a trippy mushroom and a naked woman, however most of the early fliers originated from a sex-education book Mike's mother gave him.  They would take the very depicting pictures from the book and incorporate them into Brandon's artwork.  They eventually started to receive complaints, and kids would see the fliers and ask "What kind of band are you?" So the band had to retreat back to using their own artwork.

With members Brandon and Jose attending Moorpark Community College, Mike decided to try out for a small named artist's band, Alanis Morissette. The outcome proved to be for the best, and Incubus found time in their schedules to write, record, and perform shows in 1994.  This marking their first demo tape release, called: "Closet Cultivation".

Incubus had been recording their demos with a tape recorder in the middle of the room, or by using a 4-Track Cassette recorder.  Until Mark Shoffner, a tour manager, approached them with an offer to record in his friends studio, no strings -- or contracts -- attached. So on January 7th, 1995, the band released the demo tape "Incubus". Almost ten months later, after recording with Jim Wirt in Santa Monica, California, Incubus released their first full length album, on their own label, called: Stopuglynailfungus Music on Chillum. The release took place on November 1st, 1995, and was called "Fungus Amongus".

Then DJ Lyfe saw Incubus play live and asked if the band would be interested in using some of his hip-hop tracks.  The band members were skeptical at first, but Lyfe joined full-time after one rehearsal. Incubus' unusual amalgamation of styles and high-energy shows, combined with its growing fan base, turned label heads and put the band in the enviable position of a bidding war. Immortal Records emerged the winner by understanding that Incubus is a touring live band, not an out-of-the-box, hit-single sensation, and intent on building its following from the ground up. They signed on the dotted line soon after.

Touring throughout 1996, Incubus established themselves as a amazing live act, gaining a dedicated following up and down the west coast of the United States. To start off the new year, Immortal Records released Incubus' EP entitled "Enjoy Incubus" on January 7th, 1997.  The album featured re-recordings of 4 tracks off their independent record (Fungus Amongus), plus 2 recently written tracks.  These were the first recordings to feature the newly acquired DJ Lyfe.

After the release of Enjoy Incubus the band completed several mini-tours in support of it. Touring with the Urge and Korn in Europe....This tour was a total success. Incubus played in front of more people then they had ever before. Going on stage winning fans one by one. 

After going into the studio and recording their full length major label debut, Jim Wirt was putting together a soundtrack for the Movie 'Spawn', and it featured, Korn, Metallica, Filter, Chemical Brothers, Soul Coughing, among others.  He of course thought that Incubus would make a great choice, and the album was released under Immortal Records as well, Incubus' home. The Spawn Soundtrack, which was released on July 29th, 1997, featured Incubus collaborating with DJ Greyboy on the track "Familiar". As soon as they finished recording the track, the band did what they do best, hit the road, supporting acts such as Snot, Far, and the Phunk Junkeez.

After touring, the band released the album "S.C.I.E.N.C.E" on September 9th 1997 and headed back on the road to promote the album.  Incubus played a handful of dates with Phunk Junkeez and Shootyz Groove before jumping on tour with 311 and Sugar Ray. Incubus were only expected to stay on for the dates within the United States, however things changed. The tour went so well and the response from the crowd was so great, that 311 asked them to stay on for the remainder of the tour and go over seas with them.

Then in February of 1998 the band asked their DJ, DJ Lyfe, to leave the band. They decided that with him in the band they could not longer be a productive family and Incubus is a family. A friend recommended they check out DJ Chris Kilmore to fill the position. The band loved his style and his attitude about life, and asked him to join the band permanently.  Though he only had a few days to learn the songs, most fans accepted the change with open arms once they came to realize how talented this Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native was. 

After the very productive tour with Sugar Ray and 311, and a DJ replacement, Incubus began tours with many other bands, including: Far, One Minute Silence, Cold, Limp Bizkit, and then jumped on the Warped Tour for 3 dates in June and July. Then on July 3rd, the band began the Ozzfest '98 tour, which included, Snot, Tool, Coal Chamber, Ultraspank, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down, and others. 

After Ozzfest the band headed out with Hedpe, Snot, and Soulfly for a while, until they joined up with System of a Down and Dial 7.  This took the band up to October 25th, 1998, at which time they replaced Ice Cube on the Family Values Tour for the 4 remaining dates.  This proved to be huge for the band.  They landed a spot on the "Family Values" compilation album, and decided to use the track 'New Skin'. The band finished the year by playing dates with Orgy, Korn, Hedpe, 2 Skinnee J's, Frontside, and Papa Roach on various dates.

After constant touring in 1998, the band started the new year by heading out on the Black Sabbath tour until mid-March. They then took some time of to record their new album.  After relentless work in the studio, on October 26th 1999 Incubus released "Make Yourself" which included 13 tracks, and a guest appearance.

Right after the release of "Make Yourself", the band went on tour with Primus and Buckethead which lasted for the remainder of 1999. The band also put out the single, "Pardon Me" which began to play all over radio stations across the country.  Soon, MTV picked up the video as Buzzworthy and Spankin New Music. To start off 2000, the band headed out on the Sno-Core Tour with System Of a Down, and Mr.Bungle until March, at which time they hit the road with label mates of Epic, Ultraspank until April.

Due to the success of Pardon Me, and the new acoustic version of the song that had such a huge buzz around it, Make Yourself hit Gold Status (500,000 copies) in April of 2000.  The band then hit the road again, this time overseas, playing shows with Queen Adreena. They returned home at the end of May to go back on a tour of the United States with long time friends 311.  

The second single released from "Make Yourself" was "Stellar", and the video received afternoon airplay on MTV, on TRL, and became a huge success on Billboards Modern Rock Chart. In July Incubus once again went out on the road with Ozzfest. Eventually realizing that the fans were loving the acoustic versions of songs from "Make Yourself" the band released a 6 song EP titled "When Incubus Attacks Volume 1" on August 22nd, 2000. In its first week, "When Incubus Attacks Volume 1" sold nearly 40,000 copies, and scored #41 on the Billboard Album Charts. 

The band then took a short break after finishing the Ozzfest 2000 Tour, playing two acoustic shows at Artist Direct Studios. On October 05th, 2000, Make Yourself went Platinum (1,000,000), and shortly after, the band went on tour with Deftones and Taproot.  Due to the growing number of fans searching for the impossible to find independent album, "Fungus Amongus", on November 7th, 2000, the band re-released the album with the same artwork and track listing as before. Also, the "Strait Up" record, a tribute to the late Lynn Strait of the band Snot, was released, and Brandon contributed his vocals to the song 'Divided', and Brandon and Mike appear in the video for another song off the record, 'Angels Son'.  To finish off the year 2000, Incubus played back-to-back dates at the KROQ Almost Acoustic X-Mas.  They performed with a full orchestra, and acoustic instruments, during the second night Brandon stated: "I think we took this acoustic Christmas a little too serious." 

To start off 2001 the band released the third single off "Make Yourself", 'Drive' on January 15th. Shortly after, 'Drive' took off, moving quickly up to the top of the Modern Rock Charts eventually hitting the #1 spot. The band took a break for a while during the first part of 2001, before returning to a studio in Malibu, California to record the follow up album to "Make Yourself". They finally hit the road with Hundred Reasons in Europe from June until the first week of July. At this time the band were invited to play with the Area One Festival which featured: Moby, Nelly Furtado, and others.  Also, in July "Make Yourself" went Double Platinum (selling 2 million copies).  In August, the band got to play their first shows in Australia and Japan, before returning to the 'States' to begin their long awaited headlining tour with long-time friends from California, Hoobastank (formally Hoobustank). Meanwhile, the bands video for "Drive" was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award in the category Best Group Video. But in September of 2001, they lost that award to the pop group N'Sync. 

Continuing to tour along side Hoobastank, on August 21st, 2001, Incubus released their first single from their upcoming record, "Morning View" called 'I Wish You Were Here'. The single instantly began to climb up the charts and in early September was sitting at #2. The video for the single was released at the end of that month, after being re-cut to make it more 'viewable' during the troubled times in America. The video earned viewings on MTV's TRL, VH1, and Much Music.

On October 23rd, 2001, Incubus released their 3rd full length major label album, called "Morning View". Named after the the street which the mansion they recorded in was located. The band continued to headline dates after its release. And 'I Wish You Were Here' continued to sit among the top 10 on Billboards Modern Rock Charts.

"Morning View" debuted on the Billboard top 200 at the #2 spot (440,000 copies in its first week), the highest ever placement for Incubus, at the same time, their single "Wish You Were Here" was also at #2 on the Modern Rock Charts, and Drive sat at #48 on the Hot 100 chart. Incubus then performed their new single "Wish You Were Here" on Letterman on November 1st, 2001. The band won an award for Billboard's Modern Rock Single of the Year for "Drive" and played "Wish You Were Here" at the award show. By December "Morning View" was certified platinum, the video for "Wish You Were Here" was at #8 on MTV TRL, #4 on modern rock charts, while "Morning View" was #38 on top 200. On December 11th, Incubus released When Incubus Attacks Vol 2, a DVD that featured videos (Take Me to Your Leader, A Certain Shade of Green, Pardon Me, Stellar, Drive, I Miss You (fan made), Anti-Gravity Love Song (fan made), live footage, backstage footage, and more.

To begin 2002, Incubus was #9 with "Drive", #12 with "Stellar", #20 with "Wish You Were Here", #75 with "Nice To Know You" and #31 with the album "Morning View". On January 24, 2002 MTV's TRL premiered the "Nice to Know You" video, and Brandon called in from Europe where the band was on tour with 311 and Hoobastank. The band were then featured on MTV's 'Becoming', TRL, Jay Leno, and played the Letterman show on February 14th 2002, and headed off to play dates in Japan and Australia for the remainder of February and March.

While in Sydney, the band shot the video for their next single, "Warning" on March 7th through March 11th. The band then released the DVD "Morning View Sessions" Live from New York on May 28th, before playing the 92.3 KROCK Dysfunction Family Picnic on June 8th with Staind, P.O.D and others. To start off the autumn months Incubus released a single for "Circles" in early September, this was a radio ad only single, with no plans for a video. Then for the remainder of September and October the band went out for a long United States tour that began on August 31st in Reno, Nevada.

Incubus issued a limited edition version of "Morning View" through on October 1st to coincide with their fall headlining tour. The new version of the album contained a DVD dubbed the "Morning After View Session" and it featured the U.K. video for the groups track "Are You In?", tour footage, new artwork, behind the scenes material and more.