Incubus have been been labeled variously as alt rock, funk metal, and rapcore. Which means that nobody can really put a finger on what they did to achieve platinum sales several times over, least of all Incubus guitarist and songwriter Mike Einziger.
In Zen-like fashion, he has described the L.A. area band’s songs as “Events that happen.” Against that type of unpredictable and ever-changing backdrop, he hasn’t played the guitar so much as he has manipulated it, submitted it to his own needs. Einziger fashions a sonic tapestry that draws heavily from the Zappa/Vai/Hendrix school of rock. Just don’t ask him what he uses to create that tapestry, though.
“I have a real sort of indifference to musical equipment, I guess,” he says. “I don’t know what it is. When I find things that I really love, I love to use them. But I don’t actively pursue those things. They kind of almost just happen to me on accident. Maybe I’d be a much better musician if I were much more proactive about it; maybe I’d write better music. I don’t know. I don’t know what the deal is with that. I’ve kind of always been that way.”
The idea of walking into a guitar store where the walls were lined with instruments didn’t appeal to you?
Not at all. Ben, our bass player who is also a very skilled guitar player, will spend hours looking at guitars in guitar stores and hours looking at and reading about new equipment and all these different things. He’s actually a much better guitar player than I am. No, seriously. Ability-wise, he’s a way better guitar player than I am.
Have you always been like that?
Kind of; I don’t know. It’s almost like when I’m writing music, I feel like that’s the part of it that’s important. All the other stuff is just kind of incidental to me. It just doesn’t matter so much to me. I know people who spend tons of money on their recording studios and getting the acoustics of the studio just right and getting the room tuned a certain way, and people get really into that stuff. Then the music they’re putting out of their studio still sounds like crap.
The only thing that really matters is what’s being played and the music itself. It doesn’t really matter what kind of guitar you’re playing or what amp you’re using or what you’re using to record it with. You’re always going to be able to tell that person because of the sound made with their fingers. Those are the important things. I’m not saying that I’m some incredible virtuoso musician who can just pick up any guitar and be instantly identifiable, but the people I do look up to are those people: Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix and Steve Vai and John McLaughlin.
A lot of newer metal players have insisted that tone is essential and the notes being played are secondary.
I don’t really know anything about any of those bands to be honest. I kind of live in a bubble. I should be more filled in on whatever is happening musically at any time. I’d rather listen to a Jimi Hendrix record than go out and try and find something new that I like.
Is the music world wired in such a way that another Hendrix might still be waiting in the wings?
Yeah, I think it is possible. But I don’t know who they are or how they’ll affect people. Kids grow up and they don’t even know who Jimi Hendrix is now; kids grow up with hip hop and other stuff that just didn’t exist at the time that a guy like Jimi Hendrix was playing guitar. That’s no knock at all on hip-hop; we’re just living in a different world.
Were you influenced at all by the great English trio: Clapton, Beck, and Page?
I never got into Jeff Beck and I never really got into Clapton; I did really get into Jimmy Page. I love Led Zeppelin but not so much necessarily for Jimmy Page’s guitar playing. I think he’s an unbelievable guitar player, there’s no question. It’s just kind of like, in the overall big picture of what Led Zeppelin is, I’ve never really loved the vocals; I’ve never really loved Robert Plant’s singing. But musically, the rhythm section that they had was just…John Bonham and John Paul Jones, just playing the things that they played. Then sort of the level of orchestration that Jimmy Page brought with blaring guitars and Mellotrons and keyboards and stuff like that. That, to me, is hugely inspiring; that’s kind of where it’s at for me.
Page called his approach to orchestration as “building a guitar army.” When you’re working, do you think along those lines at all?
I see it for sure; absolutely. Jimmy Page is one of the most creative people with that in the history of rock music.
In the early stages of song creation, were you thinking guitar tones or what guitars might work best?
No. I only usually have like one guitar that I’ll be playing at any given time. Like all the other guitars I have will be in storage somewhere. I’ll have like one guitar in my studio and that’s kind of it; maybe two and I’ll have a bass. Then I’ll have a ton of keyboards and piano-based instruments. I have a small upright piano that’s really, really cool sounding. It’s an antique; I write a lot of stuff on that. I love synthesizers; I love analog-modular synthesizers and all the filters and oscillators and everything. That stuff is fun to me. That stuff is way more exciting to me than like talking about guitars for some strange reason.
Were you listening to Mellotron bands like King Crimson and Genesis?
Absolutely, but I was really into Pink Floyd growing up; early Santana. I grew up listening to Billie Holiday and Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong and stuff like that. Then when I started discovering rock music on my own, I got into Slayer and all the old Metallica records: Ride The Lightning, Kill ’Em All, and Master Of Puppets. I would make these mix tapes when I was a kid that would be, I don’t know, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing together, next to like “War Ensemble” by Slayer. It’s those horrible contrasts that I think influence us the most―or at least me. I think that maybe some people would view that as some type of creative weakness or musical weakness, but I don’t know how to operate any other way.
How do you describe the creative process?
It’s just kind of all over the place; it’s very random. It’s not really something that’s easily explained, if anybody’s even interested in it. It probably would bore the hell out of most people. It’s not a matter of how much time we spend trying to write songs; the great ones just kind of happen.
For example?
“Drive” happened very effortlessly and literally it just happened really quickly. I had written the chord progression and recorded it to a simple drum loop, and Brandon sang over it. That was kind of it, that was how the song was written; literally the way that it exists now.
Over the years, have you become a better writer?
It’s not like somebody who is a professional athlete, and the more they practice, the better they get. It’s like one has nothing to do with the other. Songs, in my opinion, they’re not works, physical works; they’re actually more like events that happen. They’re just occurrences. I don’t know when they’re going to happen and when they’re not going to happen. So when they happen, I think the most important part is knowing that and identifying that. And kind of seizing that moment and taking it some place.
You do recognize when a piece of music has been fully realized?
Yeah, I never have a problem knowing when something is finished. I’ve been around a lot of musicians, and that’s kind of a problem that a lot of other people seem to have. That’s not a problem that I’ve ever had; I always know when something is done.
You like dwelling in the unknown.
That’s where, I think, the excitement in it lies for me. I could write the best thing that I’ve ever written ten minutes from now; it could just pop into my head. Or I could go another year and not think of one musical idea that I think is solid. That is kind of the challenge of it for me, but I guess that’s all based on intuition. But my intuition, in my opinion, has yet to fail me, so I’m excited to proceed into the future.
Have you given any thought to the next album?
I don’t know what our next record is going to sound like, but I’m already excited about it. I’m already excited to know that there is going to be a period of time where I’m just going to be focusing on writing music again. That, to me, is exciting.