Today's Artist Profile is on one of my favorite bands from my high school years, Incubus. Incubus were formed in 1991 in Calabasas, California. The band consists of Brandon Boyd on lead vocals, Mike Einzinger on lead guitar and backing vocals, Ben Kenney on bass and backing vocals, Chris Kilmore on turntables and keys, and Jose Pasillas II on drums. Brandon, Jose, and Mike began playing together way back in the 10th grade, and a school teacher of theirs happened to have some contacts within the music industry, and was able to have the band booked to a host of legendary LA area venues including The Roxy, The Troubadour, and The Whiskey all before they even graduated from high school. The teacher also arranged some studio time for the band, which eventually led to the band recording their debut album, Fungus Amongus in 1995. The band released their major label debut effort, the Enjoy Incubus EP in 1997. The EP was mostly re-recordings of songs from Fungus Amongus that aimed to represent a recording effort for the band while they toured with Korn in Europe. Later that year, the band released their sophomore album, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. The album contained tracks such as "Summer (Anti-Gravity Love Song)" and "New Skin". The album performed particularly well saleswise, selling over 100,000 copies and led to the band touring with a virtual who's-who of the rock world at that time including the aforementioned Korn, 311, and Sublime. The band toured consistently through 1998, and took a break before starting work on their brand new album, Make Yourself in 1999. This would be the album that would catapult Incubus right into the mainstream with such classic tracks like "Pardon Me", "Stellar", and my personal favorite Incubus song "Drive". The album wound up selling over 3 million copies and cemented Incubus reputation as one of the top acts in alternative rock today.
The band released their next effort, Morning View in 2001 and went on to achieve almost the same exact success as the one prior, achieving success with such singles like "Wish You Were Here", "Nice To Know You", "Warning", and 'Are You In?" The album went on to sell 3 million copies and continued to increase popularity for the band. After a lengthy tour to promote the album, the band took a break before settling down to begin work on their brand new album A Crow Left Of The Murder, released in 2004. The album had a decidedly darker, more political tone than their other albums which was a huge creative risk, but it paid off in dividends for the band, going platinum on the strength of such tracks like "Megalomaniac" "Talk Shows On Mute" and the disc's title track. The band wasted no time in releasing their next effort Light Grenades, which came out in 2006. The album became the band's first effort to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and gave way to such powerful Incubus songs such as "Anna Molly", "Dig", "Love Hurts", and "Oil and Water". The band is due to release their brand new album If Now Now, When? on July 12 and the first single from that album, "Adolescents" is already in the Top 10 on the Hot Alternative Songs chart. Incubus have always been that band that have stuck to their original sound all of these years, but have thrown in little snippets of experimental sounds that haven't deviated whatsoever from their original musical course. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Incubus and the path to which they are headed.
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