Incubus
Incubus has a new song out, "Into the Summer," even as it's on tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its third album Make Yourself. And bassist Ben Kenney says there's more where that came from.
"We have at least four songs that are completely done and at least one or two others that have videos already and a bunch of other ideas that are floating around that we might try to chip away at when we get back," Kenney tells Billboard. He adds that fans are more likely to hear those tracks one at a time and not necessarily on a full album.
"We're just gonna keep popping songs out if we can," Kenney says. "We're just gonna figure out the way to get our music into people's hands over the next couple months and hopefully just keep grooving and touring. We have our own studio now, and we love to record and explore and experiment. It's just a great situation. But we don't want to get stacked up in a studio making an album. We have to adapt our process 'cause the albums themselves don't actually make as big a splash as they used to.
"I think the key thing is we’re having fun and we're not really trying to chase any brass ring with it. We're just trying to experiment and explore what we're capable of doing, and all the while not take ourselves too seriously and just really enjoy what we get to do."
"Into the Summer" is the first fruit of that process, a song Kenney says dates back at least four or five years. "We've been digging up old stuff and reworking it and rewriting it, and that one popped up and just started shooting sparks and getting the fire going," Kenney says. "We ended up rewriting it and reworking it and made it sound very '80s and very retro and fun. At least from the perspective of playing bass, it's my ode to John Taylor of Duran Duran. I'm just trying to bring him with every note."
Incubus is currently out of the studio and on the road, where it's playing the double-platinum Make Yourself in its entirety, filling out the shows with "Into the Summer" and a selection of other favorites. Kenney -- who joined the band four years after Make Yourself's release -- says the exercise has been a great success. "I tell ya, every night the audience has been singing from the first song to the last song, singing at the top of their lungs, and every song is getting a 10 out of 10 from the crowd. Even if we make mistakes and mess up the song, the audience is just so into it, they don't care. Right now everything is just on fire."