Incubus: Hey, Driver.

Incubus play Festival Hall on March 5.

“Sorry, I’m having such a hard time putting words together today,” jokes Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger. “I just got back from tour yesterday and I’m just kind of trying to absorb everything. It’s like being on vacation for a long time, only you’re working. All your friends are calling and there’s all these things you’ve got to be doing, ‘cause it’s your job… anyway.”

Such is a day in the life in the now near ten-year-old band. Having previously visited Australia to play shows to rabid fans in Sydney and Melbourne, Incubus have finally marked a date in their little black book to stop of in Brisbane. Strangely enough, it was the final single from their second album Make Yourself that saw the band exposed to a wider audience, one that brings them back to this country. Not only was Drive quite a different track to the remainder of the album; it also marked the end of the albums working life for the band, who were already well into their current recording Morning View when it was released.

“I don’t think it’s (Drive) a complete introduction to what we’re about,” Mike muses. “It’s just one song. A lot of our songs are kind of on the mellow side, as far as other bands like Limp Bizkit are concerned. There’s not screaming or rapping or anything like that. We’re a difficult band to really explain with one song. Some bands are easily summed up with one song, but we’re not that band.”

“Drive was almost kinda comical,” he continues. “We were mixing the song at the time, and (vocalist) Brandon was driving into the parking lot of the studio. Someone just broad sided his car.”

While Brandon survived the incident unscathed, the stench of irony will haunt him through his days. Mike continues to look at the lighter side of what the band is about.

“I think the bases for a lot of what we do is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. The tone of the newest album is kind of serious, but I think there’s a humorous hopeful kind of album.

Whatever the motivations behind the recording of Morning View, it’s not hard to concede the progress the band has made during the course of their last three albums. Morning View is, without a doubt light years away from their debut Science in terms of the music’s emotional output, and the craft of their song writing.

“Yeah, for sure, it’s an evolution, a few years between the records. Hundreds of live shows, you know what I mean. When we made our first album we didn’t have the experience that we do now, you know. When we did Science we hadn’t really been on tour, we hadn’t experienced being out and playing in front of people who don’t really know or care who you are. You really learn a lot from doing that and it just makes you better as a band. You just progress.”

Although progress was made naturally, there was still a conscious effort not to repeat what they had done, or head into other band’s territory

“There were parts of the record that were actually very difficult, just because we had to break the patterns we’d gotten in to. Things we didn’t want to repeat. We wanted to take things in different directions that what we’d done before. When you’re really familiar with something it’s really easy to repeat it and not take any risks. Sometimes it was hard to say, we’re not going to do this, this time. We forced ourselves.”

“In addition to that, they type of sound we were generally playing has really been done now, you know. Hard funky heavy music with a DJ is pretty common these days and we didn’t want to get confused with every other band that’s out there doing that, you know. We didn’t want to come out with a record that does well right away and they have people say, oh here’s another stupid funk metal band for a DJ.”

“Our intention was to get away from just big riffs. We can’t stop people from perceiving what they want to; it’s more a personal insecurity of mine. When we’re writing music, obviously everyone thinks their idea is always the best one,” he laughs. “We just try to make everybody happy. Everybody’s usually got the song in mind, not just their individual parts. It’s something we just paid a lot more attention to on this album. Instead of just showing off my job as a guitar player is to compliment the song.”