When starting a band, most have elaborate dreams of success, but only a few ever find it. Proving just how difficult it truly is to make it, the name Incubus may be known by nearly all at this point, but like others, they had humble beginnings. Launched all the way back in 1991 when the core members were still in high school, after a positive underground following built out interest in their 1995 album Fungus Amongus and 1997’s S.C.I.E.N.C.E., by the time 1999 rolled around Incubus were emerging as mainstream standouts with Make Yourself. A turning point, accelerated by the mega hit single “Drive,” within a couple of years Incubus were international superstars with the release of 2001’s Morning View.
Truly an inspiring story of talent, an ability to think outside the box when writing music, and hard work, twenty some odd years later Incubus have sustained multi-platinum success as an Alternative Rock cornerstone. Still finding unique ways to keep their creative juices flowing, in more recent times, they have offered fans an entirely re-recorded and re-imagined edition of the epic Morning View album which they call Morning View XXIII. Released on May 10, 2024, the new album offers long-time fans a new perspective on well-beloved songs, and is not to replace the original, but simply act as a different take. Quite interesting, co-founding Incubus Lead Guitarist Mike Einziger took some time to talk about the decades gone by with the band, the work put into Morning View XXIII, their upcoming tour dates, plus more.
Cryptic Rock – Incubus has been going strong for well over three decades now. Accomplishing a great deal with multi-platinum-selling records, extensive touring, how would you describe this rather unpredictable journey the band have been on?
Mike Einziger – It’s been an incredibly humbling and wild ride, I would say. Coming from a bunch of kids just making music in a garage, to getting to spend our lives traveling around the world together, recording music, playing that music for people, it still feels surreal.
Cryptic Rock – After all this time, that is great to hear you still feel that way. When you have been around as long as Incubus has, do you ever have time to stop and look back in hindsight, or do you just keep moving forward?
Mike Einziger – No, I think I kind of look back all the time. I think the older that I get, the more aware of that aspect of it I become; just more appreciative and still in disbelief. I just feel really lucky to be able to make music and play with my friends. Like I said before, it’s an honor and a privilege to be able to do that and go through life that way.
Cryptic Rock – It sounds like a great experience. One of the things that has always stuck out with Incubus is that the band has a very unique sound. You have done things your own way through the years. So, how would you describe the development of Incubus and the progression of the music?
Mike Einziger – I think that over all these years of writing songs, making albums, and then playing all this music, the one thing that we always try to stay conscious of is just not repeating ourselves. That’s been our instinct, not to do the same things that we had done before. That was really our only guardrail. That’s our only limitation. It’s a self-imposed one.
Cryptic Rock – Right. Well, it is good to not want to repeat yourself, but that has to be a challenge too. It is very hard not to repeat yourself. We all do it sometimes when creating something.
Mike Einziger – Yeah. I think there are certain musical elements that sort of rhyme with each other, and that rhyming is fine. But it’s just verbatim repeating things. Obviously, we’re the same people, so there’s going to be some familiarity with musical decisions that we make. That aspect of familiarity is really important to the identity of who we are as musicians, so we’d never want to lose that.
It’d be like somebody saying, “Hey, write a song that sounds just like ‘Drive’.” You get a lot of that when you do something that’s really successful. There’s a lot of examples where there are people that would want you to recycle that and make a new version of that to try and repeat that kind of success. We just never adopted that idea. Or we would just never allow it. We always wanted to do whatever we wanted to do, whatever came naturally to us.
Cryptic Rock – Those types of ideologists attribute it to the longevity of the band. Looking at the progression of everything, it was in ’99 when Make Yourself came out. That record was sort of the mainstream introduction to Incubus for many. Following was Morning View in 2001, and there was a huge explosion from there. Take us back to that time when all that was happening, that period between Make Yourself and Morning View.
Mike Einziger – Well, the period between Make Yourself and Morning View, when we wrote and recorded Make Yourself, was really after having spent a bunch of time traveling around the world.
Make Yourself was our first album post-world tour. I think we all did a lot of growing as individuals, also as a band. Having gone around the world, that was a broadening, coming-of-age experience for all of us. That was what was responsible for the step up on Make Yourself versus what came before it.
That period of time was all really exciting and interesting for us. It was so much an acceleration of our career. We had finished touring behind Make Yourself. We were on the road for 18 months or something like that. We were in the Morning View house recording the Morning View album when the song “Drive” from Make Yourself hit really big. So, it was already like a rocket ship, and then it just went way further once the song “Drive” came out.
We were recording Morning View as Make Yourself was hitting its commercial peak. There was all this momentum behind us. Then, when we released Morning View, that was by far the biggest debut of an album that we ever had till that point. It just felt like there was a lot of wind in our back.
We had jumped during that period of time also from playing in theaters to headlining arenas, which was a big jump. Theaters that are a couple thousand people, to like 15,000 seat arenas. It was just an explosion. It was pretty fun and exciting for a bunch of young 20-somethings.
Cryptic Rock – That is really wild. From there, you guys continue to produce really quality records, as you said, never trying to repeat yourself. Recently, you actually re-recorded the Morning View record, released in May under the title Morning View XXIII, and it is quite interesting. Some people are going to be fickle, saying, “Oh, they’re trying to replace the original.” That is not the point of this… it is just a different take on it. Listening to the re-recorded version, it sounds a little rawer. Tell us about what went into this.
Mike Einziger – We didn’t really have any preconceived idea of what the re-recorded Morning View was going to sound like. We just got into the studio and re-recorded it. It was a very natural process for us. It was actually a lot of fun. It was almost like visiting an old friend or something. It felt different than I would have imagined. It was also our first time really recording anything in the studio with Nicole (Row), who plays bass in our band now. It was just really fun.
It was a fun thing to do. Of course, there are going to be people that will say they like the original better. Awesome. Great. I’m just happy that people want to listen to it at all. These are songs that we wrote and recorded 20-something years ago. The fact that there are still people that want to listen to it, that’s just amazing. If somebody wants to listen to that music, whichever version they want to listen to, awesome. If you don’t want to listen to it, that’s awesome too.
Cryptic Rock – Right. As stated, it is just a different perspective on the songs. The original is a phenomenal record; the production on it is amazing. This new version just has a different feel to it. It feels a little more live in some aspects.
Mike Einziger – Well, all the drums on the re-recorded Morning View were recorded live in the Morning View house, and then the rest of the musical parts were overdubbed in a studio. It was like a live drum take with more production added on top of it. But, like I said, it was really fun to make. We all had a great time doing it. People seem to enjoy it. We’re super excited to go out on the road and play Morning View for our fans that want to see and hear it.
Cryptic Rock – Actually, you will be going out on tour come late August into September to play shows you know in support of this release. You are going to be playing Morning View in its entirety, as well as other songs. It seems like you are pretty grounded and you still appreciate the whole aspect of everything. This in mind, what is it like at this point in time playing live?
Mike Einziger – I do. I appreciate it now more than I ever have. I think that there are things about this experience that I could never have explained to my younger self. Playing live is honestly super fun. It’s always been fun. I think it will always be fun.
The pandemic was also an interesting time for us. Obviously, the entire concert industry got shut down and nobody was playing shows. We had to take a mandatory break for a couple of years. During that time, all of us, even more so, became appreciative of that experience. I totally missed playing concerts during that time. That was the longest duration that I’ve been at home in memory, which I also enjoyed for other reasons. I have kids, and life’s a little different now. Being at home was really nice in ways. I also really missed playing concerts.
We just came back from Asia and Australia. It was just awesome to be there and to play concerts on the other side of the world. Audiences there are so excited and have so much energy at those shows. Playing shows is fun.
Cryptic Rock – Nothing beats a live performance. When going to a show, nothing can replace seeing a band on stage interacting and playing songs together. So, you have the re-recorded Morning View record, shows coming up, and you release an EP back in 2020. Is there any work on any new songs?
Mike Einziger – Yeah. I’m actually in a recording studio right now. We’re in the middle of recording new songs for a new album. Hopefully, we’ll be done with the album before the end of the year. We’re probably going to finish a few songs here in the next week or so. So yeah, we’re well on our way.
Cryptic Rock – That is fantastic to hear. The EP was a nice collection for fans. We are living in a different time, and it seems like albums do not get released as often. It seems like many artists are going the EP route, which is cool too. Was that a strategic decision to put out an EP at that time?
Mike Einziger – We’ve always just done whatever. We’ve always just followed whatever path felt the most natural and just felt good to us. At those times, if we felt like we wanted to record albums or if we had 15 songs, or 12 songs, or whatever it was, we would have probably just made a whole album. At the time that we did that, we recorded whatever group of songs we recorded and then put it out. It’s always been that way for us. It just has to feel right to us. I wouldn’t say it was a strategic thing. It was just what came out of us at that time.
Cryptic Rock – That makes sense. That is one great thing about the internet, you could put out material whenever you want in a lot of ways. You mentioned how it has been really a surreal experience throughout your career. You have also done a lot outside of Incubus as well. What would you say are some of the most important things you have learned from it all?
Mike Einziger – I think it’s really important to be open to new experiences and working with different people and collaborating. I’ve said no to a lot of things over the years, too, that I wish I would have said yes to. You can’t do everything, so I’m not too hard on myself about it. If you’re open to new things, all sorts of incredible, crazy things can happen. That’s definitely something that I’ve learned over the years. If you don’t want to do something, don’t do it. At the same time, try and keep an open mind.
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