Incubus Frontman Brandon Boyd Set To Release New Solo Album: 'It's Super Dark'

Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd has confirmed he plans to release a brand new solo album this year. 

Appearing on a new episode of The Green Room With Neil Griffiths podcast ahead of his original artworks being exhibited in Sydney this week, the California-born songwriter, who released debut solo record The Wild Trapeze back in 2010, said "it wasn't really in my sights to do a solo record anytime soon" until the COVID lockdowns began.

"But if I am left alone and just bored enough, I just start writing music and I start painting," Boyd told podcast host Neil Griffiths.

"It's, like, my default switch. I'm not mad at it. It's the way that I not only process the world, it's also a way in which I have learned to interpret my experience of the world... 

"This was a really unique year. It was a really unique opportunity to turn inward... I'm in the process of mixing the record and listening back to it. It's super dark, it's lonely, it's horny, it's scared, but with inflections of hope and inflections of light and inflections of perspective that push through.

"I suppose it's not terribly dissimilar from other songs that I've written, but it's just unique because I recorded it at home literally over FaceTime calls with a new writing partner of mine. He was building tracks at his house and then he would email them to me and then I would write to them and write lyrics and melodies and then record them here at my house and send them back to him. It was fun."

Boyd said he is "hoping" to release the new album mid-year. 

"I'm an independent artist, Incubus is also independent. We don't have a record label and so I'm probably gonna work with some type of administrative distribution thing with a label of some kind," he said.

"I don't want to put it out prematurely without setting it up properly. I'd like to give the album a chance to get to as many ears as possible. So if that means it has to be delayed by a month or something like that, then that's fine."

In the episode, Boyd also discussed what's next for Incubus with 2021 being the 20th anniversary of the band's fourth studio album, Morning View, which features hit songs like Wish You Were Here and Nice To Know You.

Listen to the full The Green Room podcast with Boyd on Spotify, Apple Podcasts (below) or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts or watch in the clip above.

Boyd's artworks will debut at The Other Art Fair in Sydney from tomorrow. Click here for more details.

Check out all previous episodes of The Green Room here and learn more about other Handshake podcasts below.

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• Rewind With Steve Bell - looking back on the classic albums that shaped the careers of Australian and international acts