A poll on the website women.com asks: "Who would you rather hook up with, Brandon Boyd or Usher?" Of the more than 2,500 respondents, nearly 75 percent chose Boyd, the lithe, boyish singer of rockers Incubus, over chiseled R&B singer Usher. "You're f--king kidding me," laughs Boyd when told about his online popularity. The singer never has been particularly comfortable with his sex-symbol status, preferring to shift the focus to his band's intricate, often literate rock music laced with influences from jazz and funk to metal and hip-hop. "I've never tried to milk that angle of things, because I think that's better left to others," he says. Then again, it's not like he isn't pleased to hear about the poll. "I can't wait to tell my girlfriend about it," he says. "Maybe I'll get some extra loving."
Boyd's modesty aside, his girlfriend is supermodel Carolyn Murphy, and a not-insignificant contingent of Incubus' fans are of the screaming female persuasion. "There's a lot of girls that are there to see Brandon take his shirt off," acknowledges Chris Kilmore, the band's DJ.
That uneasy balance between image and substance has informed Incubus' career since they first gained prominence with their 1997 album S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and a subsequent spot on that year's edition of the traveling metal showcase OzzFest. The band's participation in that tour, and others with the likes of Korn, lumped them in with the emerging nu-metal genre, and had them mentioned alongside bands like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. It was frustrating, to say the least, to a band that didn't view itself as part of a movement characterized by angry lyrics, abrasive guitar riffs and rapping front men. Boyd puts it bluntly: "Imagine there's a kind of music that you just didn't listen to, when you heard it, it kind of made your hands sweat, and you're like, 'Oh, God,' and you turn the station, and then all of a sudden people are like, 'Yeah, you're like that band.'"
These days, as nu-metal slips into decline, Incubus is more successful than ever. Their latest album, A Crow Left of the Murder, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts, and its first two singles, "Megalomaniac" and "Talk Show on Mute," have been getting consistent airplay on both rock and adult-alternative stations. Murder sounds nothing like Korn or Limp Bizkit; with its warm tones, loose, live vibe and socially conscious lyrics courtesy of Boyd, it sounds more like Pearl Jam, another band producer Brendan O'Brien has worked with closely.
Further establishing themselves as serious, thoughtful artists, Incubus has become more politically conscious and vocal about social issues in the last few months, since the video for "Megalomaniac," a chaotic and artistic animated collage from director Floria Sigismondi, attracted controversy for its perceived anti-war and anti-Bush sentiments. In an era when most videos are little more than bands rocking out in front of green screens, Incubus has made an effort to be both creative and thought-provoking in its promotional clips.
"All the directors that we got treatments from were just the same old videos," Kilmore says. "'Here, we'll put you in a square that lights up, and we'll put guys around you and girls around you, and you guys play, and these guys will fake like they're rocking out.' And that's boring to us." Instead, they went with Sigismondi, who's created striking videos for Marilyn Manson, Interpol and Sigur Ros.
After the Janet Jackson Super Bowl controversy, MTV relegated any potentially controversial videos to late-night rotation and "Megalomaniac" gained even more attention. To their credit, the band backed up their political and social message, and reteamed with Sigismondi for the video for "Talk Show on Mute." Boyd, for one, is not uncomfortable about being thrust into the political spotlight. "If you don't say what you mean, they will tell you what you mean," he says. "And I'd much rather say what I mean than have somebody else say it for me."
Hunky but introspective, politically conscious but popular with soccer moms, at home on both OzzFest and Lollapalooza, Incubus is perhaps modern rock's greatest chameleon, a feat that will likely bring them long-term success after the trends they first rode to fame have faded. "We've always been the band that's sort of been quietly sitting in the corner doing our own thing," Boyd says. "We will proudly continue to be that band. If people decide to come into the corner and join us, great. If they don't, we're still going to be doing it."