Bountiful Boyd

For nearly 25 years, Brandon Boyd has been a prominent fixture of the international music community as the front man of the widely celebrated alternative rock act, Incubus. Though Boyd may not be as active with Incubus today, his output of creativity has barely slowed down at all. In 2010, he released his solo debut The Wild Trapeze, and last year he announced his collaboration with long time Incubus producer, Brendan O’Brien, on a new musical project entitled Sons of The Sea. Where Incubus built its career on aggressive blend of funk, metal and ’90s alt-rock, Sons of The Sea saw Boyd making his way through material that was more laid back with significant pop influence. Though it may have disappointed fans hoping for a return to his more abrasive roots, the record shows that Boyd has an interest creating a diverse musical legacy and certainly isn’t afraid of taking risks or challenging his fans. Recently, CULTURE was able to catch up with Brandon and discuss all things art and music with him as well as hear about his philosophies on cannabis, his work ethic and the future of Incubus.

You’ve started a brand new project, Sons of The Sea. Can you tell us how this project came about?

Having been in Incubus for over two decades, there was a moment, probably a couple of times over the last handful of years when all of us in the band collectively thought it would be a good idea for us to, now again, to take some time. Take some time away from being on tour constantly; take some time away from the rigors of touring life and being the kind of touring machine that we had become. So we gave ourselves permission to do that, I guess maybe, three or four years ago.

I went back to school briefly, as did Michael, and our drummer José had his first child—we really gave ourselves permission to experience life away from the road, which is very different. You can get so insular when you’re constantly on tour, you feel like you’re living inside of a bubble, and very often it can manifest some unhealthy behaviors. In that little down time, I made my first solo record, The Wild Trapeze—it was very insular. I made it out in the woods in upstate New York with David Fidman—and it sounds like that too, like I’ve been hiding out in a cave and scribbling notes onto a wall and things like that. So this last sort of break that Incubus took, I was talking with Brendan O’Brien, who Incubus has now made three records with, and he and I for many years now have constantly mused about writing songs together.

I came home from the Incubus tour and I rested for a week, I had a whole bunch of song ideas and so I called Brendan and said, “What are you doing?” and he said, “At the moment, not anything. What are you doing?” and I said, “Let’s do it! Let’s write some songs!” It happened very organically and it was really fun. We didn’t have any kind of a schedule, we didn’t have any kind of a budget, there was no record label, we didn’t have a title, we just had a bunch of cool song ideas, and we got together and did what musicians are supposed to do.

Was it different to work with Brendan as more of a collaborator and less as a producer?

Yeah, it was really different in certain ways, and in other ways, it was just good ol’ Brendan O’Brien. He produced the record as well, but most of the instrumentation on the Sons of The Sea album is performed by Brendan: The guitar, the bass; I did a lot of the drums, and then, later on in the process, we brought in Josh Freese and he made the songs sound 100 times better —I can play the drums, but not like Josh Freese. So it was a fun experiment, and I’m actually really thrilled with the results.

When you guys were going into the writing and recording process did you have any specific goals for the record?

No! [Laughs.] To put it bluntly, not really. I just knew that Brendan was a fantastic musician and obviously an overly-capable producer, so I had a lot of trust. I think that he also trusts that I know what I’m doing too after this long, so we kind of just went in there and sparks started to fly immediately. Actually, the first song that we wrote together called, “Lady Black,” we were both pleasantly surprised by what we had made. It was just this weird, kind of odd, synthy, pop thing. Then we wrote another song together which was completely different from “Lady Black” and so we just kept going and the end result became The Sons of The Sea record.

Awesome! Are you looking forward to taking the material into a live setting?

Very much so! I actually start rehearsals with the band that I’ve put together [very soon]. It is super exciting although it’s a bit nerve-wracking too, just because I’ve only been on stage with Incubus for 99.9 percent of my time as a singer and a musician. So I’m really excited and nervous in all the right ways about trying something new.

You’ve never been too shy about discussing your cannabis use in the past. What are your thoughts on the medical cannabis movement that you see going on in America these days?

I think that it’s something that is very hopeful. I just turned 38 last month, so I obviously grew up in an era where marijuana was very illegal, and I had friends go to prison for years for growing marijuana. It was always so sad to me for so many reasons. When otherwise good people were being considered criminals for growing something, just cultivating a plant that’s already here—it seems so ridiculous. I honestly think that these steps that we’ve taken in Colorado and a lot of other places, with legalizing marijuana for medicinal use, but also recreational use with certain regulations—I really think that those are inevitabilities. I truly believe that marijuana will eventually have a relationship in America like alcohol does. So, there are some downsides to that, because there will be this rush towards it for a while and there will be a lot of negativity that comes with that. But what I’m going to try and do, and encourage others to do, is to focus on the bigger picture. I think it’s a thing that is hugely beneficial to us for lots of things, but it’s also something to be respected and not to be abused. It’s the kind of thing that should be treated with respect and reverence as well, because I do believe that it is a sacred plant. It’s helped me on so many occasions, not the least of which have been when my body has been sick in the past, and it’s helped me observe the pain process from a different angle. In that sense I am very grateful to this plant for being here.

You recently had an art exhibition in South Africa called “The Plastic Oceans Exhibition.” Can you tell us a bit about it?

It was a retelling of an exhibition that I did with Hurley at the Hurley H Space Gallery in Costa Mesa a few years ago. The whole idea around it was to tell a visual narrative around the story of plastic pollutions in the world’s oceans.

So, what I was trying to do was give a kind of crash course on the five gyres that exist in the world’s oceans and how the way that they swirl and the way that the current grabs all of our discarded plastic, and creates these toxic ecosystems—stuff that can’t break down for hundreds and hundreds of years, and eventually comes around and poisons us again in the process. It’s the proverbial shooting one’s self in the foot. So what it’s trying to do is just raise, if only a little bit of, awareness about the idea of sustainability through a kind of creative narrative. It was great because a lot of people at the Costa Mesa event came down, had a good time, saw some pretty pictures, and hopefully were educated a little bit. Then it was a wonderful icing on the cake to have it be revamped in a completely different part of the world and have it be received enthusiastically.

Is your approach to creating these graphic art exhibitions similar to your approach to making music or are they two completely separate exercises for you?

The two things are so similar that I actually made the decision a long time ago to not choose between the two. There are a lot of people who present the case for picking one creative outlet and focusing entirely on that, and there are benefits to that, you know, I’ve spent a lot of my life focusing on almost entirely on music, so visual art came in as a sad second. Then I realized that wasn’t making me entirely happy, I felt like there was this sort of unspoken voice lingering around that I needed to indulge. So I decided years ago to allow both art and music equal space and I’ve been so much happier as a result. So the processes are very, very similar. Really, it’s just a matter of what tools are nearest to me when the muse decides to show up.

Is it surreal to think about how Incubus is rapidly approaching its 25th anniversary as a band?

It’s completely mind-blowing. It puts so many things into perspective when we go on tour and you see the first thousand people are all in their late teens/early 20s and then we meet a bunch of the listeners before every show at our Meet-and-Greet and, at least, a dozen or two dozen times a day I meet someone that says, “Man, I started listening to you when I was 10 and you totally changed my life.” And I say, “Wait, how old are you?!” And they say, “I’m twenty-five!” And it’s incredible. There are people that listen to Incubus now that weren’t born when our second record came out and it trips me out in so many ways, it’s wonderful! It’s a great way to put things in perspective.

I know you released a book of poetry and art towards the end of last year, do you hope to release some more writings in the future?

Yeah, it’s actually something that I really love to do. I really love to draw and paint, I love taking pictures, I love writing; I’m all about it, man. A lot of my biggest spiritual and intellectual influences did the same thing so I feel like I’m honoring them and paying it forward to pursue those same challenges and it just makes me happy. It makes me happy to contribute to people’s book collections [laughs].