Incubus’ Brandon Boyd Embraces Life Without A Label
With the Honda Civic Tour launching on the 11th, Linkin Park's Chester Bennington and Incubus' Brandon Boyd participated in a group interview that covered quite a bit of ground about their bands, their plans and some interesting business insights. In particular, Brandon Boyd talked about the difference between being on a label in the age of the CD versus today's world as he faces life without a label.
In the interview*, Brandon Boyd discussed not only Incubus taking a break but what it's like to navigate from the old music industry to the new:
"Linkin Park and Incubus were two of the very few bands who…got a gust of wind out of the old paradigm of the music industry. But like survived out of it. There are so many bands…that didn’t survive that transition. That fell by the wayside with the industry."
Part of surviving that transition has been dealing with the collapse of a music industry model they were just getting used to:
"Thankfully, we got a sense of what it looks like…when the engine is nicely greased and things are working the way they’re supposed to. And then it’s like the millennium turns and the technology changed..It became an antiquated model. And it was frightening at first but I actually have come to appreciate it."
One of the biggest shifts from old labels to new is the dramatically reduced budgets:
"I was talking to my friend this morning about the notion of the music video…We’ve paid like $500,000 to make a music video that MTV just didn’t play. And that was considered like, 'Oh, OK. That’s a bummer, but, you know, next.' But now? Are you kidding me? It’s like if we can get a fraction…of that amount of money to make a music video, that’s amazing."
But Boyd doesn't find these shifts demoralizing:
"We still have to make a music video but we don’t have any money. So we have to have a better idea than we did before…I really welcome these changes. And they excite me. And they scare me at the same time, but I’m choosing to focus on the excitement."
Brandon Boyd and Incubus got a taste of what life will be without a label during their final days at Epic as LA Reid took over. The lack of support during the transition allowed them some time to experiment leading to the Incubus HQ Live Special Edition due in August:
"It’s forced us to think outside of that normal music industry paradigm that we had gotten so accustomed to…in that sense the lack of attention from our record label and the end days of our record label relationship were really good and very beneficial for us as a band because it gave us a sense of what we might be doing in the coming years."
For his part, Boyd's quite happy with all the changes:
"So I’m personally very excited about being in complete control, of being able to be a total control freak. It doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t sign with another record label at some point but it would definitely have to be very, very specific. [laughs] Not get into just a good old-fashioned record deal again, if they even exist."
Incubus is planning an undefined break and Brandon Boyd is considering work on a solo album. This seems like the perfect moment to try a crowdfunding project.
*Note: The version of the interview presented at Noize seems to be the most complete and also one of the few honestly presented as a group interview.
More: 2012 Honda Civic Tour Dates
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) maintains a business writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
“We’ve paid like $500,000 to make a music video that MTV just didn’t play. And that was considered like, ‘Oh, OK. That’s a bummer, but, you know, next.'”
I’m not trying to single out Brandon, but this comment really makes it tough for fans and those outside the music industry to feel bad about the pirating of music, the decrease of recorded music sales and the loss of music industry jobs.
While 500K per video wasn’t spent on most major label artists in the 90s, if we’re all honest, we know that a lot of money was wasted, er, spent on projects and artists a lot less successful than Incubus just because it was available.
Who are you to say money is wasted? You make it sound like it was burnt into thin air. That 500K employed people. Just because it was used for something you don’t agree with, doesn’t mean it was wasted.
Sounds like digging a ditch & filling it back in…type of jobs for the boys….type of thing to me:-P
but if a band spent only 50k, you would see the lack of goodness and call it poop… go ahead and steal it, what do you give a crap about putting people out of work. its not just the band you affect…. bus companies, the dude who tapes down electrical cords on set, staging and PA companies, sound crew and about a million other jobs you wouldn’t even think of cause your generation is full of punks that only consume and think of no one but themselves. its okay, i will be dead when you all have to live in a very unfriendly world. this will all bite you in the ass someday. karma is a bitch.
Eh… Take it down a notch… There have been plenty of sides to the music business that have changed that caused joblessness… Musicians used to play in Vaudville and movies came around and killed that scene… Musicians played during movies during the silent era and then they had sound and musicians were forced to find another way… Big bands were all the rage and then became unpopular… Things change… Technology has changed how the industry works and musicians will find other ways to pay the bills…
SOCAN,I realized late,was trying to music internet giants to get them to pay royalties for viewing songs on the web…unfortunately the CRTC refused to grant this new royalty.But it does make alot of sense….
Music is similar to a candy bar sold at a convenience…. they don’t allow consumers to take bites from it before buying them,so why should our songs be any different?
The entire music industry is getting the short end of the stick from these giant tech corporations controlling the small peoples government!
Thanks for posting the link to my site http://www.noizenews.com🙂 next week i’ll have photos and a review from the show 🙂
There is a misunderstanding here Seth… Just because a label
Spends 500k on a video, it absolutely does not mean that the
Musicians are rolling in dough. In fact, because of people that
Refuse to spend 10 bucks on an album, we (the musicians and
Songwriters) see
Barely any of the revenue that comes through music sales of any
type, including music videos. Everyone wants what we create for
free, and it’s devaluing the art form and creating homogeny in pop
music and culture.
So, please don’t use the fact that labels can be dumb with money
as an excuse to steal our art.