After playing three West Coast dates on the Warped Tour this summer, Incubus began the Ozzfest tour. I was lucky enough to catch up with them at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre in Raleigh, NC. We would like to thank vocalist Brandon and guitarist Mike for taking time out to talk to us!

ONP: You have quite a unique sound. How do you describe your music?

Brandon: We never have. I think, possibly, the conclusion we've come to is trying to cherish the fact that we can't describe it. Maybe that's what's good about it. I don't know, one guy like 2 weeks ago, I talked to a journalist who described himself as being trapped in a house for a very long time with no windows, and he finally got to go upstairs to this one room where he could see in all directions, and that's how he described us. We were the room with omnidirectional windows. I thanked him....lusciously.

ONP: How do your varied personal influences affect your sound?

Mike: We all kind of, as we were growing up, kind of listened to different types of music, you know, individually and collectively, and I wouldn't want to just pigeonhole myself, and neither would anyone else in the band. We don't want to cater to one thing all the time. Part of being a band I think is having the ability to reinvent what you do every time you do it, and we leave ourselves open doors in that aspect. We can come out and do anything we want, and nobody's gonna think it was a bad change or was wrong.

Brandon:Not out of character.

ONP: What type of personal and musical changes occured between the EP and SCIENCE that affected the sound of SCIENCE?

Brandon: Well, we grew 3 years, as people.

Mike: The EP is demos we made when we were young kids in high school. Those were some of the first songs that we ever wrote together, and it was just kind of a tool that we put out because, when we got signed, we knew that we needed to have some time to tour and become a better band. We knew that we would write better songs, so we used the EP as kind of a tool to be able to go out and tour for a while before we came back and wrote all the songs for SCIENCE.

Brandon: One of the biggest steps for young men in general is between the time of 17 and 21 I think. That was the time gap between the EP and SCIENCE. We recorded the EP when we were about 17, and we did SCIENCE when we were all about 20. There was a big jump, creatively and intellectually, and also the experiences we had going into adulthood and into the world and stuff like that, so that reflects in the music quite a bit I think.

ONP: What is the best compliment you've ever gotten?

Brandon: Twice on this tour, I met 2 different girls who were about 6 months pregnant, and it was their baby's first concert. They were all, "We wanted them to hear your music now." I was like, "Oh my God, that's so rad." It was awesome. There's nothing like that. We've never experienced anything like that before. That's like, a gnarly compliment.

ONP: Do you think the majority of your fans gets the underlying meaning of your songs?

Mike: I think it's kind of up to the individual. Some kids are just there to like, jump around and release energy, and other kids tattoo lyrics on their bodies and stuff. There are all different types of people that come to our shows, so it's a mixture of everything.

Brandon: ...which is cool with us. It's incredible for me as a lyricist for someone who's heard the album to actually take something from the songs, but at the same time, as a musician, it's equally as cool for someone to just enjoy it and not know what we're talking about and just enjoy it because of its energy and its presence. Truthfully, there is a big part of our audience, I think, that's very aware of what's going on as far as the content of the music because they're singing up front, and I watch them singing while I'm singing, and they're almost experiencing the same thing I am. I've talked to kids who've come up to me and gotten something different than I was intending but something equally as valid. Sometimes they'll see it like I saw it, and sometimes they're like, other end of the field, but it's still really powerful to them, so, so be it.

ONP: After doing both Warped and Ozzfest, which did you prefer and why? How did they differ?

Mike: Out here, it's pretty much the same kids, but on the West Coast, there's, I think, more of a separation between the metal fans and the new...punk rock kids. I don't know, but it's just people in general that we're playing to, and this thing's run way more efficiently than the Warped Tour. We much prefer Ozzfest to Warped, not so much because of the kids or whatever but just because of the environment they provide for us to play in. I think it's much more professionally run and enjoyable.

Brandon: We've done all different kinds of shows. The kids who are aware of us, who come to see us play, are neither punk nor metal. We're attracting the type of people who are more like us in that we don't care about where we're supposed to fit in or if we're even supposed to fit in at all. They come because there's like a common bond. They enjoy what's going on, and we'd like to create a "scene" where everyone's welcome. On the Warped Tour, there were, depending on where we were playing, a few 100 or 1000 kids who didn't care what kind of tour it was. They just came to see the music, which is cool.

ONP: Having played both large venues to enormous crowds and smaller ones, which do you prefer to play and why?

Mike: I like playing in... (cut off as a passing fan asks for an autograph)

Brandon: I think my favorite places to play are theatres, like the old theatres, 1000-1500 seaters where there's a nice, broad stage with a good PA. I really like playng outdoors because I can breathe oxygen instead of smoke. If there was a theatre that could seat 1000-1500 that was outside, that would be ideal for me.

Mike: I like playing outdoors too because you can breathe. There's natural ventilation...and places where we have room to move around but not so big that, you know. We've played everything from 150-person little, crappy dive bars to fields in front of tons of 1,000s of people and arenas and shit. I think we all kind of like the larger theatres, like large clubs and theatres. We like places with character, not just like run-down, shithole places that people just break stuff in.

Brandon: I would go as far as saying that I dislike playing places like that because it sort of leads the people, you know, being where they couldn't breathe and all. Atmosphere is very important. It sets the mood.

Mike: Breathing is definitely an important part of an Incubus show, but we like to put on a show. Ideally we'd be able to bring out all kinds of crazy laser beam lights and have weird projections and...

Brandon: We will.

Mike: ...which we will eventually.

Brandon: May I interject something? Hearing this in the background, "War Pigs," just makes our whole career complete. Having played a concert, not even three hours ago, and then having Ozzy playing "War Pigs" is like, very surreal.

ONP: What was it like touring with Ozzy?

Mike: It's pretty awesome.

Brandon: Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath brought heavy metal to Earth, and so, we're not the quintessential heavy metal band or anything, but we definitely have those aspects to us, hard music, and they were the originators of it.

Mike: One thing about the heavy metal fans is that generally speaking, they have been really loyal to the bands. The kids that listen to the bands are really, really into the music and not just hear a song on the radio and go buy a CD, listen to the one song, and throw it in the garbage. It's kind of like, there are all these bands that came out and didn't even necessarily get played on the radio but could attract large crowds of people and have long careers. That's kind of like what we're about. We're about touring and playing live shows in front of people and hopefully provoking a revolution.

ONP: So what's next for you?

Mike: Well, we won't be recording for a while.

Brandon: ...but little projects here and there.

Mike: Yeah, we may do some kind of remixes of songs and give them out at shows and stuff for fans who have come to see us for a long time to keep it fresh for them. They're the ones that are going, "Hey, we want more music." We'd love to be able to record more music, but we've got a lot of work to do. We'll be on tour, and our new single comes out in Sept., a year after the album.

ONP: How's the new DJ Kilmore working out?

Brandon: It's the coolest thing that's ever happened to us. That was our band before (tilting a water bottle on its side,) and now we're fully erect (standing the bottle up.) It was almost like a growth stage with the other DJ. We had a complete falling out with him, and it turned really shitty, so we fired him. Fortunately, out of that bad situation we met Kilgore, who has been a DJ for 13 years (at the ripe old age of 12, no less,) and he is more like us. In 6 months, he's become one of our best friends. He really almost like, completed the band. It took us 7 years to find him, unfortunately.

Mike: He's just awesome, he's good!

Brandon: This his shit. He's a battle DJ. It's not just about spinning records and watching them go around... more old school style.

If you haven't heard Incubus yet, you can pick up their EP "Enjoy Incubus" and their full-length CD "SCIENCE."

Totally irrelevant but a funny note nonetheless, apparently Trojan provided each band with a "crate of condoms" as Brandon put it. "We're like the least sexually active band on this tour," he said. Hard to believe, but true...

Anyway, once again, many thanks to Incubus, especially Mike and Brandon, for a great show and the preceding interview. Check them out live with their new veteran DJ Kilmore, tearing up shows and captivating audiences coast to coast.