Incubus releases new album and kicks off summer tour, by Kaitlin Perry
With a greatest hits record recently released and a hiatus about to end, Incubus’ Chris Kilmore, who does the organ piano, mellotron and samples for the band, talked to USD Radio about what it means to have a greatest hits record, joining the band and the Make Yourself Foundation.
“A greatest hits record usually comes out when a band is over, but times have changed since when I’ve grown up. We had 13 top ten singles. That made me feel pretty good.”
The thought of Incubus being over doesn’t make any sense, especially when they have a summer tour coming up that hits all the hot spots, most pertinently the bowls and amphitheatres, which Kilmore says is “the best touring you can do.”
The tour comes after a nearly yearlong hiatus, during which the band members (Kilmore, Brandon Boyd on lead vocals, Mike Einziger on guitar piano and string arrangements, Jose Pasillas on drums and Ben Kenney on bass) took time for personal projects and family. According to Kilmore, it was the longest the band had been off without playing together.
Kilmore’s new-found free time consisted of what he calls being home schooled. “I was incorporating a lot of keyboards into our act. Make scratch records and put them on the turntable. Learning how to play the piano all over again. I was taking keyboard lessons and just really developing. Someone was at Harvard, other guy’s raising a baby, and I’m home school,” he said with a laugh.
Since the band has formed in 1991 there have been a few changes in members and style, resulting in a lot of evolving. “It’s like a little kid growin,” said Kilmore. “It’s like a baby and each recording being like a little kid. As you tour behind it you start to see these songs come to life and start to realize that was really cool or that was really bad. You start to learn from all your mistakes and all your good things and move forward. The 10 or 11 years I’ve been in the band there’s been a lot of evolving.”
Kilmore joined the band in 1998 preceding the release of 1999’s Morning View. According to Kilmore, “our personalities just meshed. They were looking for somebody they could go on tour with and survive on the road with. They were also looking at skill level. We started talking about random things, from what kind of food we liked to conspiracy theories to aliens, just random stuff, before I even played anything.” And the rest is history.
Monuments and Melodies, a two-disc compilation of greatest hits and rare recordings, was released on June 16 and debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard top 200. The album is available online with a special offer for college students; it can be purchased for $7.99 with a valid .edu e-mail address here.
Some of the proceeds of the Monuments and Melodies tour will be donated to causes that make up the Make Yourself Foundation, a non-profit organiztion started by the band a couple years ago. According to Kilmore, “We reached a plateau where what we were gaining from the world was outweighing what we were giving to the world.”
The foundation works in this way. The band chooses causes that mean the most to them and fund them through band-related activities, be it concert tickets, memorabilia or bootlegs. You can learn more about the project via the Make Yourself Foundation website.
The tour kicks off July 9 at the San Diego Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre. Other dates are as follows:
July 10 Santa Barbara, CA Santa Barbara Bowl
July 11 Las Vegas, NV The Joint
July 13 Hollywood, CA Hollywood Bowl
July 16 Salt Lake City, UT Usana Amphitheatre
July 19 Kansas City, MO City Market
July 21 Chicago, IL Charter One Pavilion
July 22 Indianapolis, IN The Lawn at White River State Park
July 23 St. Louis, MO Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
July 25 Cincinnati, OH Riverbend Music Center
July 26 Detroit, MI DTE Energy Music Theatre
July 29 Celeveland, OH Time Warner Amphitheatre
July 30 Toronto, ONT Molson Amphitheatre
August 1 Boston, MA Comcast Center
August 2 Uncasville, CT The Mohegan Sun Arena
August 4 New York, NY Radio City Music Hall
August 5 New York, NY Radio City Music Hall
August 7 Holmdel, NJ P.N.C Banks Arts Center
August 8 Philadelphia, PA Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing
August 9 Washington, DC Merriweather Post Pavilion
August 11 Virginia Beach, VA Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
August 12 Charlotte, NC Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
August 14 Atlanta, GA Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
August 15 Tampa, FL Ford Amphitheatre
August 16 Miami, FL Bayfront Park Amphitheatre
August 19 Austin, TX Austin Music Hall
August 21 Houston, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
August 22 Dallas, TX Superpages.com Center
August 25 Phoenix, AZ Jobbing.com Arena
August 28 San Francisco, CA Outside Lands Music And Arts Festival