Incubus never did fit into any one scene or sound.
“So much of nu-metal was openly misogynistic,” Boyd says, “and that always felt really weird to me.”
Incubus, however, were sensitive and female-friendly. “We were being embraced by some of the nu-metal champions of the time, and opening for them, and it always made me cringe.” This is partly because many teenage fans have grown up to realise that much of nu-metal was mired by a negative attitude towards women. “When I hear that term, it makes my palms sweat a bit,” says Boyd. Nu-metal turns 20 this year, but the band are keen to distance themselves from any lingering associations. Because we had let it die, it was interesting again Things need to fall apart in order for us to get perspective. At one point he says, to clarify how serious he is about his bohemian lifestyle: “I fucking love crystals.” Pasillas is warm, earnest, and probably wearing something from his clothing line. His Instagram (314,000 followers) is an endless scroll of ponchos and lopsided man buns. He is an artist and also recently released a jewellery line. Boyd is eloquent, goofy and so supernaturally handsome that it is best not to look directly at him. They are now in their 40s, ear stretchings gone, although their sense of humour remains. Watch the video for A Certain Shade of Green on the band’s YouTube channelįast forward to the present day, and Boyd and drummer José Pasillas are sitting on chintzy sofas in London’s Soho Hotel. By 2000, every single white guy with dreadlocks and an acoustic guitar at a house party knew the chords to their acoustic road-trip hit Drive. Soon Incubus were everywhere: at one point you couldn’t watch MTV2 without seeing Brandon Boyd’s nipples. But one major-label deal later, they became nu-metal’s bare-chested boyband, creating sensitive make-out music for the misunderstood masses.
Early on they played skronky funk metal, with scatted vocals like their heroes Primus, and had songs with titles such as Psychopsilocybin. On paper, perhaps the band’s premise was always a bit ridiculous. They surfed, liked science and had a frontman who never wore a shirt. Slipknot, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park – though they didn’t sound like each other they were united in weirdness, aggressive riffs, dodgy lyrics and usually, though not always, some light turntable scratching.Ĭaught up in this unfortunate hellscape were five nerdy hippies from Calabasas, California. This was a questionable period in rock music, beloved of frustrated suburban kids like me, that blended rap, metal and what could be loosely termed alternative fashion to freakish effect. I f holographic droids in the future ever excavate the musical period from the late 1990s to early 00s, they would certainly be confused by any items in the time capsule marked nu-metal.
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