03/21/04

Incubus' "Meglomaniac"

We've heard that Refuse & Resist! and Not In Our Name folks can be seen in Incubus' new video for "Meglomaniac" which is a #1 hit on radio but the video has been relegated to overnight rotation on MTV, see below:
Also see: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1483949
/20031230/incubus.jhtml?headlines=true

Sweet Demons
Despite their name, Incubus are nice boys, unless you happen to be George W. Bush By Rob Sheffield
From Rolling Stone, April 1, 2004

"Not that you want to get publicly crucified," Boyd says. "But you need to speak out when people are getting punished for it. When the people are scared to disagree with the policy of their government, the whole idea of America and democracy gets shit on. And that's what's happening right now with Bush and the war..." Brandon Boyd from INCUBUS

Incubus are hitting the road, and the backstage mood is heavy. Tonight the band plays a secret warm-up gig for fans, friends and family in Los Angeles, twenty miles from where they grew up in the San Fernando Valley. But tomorrow, they take off for Japan to start a year-long tour. It's sinking in that they're going to be away a long, long time. Lead singer Brandon Boyd shakes his head: "Our girlfriends are really mad at us, man."

To their dismay, Incubus used to get lumped in with the new-metal bands, mostly because they had a silly name and a DJ. But they've left those other bands way behind. Their new album, A Crow Left of the Murder... , is racking up rave reviews as well as monster sales, debuting on the charts at Number Two. They're all over the radio with their controversial hit "Megalomaniac," which has an anti-war, anti-Bush video.

Meanwhile, backstage before the show, the twenty-eight-year-old Boyd is deep in conversation about spiritual matters, since he is a spiritual kind of rock star. Boyd is thoughtful and articulate, a new-school sex symbol wearing a vintage Police pin on his Nehru jacket, his Converse high tops painted black to hide the logo. He discusses the spiritual aspects of "Megalomaniac" until he gets distracted by a girl in blue moccasins.

"Cool shoes," he says, looking up into her eyes intensely.

"Thanks," says the girl, a friend of one of Incubus' girlfriends, and they chat for a moment. Then she sinks into a chair and smiles the way a girl only smiles after a rock star has complimented her shoes in front of her friends. There are spiritual matters to discuss, and world leaders to take down, but even when the pressure's on, Brandon Boyd doesn't neglect the details.

Whatever the prevailing rock fad is, Incubus like to go the opposite way. Three years ago, when all the new-metal machismo was raging, Incubus got unfashionably in touch with their feelings, scoring a huge hit with the ballad "Drive." Boyd came on like a sensitive Aquarian Jesus love god, comfortable with baring his feminine side, and even more comfortable with baring his chest onstage. Incubus became one of the few bands heavy enough for male fans but with enough emotion and crush appeal for female fans. At times it gets surreal -- at tonight's show, the girls in the crowd scream orgasmically, even during the drum solo.

In 2004, Incubus are going against the grain again, but this time it's political. "Megalomaniac" features a pulverizing guitar riff and unmistakable fury as Boyd screams the chorus: "Hey! Megalomaniac!/You're no Jesus!/Yeah, you're no fucking Elvis!/Wash your hands clean of yourself, baby/And step down!/Step down!/Step down!"

The video, directed by Floria Sigismondi, gets more explicit, with images of Jesus, Mussolini, Hitler and a Bush look-alike and slogans such as "The United States Air Force Presents Brainwashing" and "Heroes Don't Ask Why." The video is making a broad historical point about power and war -- "Floria said she wanted to combine Monty Python animation with the History Channel," says Boyd -- but there's no way to miss the anti-Bush part of the message.

"Megalomaniac" is a Number One hit on modern-rock radio, but finding it on MTV is almost as hard as finding WMDs in Iraq. After the Super Bowl nipple controversy, MTV relegated "Megalomaniac" and several other videos to overnight rotation -- but "Megalomaniac," which contains no sexual imagery, was apparently targeted for its political content. Incubus find this hilarious.

"It's fun to be relegated," Boyd says. "Everybody should try it."

Boyd says that the song isn't specific: "I'm not singing about Bush. I'm singing about a kind of destructive masculine energy. But if people take it as a song about Bush, I say, 'Yeah, great -- run with it.' " Boyd is refreshingly blunt. "I'd love to see Bush out of office," he says. "I'm even at the point where I can see myself voting for someone I don't totally stand behind, just to get Bush out of office. I usually vote Green -- I voted for Nader last time. But the important thing is getting homey out of there."

"I hate the way Bush talks," guitarist Mike Einziger says. "I hate the way he doesn't talk. I even hate the way he stands still."

It's not an easy time for rock stars to speak their minds. When the Dixie Chicks tried it, they got fried like a bucket of Extra Crispy. "There's no better time to do it," Boyd says. "There's no better time to speak out than when people are scared to speak out, when people are getting publicly crucified for it."

"There's no better time to get publicly crucified?" asks Einziger, interrupting a little serious making-out on the couch with his girlfriend, Lily.

"Not that you want to get publicly crucified," Boyd says. "But you need to speak out when people are getting punished for it. When the people are scared to disagree with the policy of their government, the whole idea of America and democracy gets shit on. And that's what's happening right now with Bush and the war. America is getting shit on."

The members of Incubus don't necessarily agree on all the issues. "We're all individuals in the band: We've got Democrats and socialists, we've got Greens and independents. We have different points of view, politically and philosophically. We even have one atheist in the band. I'm not an atheist, but I don't hate George Bush personally. I don't know him personally.

"Besides," he adds mischievously, "I like Bush." Really? "Yeah. I mean, some people are into that whole shaved thing. . . . " Incubus formed in high school, back when Boyd, Einziger and drummer Jose Pasillas II were growing up together in Calabasas, California. They all graduated from Calabasas High in 1994. They later met DJ Chris Kilmore, from Philadelphia, and new bassist Ben Kenney joined last year, a veteran of the Roots. But the core trio has been playing together for more than a decade, starting out with corny funk metal inspired by Primus and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That might be why they don't carry themselves with any rock-star attitude -- they've known each other too long to get away with it, and they're still immersed in high school geek humor. At dinnertime, when Einziger orders a chicken taco, Pasillas says, "What did you call me, dude?"

What's the secret of their longevity? "To be in a band, you have to be good at sucking," Boyd muses. "All of us started out just plain sucking. We sucked for years. We got brilliant at sucking."

Over the years, they must have shared many embarrassing moments. Einziger says, "Some of the most embarrassing moments are for sale right now at CD stores around the country."

Of all the guys, Einziger is the unreconstructed geek, the one who still admits he's a Rush fan. His traveling kit backstage has a paperback tucked into a protective plastic pouch, right between his shampoo and his deodorant: The Little Giant Book of Optical Illusions. He has a proud mass of geek-hair frizz. "I have big hair," he says. "It rises like the unleavened bread of my ancestors."

Brandon's dad, Chuck Boyd, was a model and actor in the Seventies. "He was the Salem man," Brandon says. "If you go through old Playboys from the Seventies, you see his Salem ad in every one. I have this picture of him and me as a baby, and we're posing in front of his Salem billboard, but I've just pooped my diaper and I'm crying." He also had bit parts in crime shows such as Starsky and Hutch and Hart to Hart, as well as the 1974 Chuck Norris film Slaughter in San Francisco. "The one I remember best is Days of Our Lives," Brandon says. "He played a mogul whose daughter gets kidnapped by mercenaries. His big line was, 'Find her. I don't care what it takes. Just find her!' I was five years old, in front of the TV, going, 'That's my dad -- he's scary!' "

Boyd is a family man himself these days. For the new album, he wrote the big-hearted love ballad "Southern Girl" for the real Southern girl in his life, his girlfriend, Carolyn, who keeps calling his cell to ask for directions to tonight's show. "She's from the Florida panhandle," he says proudly. "She calls it the Redneck Riviera." I start to mention that I once heard the supermodel Carolyn Murphy make the same joke on Fashion Television -- and then I shut up, wondering if it's the same Carolyn. Of course it is.

Murphy makes a big entrance backstage, looking more like a cheerful suburban soccer mom than a pampered glamazon, carrying daughter Dylan, a blond angel of three. Dylan comes from Murphy's previous marriage, but she calls Brandon "Daddy." The first thing Dylan says upon arriving backstage is "I'm gonna lick you!" Then she puts a purple cone-shaped party hat on Brandon's head and licks his jacket with a mouthful of crackers. Boyd doesn't mind getting baby slobber all over his jacket, even though he's wearing it onstage in a few minutes. "Dylan's really changed my life," he says. "She's such a girly-girl. She even wants to sleep in heels. I grew up with two brothers, so it's all new to me."

"Dylan's got crushes on the other boys in the band," Murphy says with a sigh. "I guess that starts early." Her biggest crush is obviously Pasillas, who bends to kiss her and then pulls away, to her delight. More family crowds around the tiny backstage area. I get introduced to step-parents, siblings, girlfriend's boss's daugters. Boyd's mother, Dolly, an effervescent lady who could be an old- fashioned movie star, has brought presents for Dylan, including a pink Cinderella storybook. As the only band parent with anything like a grandchild in the room, she gets a few envious looks from the others. Dolly says, "I feel a little nostalgic when the boys go on tour. I feel like, 'Why not just sever one of my arms and take it away for a year?' "

For Boyd, family values are part of the inspiration behind the anti-war anger of "Megalomaniac." "Anger can be spiritual," he says. "The anger in this song is definitely spiritual. The message is simple: We've tried killing each other for years and years. It's been tried. It doesn't work. It has to stop."
(March 10, 2004)

INCUBUS

stills from "Meglomaniac"