‘I’m good, good. I woke up a little late because I slept all day. We had a great show last night in Cologne, Germany. Ten seconds after we started playing, all of a sudden our crew ran on stage, starting to grab us. We were wondering what was going on but then we looked up and saw three spotlights with men controlling them hanging in the air. Now, the chairs became unbalanced and the men hang upside down, above us. They couldn’t fall of course because they were attached to the framework but they just hang there. We had to stop for a few minutes because of that and afterwards we could continue the show. We’ve got the best crew though, and they got it figured out really quick’.

 

‘Yes they are. We don’t think it will happen again because these men are really into safety. They check and double check everything.’

 

 

‘I think you never expect it, that it would actually be arrogant to expect something like a hit to happen. It means that a lot of people are listening to the song. You do hope for it, at best.’

 

‘Honestly, well the record label released ‘Dig’ as a single in the States. They said to release ‘Dig’ over there and ‘Love Hurts’ in Europe. The cool thing about it is, we’re proud of every song on the album, so it’s cool to have success with different songs at the same time’.

 

‘Maybe, we do have a video for it though. We had a contest for it in which we had some footage of us made available for people to edit and make a video for it. And then a guy in Portugal made a video without even using the footage we provided. He used his own stuff and made an awesome, delicate video for the song.’

 

‘Yeah, it is. He flew over to Los Angeles where we had a presentation with him. He is a really cool guy and he’s working for children’s programming on television so he also knew how to handle the editing.’
 

‘That’s mainly because it was a different experience making this record, compared to the previous ones. We used to come together, started writing and the next thing we knew, we had a record. With this one, we started writing and then stopped to take some time off. Then we came together again after a month, talked about what happened, what everyone wrote about and continued to record some songs in the studio. And every couple of months we came together; recorded some songs and stopped. Recording, stop. And we continued until we felt like we had enough songs to make a total album. So this time, we really took the time for the album and as a result it brings it a little further down the road. I don’t know if we’re going to continue in this way but there is more time in every single song than before.'

 

‘No, there were times when we decided not to call each other for two weeks or so in order to continue the process I just mentioned. Well, actually that goes up for the recordings only, we did meet of course outside of the studio but then it did not have anything to do with the recordings. We came together at Mike’s house to record a bunch of songs and then entered the studio in Los Angeles. After that we decided to not continue for a couple of weeks and personally I can be very lazy. You’ve got to come over to my house to see me. Or well, *laugh*. I intend to go skateboarding or surfing or be at home writing some stuff, recording with other bands. I don’t leave my house that much.'

 

‘No, I intend to have a lot of people on a very small space.’

 

‘Yes, I do, but those are really small projects, nothing big and basically I work with friends and try to help them move forward. It’s just something that I’m grateful of being able to do. This band gives me the opportunity to help others move forward a little bit.’  

 

‘For me that’s a tricky question because I don’t know how it was before I came in the band. Everybody is excited but I don’t take any credit for it. I’ll just try the best I can do. Everybody gets along very well and it works but I don’t know what has changed. I do know that Mike pushes me as a musician and I try to really come with it. It is so hard to say unless I was there in the time before.’

 

‘That was actually me and José. I play drums as well, that’s actually my first instrument so I really developed a relationship with him as a drummer. Then we talked to the band and asked: ‘Hey, shall we bring another drum kit on tour?' And they were like ‘well, sure.’ And that’s when other ideas started. But that drum solo originates from the relation with the drummer. We both are excited about new things and talk about doing this, doing that etcetera. If you’re in a band and you are the only guy who plays your instrument seriously you’re on your own. But if you can share that, it changes the dynamics. Personally, I am not anymore in the audience watching the show. Since I’ve joined the band I haven’t been to an Incubus show of course. A lot of my life has changed. I used to be watching and now I’m on stage, which is so different.'

 

‘Wo, there are probably a dozen side projects inside Incubus. We’re like: ‘Let’s start another band and do this, let’s start another band and do that.’ That’s because there are so many creative guys in the band.’ But I’m sure that every year you’re going to hear something different in terms of side projects. Simply because there are so many ideas. And we sincerely want to be busy with that but there is no time for it.'

 

‘Well, we do, we don’t play straight up metal or simply rock songs.’

 

 

‘Then I would have to toss between Morning View and Make Yourself because I was introduced to Incubus when Make Yourself came out. Back then I was in The Roots and thought it was amazing so I would go for that one.’