I have been making albums with my band Incubus now for almost 19 years. We have released six LP's, a handful of EP's and DVD's, as well as numerous live CD's and as of last year our first Greatest Hits CD chronicling it all. After the latest effort, and the most enjoyable and successful tour of our career, we decided to continue what had been an extended hiatus from the road and the inevitable chaos it brings. Each of us in the band then went to our respective corners of Los Angeles and each (in our own inimitable way) continued the strange process of discovering who we were as individuals when not in this band. An interesting quandary indeed. Especially when you factor in the logistics of our career thus far. I turned 34 in February of 2010. I started Incubus with Mike and Jose when I was 15 years old. So much of my identity, both personally and creatively, has been attached to and related to Incubus. For better or worse! And I do believe that every person in every corner of the world asks themselves at some point on their ride, "Who am I...today?" For this is indeed a process and we are indeed malleable, fallible and dare I say 'Human'. (?) As Artists though, we have the unique and sometimes frightening opportunity to actually SEE and HEAR who we are from day to day. Our unconscious material gets spilled onto canvas' and recorded into waveforms. We then are gifted and or cursed with the ability to look at and listen to what's going on in the deepest recess' of our hearts and minds. A Miner emerging from the depths of the sooty underworld, coughing up coal but holding in front of him a shiny relic of unquantifiable worth.

Incubus has proven to be the proverbial 'Diamond' in my life. And I would venture to say that it has acted as such for my Brothers in our band as well. Fraught with struggle, too many hours in the dark and questionable as to if it's worth all of the effort. But at the end of the day, sparkling, hypnotic, with angles that can cut glass and sometimes even make women sigh... Ha ha. Yeah. I just said that.

But what of the material that's unearthed in the interim? What should I make of the stuff I uncover with my bare hands? My trusty pick axe set aside and digging furiously with my only the strength of my fingers. I would say that these efforts are just as important. For different reasons. But reasons that though not as obvious are proving to be telling of that devious query,"Who am I... today".

Today actually, Producer Dave Fridmann and I are mixing and finalizing my first solo album, "The Wild Trapeze". This group of songs was born of a very different process than the many my band and I have been employing for our almost two decades at work now. The Wild Trapeze began as pot induced meanderings on my dusty acoustic guitar while Incubus was off of the road, and has slowly been morphing into things that I originally could never have imagined.

When I initially allowed the idea of a solo album into my conscious mind, I figured I would be writing a bunch of music that other musicians would help me interpret and record. At which point I would do what I did best and take it from there. I soon began to understand that my expectations as to how this would emerge were so off base, that it would make my head spin. Not only do I not know that many musicians, I was hard pressed to find anyone who I wanted to work with other than the guys from my band! A strange quandary to say the least. It was and is not my intention to "move on" from Incubus. There is too much we have yet to uncover creatively and we still have too much fun making music together to employ that notion. But I have never considered myself a musician, truth be told. I always saw myself as a lyricist and a singer. So now I had presented myself with the daunting challenge of making an album without "musicians". Hmmm.

After a few false starts with some very talented players, I decided to literally take matters into my own hands and keep pressing forward no matter what the result was. My tenacity brought me clear across the country into New York where I began working Upstate with Dave Fridmann. His discography indeed speaks for itself. And even upon making the journey to his remote, rural studio I still wasn't sure as to how we were going to execute this batch of songs. But it took us a mere few hours before I would understand what I needed to do. I was going to play everything myself! Well, almost everything. Dave is a keyboard wizard and I wasn't going to turn down some beautiful strings and keys just because I wanted to indulge my inner control freak. But back to my point; I took it upon myself to play the guitars, drums, bass, timpani, chimes, glockenspiels, percussion, hand claps, whistles, whines, pots and pans on this album. And though it indeed may sound like a guy who doesn't play and understand these instruments firsthand...it...I...umm. Well, we'll just leave it at that.

What it does sound like, in my humble opinion, is a guy in room surrounded by toys who has an undying enthusiasm for finding out what each toy does, and has been given full license to make as much noise as he pleases.

The Wild Trapeze is an exercise in self reliance. A leap of faith as to and into one's powers of intention. A coalescing of one's peripheral aptitudes in the hope of realizing a larger picture. And above all else, an accurate portrait of an Artist in his Process right around year 34 of his time on Earth. For better or worse, I played 98% of the instruments you hear aboard this Soundship. And though the temptation to "fix", "correct", "fiddle", and "fuck with" the parts and their mistakes via the astounding technology we have to do so with was ever-present, I'm proud to say that there are little to no edits. No cheating, as I like to say. I figure I have been at this in one way or another for long enough that I should be able to make something worth listening to, when left to my own devices. A sandcastle built not by architects, but by a child with his bare hands.

The title track, "The Wild Trapeze" quotes Henry Miller from his inspired book of musings and observations 'Stand Still Like the Hummingbird'. This song imagines a person on a path to a greater realization of his existence. A waking up to his potentials and to the joy that that brings. Alone, unencumbered, radiant and observing a road in front of him that will only grow wider the further he walks. Calm and full of grace in amongst the noise of the world.

'Runaway Train' tells a brief story of a theoretical menage a trois involving the Future, myself and that whore of a slut, Calamity. They are forever entwined; locked at the hips and grinding away. And I am the curious but cautious newcomer to their theater. Standing in the corner with my trousers folded perfectly in my hands but still wearing my underwear and truly uncertain as to if I should just jump in there and give it my drunken, college best or if I should first go and get a towel and perhaps a game plan. This song reserves the coveted seat of donning the least original song title in modern musical History! But I do believe that what it's heading lacks in originality, the song itself makes up for in content and delivery. Yes, I just reviewed my own song.

'Here Comes Everyone' is a reaction to the growing contingent of complacent cynics in our youth culture today. A generation of young adults who at every advance in art, culture and government roll their eyes because of a learned feeling that "everything has been done and nothing good and or new could possibly emerge". Having felt the pangs of this fiendish and misguided emotion I respond with the thought, "Yeah, we're only treading water, wether yours or wether ours..." Then into Oscar Wilde's all too necessary and often quoted phrase, "We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars." The chorus lyric is a reminder that no matter where we are in our process as a species, be it culturally, politically, and or otherwise, most of us are only doing the best we know how at that moment in time. So a growing complacency towards cynicism (though only the best that those wrapped in that emotion know how to do at that given moment) is actually a potentially destructive way to perceive each other, and perhaps we should approach new things with tolerance, hope, enthusiasm and a more child like perspective.

So, how is the average Incubus fan going to respond, compare and view this solo offering? Though I would rather avoid this question, I do realize it is inevitable and relevant. The answer is: I actually have no idea. I would never compare the two things, let alone condescend to predict how someone might perceive it! In truth, there is no comparison. Incubus is...well, Incubus. And this is just me. That was that and this is this. That was this and then is now. Wait...never mind. The fact is, Incubus is a collective, a meeting of the minds. I write lyrics and melodies in response to the magical musical mysteries that my guys in the band hand over. I in turn hand back an altered and interpreted version of what began as something and ended up twisted and gnarled but unexpected and hopefully enjoyable. The Wild Trapeze is not a collective. It is the sound of one hand clapping. or something like that. So it is, in it's essence, something all together different.

I hope this album brings reflection, introspection, dancing, playing, swaying and swooning. Conversations, perplexities, inspirations and critiques. But above all else I hope that it brings enjoyment and the hope that just because an Artsist makes a solo album, it doesn't have to turn out sounding like a mayonnaise or soft drink commercial. The Wild Trapeze is Music for Music's sake. Art for Art's sake. I needed to do it to help myself understand what I sound like today in the year 2010. To externalize the noises rumbling around in my heart and mind and decide after the fact what indeed it really is. And what is that? I won't claim to know. I never know or understand what these things mean until long after they've been out and about. Part of Arts' life (beyond it's creation) is to be consumed, interpreted, digested, misinterpreted, vomited up, perceived, then reinterpreted. And even then it's difficult to know for sure. But maybe that is why we keep coming back to it. Because it's something beautiful, engaging, mysterious yet reminiscent, incendiary and soothing all at once. That was a butt load of adjectives in one paragraph.

I can tell you one thing (among others) that it has done for me; it has reminded me, unequivocally, that in my band Incubus, I am blessed to have some of the most fantastic musicians I have ever heard all sharing and warming our mitts around the same campfire. Stepping away from the glow and the familiar smell of the embers has been a wonderfully rewarding experience, but it has revitalized certain growing understandings about my band. Understandings I won't bore you with today, but will hopefully share with you in sound in the months soon to come.

I will leave you today with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Tom Robbins. I find that he has summed up some pretty heady details when he wrote, "...Art, like love, is what makes the world forever fresh and new. However, this revitalization cannot be said to be art's purpose. Art revitalizes precisely because it has no purpose. Except to engage our senses. The emancipating jounce of inspired uselessness." Thanks for that Tom. And thank you for reading. I hope you all enjoy what you hear.