Janet Jackson

Get Ur Freak On

When Janet Jackson is interviewed on television, her sweet and innocent disposition makes an impression. She's soft-spoken, polite, and even shy. But she's hardly bashful when it comes to expressing her views about sex--just listen to any of her post-Control albums or attend one of her sexually charged concerts.

On her latest album, Damita Jo, Janet's devoted two entire songs to the subject of oral sex: "Warmth" is about a woman pleasing a man, and "Moist" is its sister track for the ladies. Only radio stations wanting heavy FCC fines would dare broadcast either of these instructional cuts, which appear on the album sequenced back-to-back.

While singing so openly about such personal topics is nothing new for Janet, her insistence to push the envelope, content-wise, is intriguing, especially in light of her nipple-baring Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction." Following that controversy, she told Dianne Sawyer that she had been advised to remove some of the more risqu songs from Damita Jo, but Janet resisted, explaining that she was unwilling to tone down her image or lyrics.

When LAUNCH's Billy Johnson Jr. recently sat down to interview Janet in a conference room in a swank Beverly Hills hotel at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, he figured, what better time to find out what has motivated Michael Jackson's little sister to make such freaky records?

Ironically, Janet was more comfortable talking about sex than she was discussing why she doesn't cook for her boyfriend, producer Jermaine Dupri. But sex wasn't the only topic discussed: Janet also explained why her 1986 breakthrough album Control was so significant, why she considers her longtime producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to be father figures, and in what ways would she like to be more like her mother.

You can get ur freak on now. Read up.

YAHOO! MUSIC: I'd like to start the interview by asking you about one of my favorite songs on the album. Can you explain the song "Warmth"?

JANET: Oh, you like that song? [looks puzzled]

YAHOO! MUSIC: No...Don't take it the wrong way. I like the melody and the music. But it's just that that song is pretty risqu. I mean, I'm by myself, driving in my car listening to the song, and it still makes me blush!

JANET: You are supposed to listen to it with your wife, Billy. Not alone. I'm sorry [laughs]. I didn't mean to embarrass you.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Which came first, "Warmth" or "Moist"?

JANET: "Moist" was actually written first. And then "Warmth."

YAHOO! MUSIC: How did you feel about singing about oral sex?

JANET: I mean, obviously, I don't mind it. I've done it for a while. Well, not about oral sex, but I've talked about sex a great deal in my music for a great while now. I feel very comfortable with it. It's funny that you say, where did the motivation come from? But obviously, I mean, it's pretty evident [laughs] where the motivation came from!

YAHOO! MUSIC: It was good to have the topic covered for both a male and a female.

JANET: Well, I'm glad you like it. I personally like the song. And I think it is a good song. And I think just the lyrical content just adds a little more to it. And I think the music calls for it, as well.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Did growing up in the public eye make it easier to speak so openly about sex?

JANET: It wasn't difficult for me. But I think it was difficult for the public to get comfortable. I remember years ago, not just one journalist, but a few, when I came out with the Janet album and there was "If" on the album and other songs, they thought, "What message are you sending the kids? What about 'Let's Wait A While'?" And I told one of the journalists--I think I was 25 at the time--"How long do you really want me to wait? You know, I'm growing up. I am an adult now." And I've always felt comfortable with it. But I think it's been kind of a little difficult at times for the audience, because they've told me that they see me as a family member. So to see your little sister sing about sex...and then, others don't mind it at all. They love it. And you know, they'll say, "We've had several children to your music." So I think they are pretty used to it from me by now.

YAHOO! MUSIC: An artist must be able to have the freedom of self-expression. How do you deal with that?

JANET: With their perception of me? Uh, has it ever bothered me? No. I mean, a lot of times people do see me as sweet and innocent. And not to say that I am not those things. I am just joking. But I have other sides to me. Like, it shocks people when I say this: I have a pretty bad temper. But you have to really push me to see it, and then it will come out. But everybody has their things. Another side to me is this very sexual being. And when I look back on my life, it's always been there unknowingly. It's been there since I was pretty young, at 10 years old, having the imagination that I had, not really knowing that that's really what it was. But looking back on it, I'm realizing that that was a pretty sexual imagination for a kid.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Was it important for people to understand there were other sides to you? Like, how is "Janet" different from "Damita Jo"?

JANET: There's really not that much of a difference. For the most part, they are the same. There are a few differences. Uh, I don't want to get into it, Billy. But there are a few differences. But for the most part they really are the same. I mean, she lives within me.

YAHOO! MUSIC: You have a song on your album called "Thinkin' About My Ex." In this song, you're telling this new guy that you want a no-strings-attached relationship with him because you are still getting over your ex. Is that a song that you relate to personally?

JANET: Have I ever thought about an ex in that way? But I didn't want strings attached? Uh, in total honesty, no. It's really weird you bring this up, because it's recently happened to me, and it was a shocker. I was really, really happy to hear from him. I'm not going to mention who it is. Because I hadn't spoken to him in a while, it kind of caught me off-guard. It actually caught me off-guard that he still had feelings. And it was tough for me. But I had to be honest, you know. I still have love in my heart for him, and I think about him. But not in that way.

YAHOO! MUSIC: In your liner notes, you refer to your producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis as your "two dads." What are some of their paternal qualities?

JANET: As my dads? I am their little girl. There are times when, whether it's an issue or a problem, or just when I need some sort of feedback or when I need a shoulder to lean on, or someone to truly talk to...I mean, I do have friends and I do have family, but there are times when I only want to talk to Jimmy, or I only want to talk to Terry. And the feedback that I get, the conversations that we have, I'm always learning. And that's important to me. I think that's one of the things that has made our relationship so wonderful. I mean, aside from the love, there are no egos involved. And the caring is there. They've always been there for me, and I truly do feel like their little girl. I mean, I feel safe and loved. And just so much patience they have with me--if it was anybody else I know, I'd probably drive them crazy. But you know, they have a special love, and I do feel it in their heart for me. As I do for them.

YAHOO! MUSIC: You first linked up with Jimmy and Terry for your Control album. This was a very significant album for you. You had been on television and had performed as a singer, but the Control album established you as a bona fide music icon. What was the plan, when you first hooked up with them?

JANET: I wanted to talk about my life. There is so much. I was 18 when I actually made the record, and I had a lot to say. Jimmy picked me up from the airport, he took me around Minneapolis, and we just talked and talked and talked. And so I said, "So this is how we are going to do the record?" He goes, "Yeah." And that was fine with me. Because there was a lot that I did have to say. A lot of times--and I've said this before--a lot of times I felt so alone. But I also thought there has to be other people, other young people in the world, that have experienced either what I have or, or close to it. And just to say, you know, "You will get through it. I did. It's OK. You are not alone." And for them to have someone to relate to and hopefully enjoy the music and get a positive message out of it. Just to make the best music that we possibly could. Those were really the goals.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Was the song "Control" about what was going on in your life at that time?

JANET: With the albums that I had done before that, it was all about what everyone else wanted me to do. It was the Control album that was really about what I wanted to do. And Jimmy and Terry, as producers, helped me to convey that. Put that on tape or CD or vinyl. That's what producers are for, one of the reasons why they are there. And that's what I think makes them so incredible at what they do. Because with each artist, it's different, and they capture that. I've never been into what am I going to do next, trying to reinvent myself. I've always written about what goes on in my life from that point on. I mean, there is a lot that I haven't said that I actually could say. And I hope people would find it interesting. I know a lot of people could relate to it.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Before you released your last album, All For You, you had gone through a divorce. And there was a bit of angst on that album, especially the song "Son Of A Gun." I know that you said that that song was not about your ex-husband, but people interpreted it in different ways. This Damita Jo album is a lot happier. Were you happier during the process with this record?

JANET: Yeah, definitely. And I think from that album to this, you can tell someone who doesn't have love in their life, then someone who is in love--that is the way that it sounds to me. And really, it's the way that that is. That it was. And that it is. And I think that's one of the differences that you probably hear on this record.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Is there any one song on this album that best expresses how you feel at this time of your life?

JANET: All of them. Except for "Thinkin' About My Ex"! [laughs]. All of them, really. I just thought "Thinkin' About My Ex" was a beautiful song when it was brought to me. I thought about changing it lyrically, but I love the lyrics. It's part of the beauty of the song. So I thought, "You know what? Don't tamper with this. Just sing it and figure out something so that people won't think that you are talking about them, or someone else." And all those songs reflect all the people that live within me. Not all--some of the people. Some of the characters that live within me. That's what Damita Jo is really about: sharing those characters with the public.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Your music covers so many genres, from pop to rock to R&B. To me, Damita Jo has more R&B overtones that some of your most recent albums. Was that intentional?

JANET: That's a part of me going back to what I used to do. Like, people say, "What can we expect from this album"" And I always tell them, "A little of the old me. A part of the new me. And also, a part of me that wasn't that long ago." So I think it has different feels. The more R&B stuff reminds me of the very young me, and some of the stuff that I've done is more a little bit forward, a little bit more of what's going on today. What the kids are into today.

YAHOO! MUSIC: I think it's cool that your boyfriend, Jermaine Dupri, plays your love interest in your "I Want You" video. Since you guys are really a couple, were you hesitant to feature him in the video?

JANET: No. I mean, everyone knows. It's not a secret. I wasn't hesitant at all. I didn't know if he'd do it or not. It wasn't my idea. It was David Meyers's, the director's.

YAHOO! MUSIC: In an article in Ebony magazine, it talked about LaToya teasing you because you don't cook for Jermaine. Is this true? And if so, have you cooked for him yet?

JANET: No. Big sisters and brothers...I am telling you, it never changes. I am the baby in the family, and I always will be. I am actually very happy to have that position. But I still get teased. I don't mind that either. But when your big sister is sitting at the table and your family is meeting your boyfriend for the first time, and she is saying, "Oh, has Jan cooked for you? She started cooking when she was 7 years old." And this and that. And I am just thinking, "Oh God, why did she have to tell?" Because he didn't know any of that. I didn't want him to know any of that, because I don't want him to. I knew I shouldn't have mentioned this in the interview, because I knew people would start asking me, "Well, why won't you cook for him?" I didn't even want to get into it. But to answer your question, yes, I do cook. And no, I haven't [cooked for Jermaine]. And I am just going to leave it at that.

YAHOO! MUSIC: I've read that you really admire you mother's strength. How so?

JANET: My mother is very strong. Aside from wanting her beauty and her heart, I really wanted her strength. And I've always thought I don't have it. I don't have it. But I'm realizing that I really do, just in recent times. I really do have her strength. And I'm proud of that. Very proud of that.

YAHOO! MUSIC: How do you want to be remembered?

JANET: As someone who feels that they were put on this earth to help others. Not just do their music, but I love working with organizations. I love giving. And I want to do more of that. You got to give back. You got to give back. I love helping people, especially children.

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The Hives

Invasion Of The Tyrannosaurus Hives

It was a special day indeed at Yahoo! Music when spectacularly monikered Swedes Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, Nicholaus Arson, Chris Dangerous, Dr. Matt Destruction, and Vigilante Carlstroem--collectively known as the almighty Hives--arrived at our studios. Resplendently clad in their white ice-cream-man suits, spats, and blindingly shiny shoes, they were certainly the snazziest dressers to visit Yahoo! Music since, well, Interpol...and when they cranked their guitars to 11 and unleashed their monster performance of their new single "Walk Idiot Walk," they sounded as just good as they looked, proving the Hives are a band with style and substance.

After finishing their manic set--miraculously, without a single bead of sweat sullying their spic-and-span matching uniforms--brothers/bandmates Howlin' Pelle and Nicholaus sat down with LAUNCH editor Lyndsey Parker to discuss everything from James Brown to Def Leppard to their mysterious Svengali, Randy Fitzsimmons. And boy, did they have a lot to say--all in thoroughly charming Scandinavian accents, of course. Here's how it went:

YAHOO! MUSIC: You once famously said that you were going to break up after three albums. And here you are, on album number three, Tyrannosaurus Hives. So, is that statement about quitting still true?

HOWLIN' PELLE: That's kind of been misquoted, actually. The entire quote was like this: "No band that we know of has made more than three good records in a row. So let's try to make a fourth one, and if it sucks, we won't release it."

NICHOLAUS: We probably did say, though, that we were going to release three records and then quit. 'Cause we felt that it would be us quitting while we were ahead. You never know...

HOWLIN' PELLE: We might. You never know how long you have us, so enjoy it while you can!

YAHOO! MUSIC: What do you think of this new record? Do you think it is your swan song or ultimate statement?

NICHOLAUS: Every record that we make is kind of our last record.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, every record feels like the last will and testament of the Hives. We just have to make it as important as we can for ourselves. It all has to mean a lot to us--otherwise, there would be no point in doing it. There's so many records put out every day that you have to really concentrate on one record. The climate is not the same as it was in the '60s, when bands would put out a record every six months, every two months, or whatever. It doesn't work that way anymore 'cause you can't concentrate on a band that much. You have one shot every two years or something. And that's when you have to make a good record.

YAHOO! MUSIC: You must be happy to get new material out, because when your last album came out in the U.S., it actually was a couple of years old already.

NICHOLAUS: I think it was maybe six months old or so. But then...

HOWLIN' PELLE: Nobody bought it.

NICHOLAUS: Yeah, nobody bought it. And then it was re-released on another label.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, it's been a long time since we played new songs. 'Cause we didn't want to, because: A, we don't write on the road, and, B, if we have new songs, we don't want to play all the new songs that we have before the record comes out, 'cause it would spoil the surprise. So it took us a really long time, 'cause we toured for Veni Vidi Vicious for three years, almost. I don't know, it just seemed like we got big in a new country every month! And we had to go there and play to them. At least, it seemed that way to us. The first pressing of that record was, like, 500 copies. And now it's sold a lot more, you know? Every person that bought that record probably saw us twice [laughs].

YAHOO! MUSIC: Was America the country where you wanted to break the most?

NICHOLAUS: We were never out to break in America. We were never out to break anything, really.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Except stuff.

NICHOLAUS: We never expected it. The bands that were popular at the time, when we kind of started out, didn't sound like us. So we never really figured on that. And we weren't really interested, either, in making it big or anything. We just thought that if we toured, that's good.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, we played to people 'cause that's what we liked to do. And it wasn't really a matter of working to break, anyway. It was just 'cause we liked playing. We just figured, that's what bands do. You play as much as you can. We were never really after breaking anywhere. We didn't really play that much in America. We got popular very fast without playing here very much, which was weird 'cause everybody said that we had to play here a lot.

NICHOLAUS: Yeah. There probably is kind of a pattern for how to break America, but I don't think we followed it.

HOWLIN' PELLE: We didn't follow it at all!

NICHOLAUS: It just happened anyway!

YAHOO! MUSIC: Still, I think people really do have to see the Hives live to appreciate them. Could you describe what kind of a band you are onstage?

HOWLIN' PELLE: It's kind of hard to explain something that you'll see in a little while, though. It kind of spoils the surprise! I know we just do what we always thought rock bands did from seeing them in pictures and seeing them on TV. But apparently, moving on the stage went out of fashion in, I don't know when, the mid-'80s or something.

NICHOLAUS: Probably the late '80s.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, the late '80s. In the mid-'80s, they had the hair and metal bands, and they were running around a lot and all that. But in the late '80s/early '90s, it got really popular to just not do anything else other than play your songs. And we always thought that was a bit of a drag, actually.

NICHOLAUS: We were used playing proper road shows--in front of no one, really. We were touring sometimes, and people didn't really show up to see us play. No one knew who we were.

HOWLIN' PELLE: We played to nine people, but the thing is you just got to pretend that there's a million people there. Or you got to give those nine people everything you have. There's no point in putting on your mopey face, like, "Oh no, there's no one here!" You don't really do that. 'Cause we do it for ourselves, mostly, so the people that would feel the worst if we did a bad show would be ourselves! So it doesn't matter if it's two people or 200,000 people. It's the same thing.

NICHOLAUS: People are used to seeing bad shows, or they wouldn't really care like we care.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, exactly. Our lowest level is still so high that most bands are left behind. So that's what we've been working on: a high lowest level.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Do you think that kind of showmanship is sort of coming back--that people aren't wanting to see bands that are depressing and gloomy, but want to see more showbiz and more rock 'n' roll?

NICHOLAUS: Yeah, I think so. For a while, even, people went out to see bands who didn't really do anything--you know, they would put on a DAT tape and leave. I think people might want a bit of both, actually. Sometimes I like going to see bands who'll put on a DAT for you, 'cause sometimes I like the sound that comes out of speakers. But we were always very much into kind of primal rock 'n' roll stuff.

HOWLIN' PELLE: With the music we play, the only thing you really can do is dance to it, or move around or whatever. We can't stand still when we start playing, and neither can the crowd! But for some music, you're supposed to stand still, so that works. It's just that energetic rock music with people standing still never really appealed or made sense to us. But if you play very calm music, standing still has a place in music--but not really in our music.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Can you talk a little more about some of the things that influenced what you thought a rock show should be like?

HOWLIN' PELLE: I guess it was from seeing pictures of rock bands, mostly. You'd see a picture of a guy jumping up and down that was in a rock band, and you'd think that's what they did all the time. Maybe they did, or maybe they just took the picture on the only occasion that he jumped! But we just figured that they did that all the time--so that's what we should do. This is just our idea of what we thought it was, so that's what we did.

NICHOLAUS: We saw different punk bands and rock bands that have played around, and there were bands coming to our town as well. We went to see those bands, and if they weren't as good as the pictures on the back of the records that we had at home, we thought they were pretty bad. But otherwise, if they moved around and they looked cool, we would buy into it.

HOWLIN' PELLE: We would also see stuff on TV, like archive footage of James Brown or the Who...

NICHOLAUS: We would just go for anything that we felt was exciting, and if we felt that James Brown was more exciting than maybe what was popular at the time--I don't know, Def Leppard or something--we would go for James Brown.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Def Leppard could actually be pretty exciting sometimes...

HOWLIN' PELLE: Oh, it probably wasn't Def Leppard though.

NICHOLAUS: Yeah, they never came to Fagersta.

HOWLIN' PELLE: They never played in our town. James Brown didn't either, though, to be honest. But...

NICHOLAUS: He looked better in the pictures.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Tell me about the town you grew up in.

NICHOLAUS: It's a small town. It's in the middle of the woods.

HOWLIN' PELLE: It's a place called Fagersta, and it's a small mining town with, like, 12,000 people and really not a lot to do. It has beautiful nature but nothing going on, basically, except for the industry. That's about it, and that's what people do: They work in the industry and they work weird shifts, so they would like work at night, sleep during the day. The weird thing is that it's a city that you can walk around in for two whole days and not meet a single person. Which is very weird. But this is a good thing if you tour a lot and there are people everywhere and then you come home and there's nothing there. It feels kind of good, actually.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Are there any other rock bands from there? How did you drift towards doing rock in a town that doesn't really have a rock scene?

NICHOLAUS: There was kind of a small rock scene at the time.

HOWLIN' PELLE: There's always been punk bands in Fagersta, actually.

NICHOLAUS: There have always been punk bands, ever since, like, 1976 or something. Punk kind of died in the bigger cities, but in Fagersta, it still lived on. You would inherit punk music and rock 'n' roll from older brothers and sisters or the older guy who lived down the street, you know?

HOWLIN' PELLE: It kind of simmered down through the generations.

NICHOLAUS: Yeah. And at the time, when we were young, there were some bands, even American bands, coming to our town to play.

HOWLIN' PELLE: There were hardcore punk bands from our town that got pretty popular elsewhere. So when they got popular, even though we didn't really play the same type of music, we figured that it could be done--that you could, as a band, even from the tiniest little town in the middle of the woods, go and tour Europe. You just have to go there and put the stuff in a bus and leave. I think there are a lot of places in the world where you don't really think about that in the same way: You think you have to have a record deal and blah, blah, blah. But you just got to go play.

NICHOLAUS: We figured if the older guys could put together a band and tour, we might as well probably do the same.

HOWLIN' PELLE: We heard this story about Husker Du, how they would just go to a town when they toured and ask, "Do you have punk here?" And then somebody would say, "Yes, we do, one Tuesday every month, we have it over there." And they would wait there until that night came, and then they would go there and say, "Can we play?" You know, you can still do that. We sort of did. We just booked tours that were sort of semi-booked and slept on people's floors and all that.

YAHOO! MUSIC: What do you think it is about Sweden? Sweden used to have a reputation for pop bands like ABBA and Roxette, but now it seems like there's a lot of punk and garage music coming out of there.

NICHOLAUS: I think that there was always kind of harder music around.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Sweden has always been doing every kind of music.

NICHOLAUS: It was just that ABBA is probably the most famous band to come out of Sweden ever, that's all.

HOWLIN' PELLE: It's because pop music is usually more popular than punk music! [laughs] This is just a fluke that punk's popular now. But there is always good music from Sweden.

NICHOLAUS: And also, when one band becomes kind of popular, people tend to say, "Where did they come from?" Of course, maybe it was kind of exotic in a way; like maybe in the mid-'90s, there was one kind of Scandinavian rock thing going on, which was like, the Hellacopters. Everybody would follow them. You know, if bands start doing well, other bands will follow, I guess.

HOWLIN' PELLE: I think it's a media thing, mainly. We got popular doing this in America, and then American magazines started looking for bands that were like us: "There has to be more!" And then they found it. So that's why you heard about more Swedish bands, I think. There are tons of good ones, though, so that's a good thing, but I think that's the way it usually works. Like, if an Icelandic band would get popular a few years ago, people would go look there. It can't be isolated. There has to be more where that came from.

YAHOO! MUSIC: I do want to address the Randy Fitzsimmons thing, the guy you say assembled you and discovered you and wrote all the material on your first two albums. I see he has writing credit and production credit on this new album too. But I thought it had been uncovered that Randy Fitzsimmons was a fictional character--actually, that he was your alter ego, Nicholaus!

HOWLIN' PELLE: Oh, really? Why couldn't he be me?

NICHOLAUS: What about Randy Fitzsimmons? People just seem to find it very hard to swallow that it's a guy who wants to remain anonymous, you know?

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, 'cause it's very unpopular in our culture to remain humble. In a culture that's based on reality TV shows, people don't really understand that there's a person that does something of value and doesn't wanna take credit for it. He's the opposite, basically, of people on reality TV. He's a guy who does something and doesn't wanna be famous for it, as opposed to being someone that doesn't do anything and wants to be famous for it!

YAHOO! MUSIC: For those who don't know about Randy Fitzsimmons, can you explain who he is?

HOWLIN' PELLE: He's the guy who had the idea to form the band, and it was his idea that it would be these members. He comes up with a lot of the ideas. But nowadays, it's more like it's six people [Randy plus the five Hives members] doing everything. It used to be more him, more his ideas. And...I don't know, I can't really tell you a lot about him, because he wants to remain anonymous!

NICHOLAUS: He doesn't want us to talk about him, so we talk about him as little as possible. We can't go into any detail.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Where did the rumor come about that "Randy Fitzsimmons" was actually Nicholaus's alias?

NICHOLAUS: It came from [British music tabloid] the NME. Well, it came from various places before that. I think journalists were phoning up Swedish rights organizations to see who collected the money for the Hives, and I collected the money, so...

HOWLIN' PELLE: ...So they figured it has to be him. Nicholaus gets the money, it has to be him. But they don't really think about the fact that the dumbest thing for Randy Fitzsimmons to do would be to have his name on there, so people can just call and ask, "Where does he live?" and find him!

NICHOLAUS: Yeah, they can contact the one who's kind of collecting the money. So if you put your address on there, you're not really anonymous anymore.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, so Nicholaus takes the money home from the bank, and divides it six ways between us and Randy.

YAHOO! MUSIC: It seems in general that you like to have a mythology around your band. Your whole website is about the mystery of your supposed disappearance, for instance. Do you try to create that kind of mystique?

HOWLIN' PELLE: I think it's more the fact that we're pretty bored with stuff being done the regular way. Like, you would have a website, and they all look the same, basically, so we just wanted to do something else. And also it's the fact that we have been missing, and we haven't really done anything with our website.

YAHOO! MUSIC: So you were missing? Where were you?

HOWLIN' PELLE: We were lost.

NICHOLAUS: Lost. We were in seclusion.

HOWLIN' PELLE: We were making a record and digging in the backyard basically.

NICHOLAUS: Pretty much exactly the same way that we did things before. Whenever we make a record, we can never concentrate on more than one thing at a time, so we have to spend time in seclusion. It takes us always about a year, or a year and a half, to finish a record.

HOWLIN' PELLE: 'Cause we always start with a blank page, sort of. We don't really have a set way of doing it.

NICHOLAUS: We're very slow when we make records, but for us, I don't think we could do it any other way. We just go into detail.

HOWLIN' PELLE: I think it's 'cause we'd rather make a good record every four years than two bad ones every two years. I think that's it, really. Everything we do has to be important.

NICHOLAUS: We were never in a hurry, either. You know, the best thing for us, maybe, would have been to release a new record a year and a half ago, while we were kind of popular still. [laughs] We are kind of popular now, but maybe that would have been the best thing--but it wouldn't have been a good record. So it didn't feel important to us to make a record to remain popular, and ride the wave.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Do you think there is a wave? Like a wave of garage-rock popularity right now?

HOWLIN' PELLE: Well, we were sort of more waiting for the wave to ebb out!

YAHOO! MUSIC: What wave are you talking about?

HOWLIN' PELLE: The new rock revolution, or whatever they call it. It's us, basically.

NICHOLAUS: We're kind of waiting for the second wave. The biggest one.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Exactly. The old rock revolution, the second one. The sequel to that.

YAHOO! MUSIC: The name of the Hives is often brought up in association with a lot of other bands that came out when your last album came out--not bands you sound like, necessarily, but bands with "The" in their names. How do you feel about that categorization?

HOWLIN' PELLE: That's also a media thing, really.

NICHOLAUS: Yeah, there you go again--like, if people can't see beyond "The" in a band name, what do you do?

HOWLIN' PELLE: It's kind of sad about the state of humanity, isn't it?

NICHOLAUS: "Oh, they all have 'The' in their name. They must sound the same!"

HOWLIN' PELLE: There have always been bands named "The" and with an "s" at the end of their name, from the beginning of time. I think we just thought that all the good band names were plurals, pretty much. It's just a media thing. Like I said about Sweden--"Oh, there's a band from Sweden that are good, so we have to go look in Sweden for more good bands." That's the way record companies work, and magazines work. And then when they see a few bands get popular called "The Somethings," they just have to find more of those, and they'll sign every band that's called something with an "s" at the end. So what are you gonna do? It's just the way it is. I mean, we'd be compared to the Strokes and the White Stripes, and they'd say that we sound alike. I might have even heard people say, in explaining what a band sounded like, they would say, "You know--the Strokes, the Hives, the White Stripes..." How would that band sound? I'm just curious. It's totally impossible!

NICHOLAUS: I think maybe we shared some of the influences with a band like the White Stripes or something, like we liked a lot of the same things, but it's not like we came from the same town or anything. Detroit's pretty far from Fagersta; so is New York, I guess.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Well, we've compared to worse bands, so that's fine.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Like who?

HOWLIN' PELLE: We've been lumped in with everything, really. We've been lumped into straight-edge, hardcore, all kinds of stuff. Anything that's popular, we're usually lumped into.

YAHOO! MUSIC: A lot of times the media writes about how you dress, too. Do think the attention paid to your image deflects attention away from your music?

HOWLIN' PELLE: Well, the clothes and what we do apart from the band are two things. Basically, it's because we thought that there's so much more you could do besides playing music. Obviously the music is pretty much all we do. The rest of it takes five minutes, while the music takes about a year to make. So it kind of works as an idiot-filter for people that can't see past what we're dressed in.

NICHOLAUS: You really want them to listen to your music...

HOWLIN' PELLE: ...Exactly. If you only hear clothes, then you don't have to pay attention, that's fine.

NICHOLAUS: But I think we always kind of hated bands who had to wear a jeans and T-shirt in order to make their music sound "real." At the time when we started out, it was kind of grunge days, and I thought it was so damned pretentious to wear a torn T-shirt and torn jeans.

HOWLIN' PELLE: 'Cause, you know, it was the best torn T-shirt and the best torn jeans they could find! It's not like they spent less time dressing up, it's just that they tried to act like they didn't care.

NICHOLAUS: It's not like people couldn't afford buying a clean T-shirt, either.

HOWLIN' PELLE: Yeah, most of these rock bands were f--king rich as well! [laughs] And they'd be wearing a flannel shirt that was supposed to look like they got it from a charity shop. But it was, like, a $700 torn flannel shirt.

YAHOO! MUSIC: When did you come up with the idea to wear the black and white and the suits and all that?

HOWLIN' PELLE: Maybe 1996. That's when we started wearing the same clothes, because we thought that it would separate us from a lot of the other bands that we played with. We always that was a good idea: to try and be as separate from everything else as possible. Even though there are tons of bands that we like and that we listen to, we just wanted to be sort of isolated.

NICHOLAUS: I think we enjoyed playing with the punk bands and the hardcore bands that were popular at the time--we liked their company--but we always felt like we were a different band. We enjoyed separating ourselves from the other bands.

HOWLIN' PELLE: It was very, very fun doing that. I guess it was the end of grunge or something in '96, or towards the end, and people weren't supposed to think that you were separate from the audience. You were supposed to be just a guy playing guitar.

NICHOLAUS: But we always thought that we were better than everyone else!

HOWLIN' PELLE: We thought it was a drag to just not do anything else but play music. So dressing up was good 'cause it annoyed exactly the right people. The right people would get pissed off at us, kind of like the people that can only hear our clothes. So it worked to our advantage...plus it looked cool.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Have you always had this confidence? Where does this confidence come from?

HOWLIN' PELLE: I think it's more like we think that's part of what a rock band is. You have to be confident at what you do. If what you do doesn't sound good to you, you have to practice. And we've practiced for 11 years now, and it's starting to sound pretty good, so...

NICHOLAUS: We practiced for almost four years, I think, before we even thought we were that good, before we appeared on recorded material.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Just one more question--about your album title, Tyrannosaurus Hives. How did you come up with that?

HOWLIN' PELLE: Our last record was called Veni Vidi Vicious, because it was the record that we were gonna use to conquer the world. So we made that record and then we toured forever until it was as popular as we thought it should be. And now we're huge--like a dinosaur. You could also argue that the dinosaur is, or would soon become, extinct, so the title is kind of a double-edged sword. But, mostly it sounds cool.

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Hanson

Underneath It All

In today's fickle music business ("Here today, gone today," as Chris Rock once famous declared), four years is an absolute eternity. That's how long it's been since Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hanson--those lovable flaxen-haired scamps who first mmmbopped their way into our hearts back in 1997--released their last album, and during that time, the boys have done a lot of growing up: Taylor got married and became a father; the whole band relocated from their homebase of Tulsa, Oklahoma to New York City; they split from their former major label and founded their own independent record company, 3CG; and they recorded their third proper studio album, Underneath, producing most of it themselves and working with esteemed songwriters like Matthew Sweet and the New Radicals' Gregg Alexander. Clearly, these talented brothers aren't falling victim to the Child Star Syndrome that has plagued countless other artists who found fame and success so early in life. Instead, they are thriving, and so is their fanbase, which remains passionate and loyal despite having to suffer through four years without any new Hanson music.

Tay, Ike, and Zac recently dropped by LAUNCH's studios to perform a gorgeous acoustic version of their Underneath hit "Penny & Me," after which they sat down with LAUNCH editor Lyndsey Parker to chat about their new indie-label venture, the current state of the music industry, the Internet's effects on music, and their aforementioned steadfast-and-true fans. Here's what these fine young men had to say:

LAUNCH: Tell me about your new label, 3CG Records, and why you chose to go this route. What in the last four years led you to this point?

ZAC: The reason we chose to release our new album on our own independent label...well, we can't go forward without saying that you wouldn't leave your label if you were completely happy, so there is that. But I think we wanted to do something that was exciting and something that we were passionate about--taking on completely the business side of the music business. Something that we were excited about challenging.

TAYLOR: And I think, in general, we just were excited to do something different, and we were excited to really set ourselves up for the future in a way that was different than just being creative and just being artists. Also, we really want to be able to help other artists. We really want to be able to bring other music forward to new audiences, and really be involved in that way. I mean, we're not just interested in just being "Hanson." We want to write and produce for people. We want to score movies. We want to do things that are outside of just the confines of being in this band. And creating the record company, it gives you a lot of great opportunities. It gives you an avenue to express yourself in different ways. Most importantly, starting this record company was an opportunity to really get closer to our fans, and really build better a relationship with our fans.

LAUNCH: How has your fanbase changed? Most of your fans were children in the beginning. Have they grown up with you?

ZAC: Well, since our second record, This Time Around, four years have passed. So when you look at the fans now, the fans are four years older! That's one of my favorite things, is to look at the people who have come forward from Middle Of Nowhere and then to This Time Around and now to Underneath, which has just come out. Just to see the fans grow and change with Hanson, and with the music that we make.

TAYLOR: Yeah, I mean, you can be 40 years old or you can be 10 years old and be a fan--and we've seen it all--but definitely our peers are the most devoted. They're the hardcore fans.

ISAAC: And they're the majority of the fanbase.

TAYLOR: Yeah, with the majority of the fans that are traveling and coming to shows all over the country, it's amazing people to see people that are college age--you know, finding their life, deciding what they want to do with their life. And that are really still passionate about this music during a really important time in their life. I think it's a really exciting time to be in this band because we really feel like we can touch those people and really be involved in their lives at a time when they're going to make a lot of really important decisions.

LAUNCH: Do you feel, in a way, that you sort of have a clean slate, since there are people who may have been too young when you first came out, so for them, Hanson's a brand-new band?

ISAAC: Sure, sure. I think, hopefully, every record that you release is a new interpretation of you.

TAYLOR: That's kind of your job, in a way.

ISAAC: It's another chapter, a new slate. You're reinventing yourself every time. Obviously you're not going to go from doing pop-rock to doing hardcore rap, or something like that. Obviously that's not going to happen...

TAYLOR: Why not, why not?

ISAAC: I don't know...um, I just thought that maybe we shouldn't...

TAYLOR: Just as a band, you're always growing. And I think we've taken this to a different place, producing most of it on our own. We've always produced--since I was, like, 12, we've produced our own albums--but we took on production in a more robust way on this album. We had a lot of amazing collaborations. With every album, we're just taking it forward, and what's amazing about the position we're in now is we really have the opportunity to bring forward more and more who Hanson is in a more clear way, 'cause we're really building a team of people who are working with us and for this record company, 3CG Records. Some people ask us, "Do you guys ever worry about misconceptions about your band or this and that"? And I think the only way you can dispel misconceptions, whether you're Aerosmith or whether you're Paul McCartney, is to just be who you are, and let that come out. And that's really the job of 3CG Records, and the job of our band, is to just keep making music.

ZAC: 3CG Records is us.

LAUNCH: What are the misconceptions you're talking about?

ZAC: You know, there was just an article written that said we were from Australia! That's a misconception. Whether it's that, or whether it's people not knowing what our music is.

TAYLOR: Like, "Aren't you guys from Sweden? Aren't you from Australia?" It's just about educating people on who we are musically.

LAUNCH: So who are you musically these days? What's the biggest difference about this album and the last two?

ISAAC: I think the biggest thing that is very clear about this record is kind of the intimate elements, the full breadth of the music. There's some more space...it's more articulate, more easily accessible. Underneath articulates the wide array of music that we make, I think, in a more accurate way than any other record of ours in the past, because it really goes from extremely mellow to just full-on pop/rock, just, you know, letting your hair down, just banging on the guitar. I'm really excited about the record for all those reasons. I think it really does show a large part of who we are in a much more clear way.

TAYLOR: It's always just about taking it forward. I mean, you can't stand still. You can't sit around and ask people to be interested every time if you're just kind of cookie-cutting it every time.

ZAC: You can't ask people who you are. You have to show them.

TAYLOR: You have to lead people to get excited and be passionate and be activated by what you do.

LAUNCH: Is it true this album took three years to make?

ISAAC: Between two and a half and three, yeah.

ZAC: Most of last year was spent touring acoustically. We made an acoustic EP in a studio with about 150 fans around us, and then we went out and we did acoustic shows all across the country in intimate venues and clubs, all the way from Trees in Dallas to Carnegie Hall. We ended the tour in Carnegie Hall, and that's such a pinnacle venue for your musical career. But also to end an acoustic tour that way, it's built so well for acoustic music, you just sort of stand on that stage and look at the crushed red velvet seats and the gold gilding and huge white dome and four tiers of seats and opera-style boxes, and you just go, "Damn!"

TAYLOR: A lot went into making this record. I mean, there were a lot of big decisions, producing most of it on our own. A lot of collaborations. There was a transition with the decision to start a record company, and building a record company, and kind of coming up with the plan to do that was a big thing. All those things take time, you know. And also, when you make a record, it's got to be the right record. It's got to be ready to come out. And we wrote, God, 80 songs over the period of this album. We were always writing. And we already have another whole batch of songs ready for the next record. A lot of creation went on during this process. Even though we were anxious to get music out for a long time, all the steps that had to happen for us to release it independently and to produce the record and to collaborate with a lot of great people, all those things took a certain amount of time. It's amazing that it's come together the way it has.

LAUNCH: Doesn't running a record label detract from your ability to focus on the creative aspect of being in a band?

ZAC: A lot of people, they go, "Wow, you've got a record company. Doesn't that make you, you know, fall away from the music? Doesn't it add an extra barrier? Doesn't it make your mind more...full?"

TAYLOR: It does, somewhat.

ZAC: Yeah, but for us, what it's really about is making our minds less full. To be able to go, "Let's not worry about that. Let's bring this back to people who love making music, who are passionate about the music they make." And then there's the people on the other hand, who are the fans, who wanna communicate and wanna come to shows and wanna buy records and wanna experience this thing that you've made, and make that relationship two, instead of three.

TAYLOR: It's not just an independent release, also. I mean, really, there's a lot of independent labels that are non-majors, that have built up a name for themselves as a genre or a kind of a specific type of label. But really, this is not only an independent release, this is a self-release. This is a label built to facilitate releasing Hanson music, and then eventually releasing other music, but it's not built on the shoulders of any other corporate structure.

ZAC: It's totally built on the shoulders of the ones you see right here!

TAYLOR: Yeah, it's set up to be able to release the music the way we want to release it and build that fanbase. And I think that's a big defining factor. The mantra with 3CG Records will always be, whether it's a self-release or a release by other artists, we'll always be about doing the things we've done, which is to build an audience, to really establish the relationship, and allow that to flourish and put the music up front. And no matter what the artist is, whether it's rap or whether it's rock or whether it's pop or whatever it is, that's the most important thing. It's building that connection and building that relationship of trust with your audience. That's the thing that will have them come back time after time.

LAUNCH: Have there been things you were able to do with this record, creative freedom-wise, that you weren't able to do before?

ISAAC: I think it is important when you're making a record that you're doing different things no matter what time in your life it is, no matter how many albums you've had in the past. So I think doing it independently did not necessarily change the creative process on an immediate level...

TAYLOR: 'Cause we've always been control freaks!

ISAAC: Yeah, exactly, exactly! [laughs] We've always been very hands-on, very involved, and sometimes have driven people who work with us a little bit nuts. So I think when it comes to actually releasing the record, I think the way that we were able to focus our energies on a more specific strategy and message and so on, that's really the big difference. Creatively, it's very much the same as far as a working environment, although this record, I think, is more organic and more kind of raw and in-your-face.

TAYLOR: I think because of where our minds were when we were making this record--we were all thinking about the self-release and kind of where we would go with that, and just the future of this music--I think that affected the creation of this album in a positive way. It's really just about freedom. It's about the excitement. Every time you go out to do something it's like when you're a little kid on Christmas Eve and you're like, "Oh my God, I just can't wait!" You're on the eve of something exciting, and all your options are open. And we have so much freedom. We can do whatever we want. And there's also something with the evolving industry: There's a lot of great people that don't have jobs; they have been at great companies and have had great heritage, and we can pull them into our team and go forward and build this company. But again, it's all just comes back to the music. That's what it's all about. That is the only thing that keeps it real. That's the only thing that makes it worth the work and the dedication.

ZAC: Bringing it back to where your question started, which is whether having an independent company changed how this record was made and how this record was released, I think the biggest difference is that we're able to put the bar here [holds hand at head height] instead of the bar being way up here [holds hand high in air above head]. We say, "You know what? We're an independent company. We're a small company. All our focus is on if we can be successful enough to make another record--and then with that record, be successful enough to make another record after that." Because that's what we're here for. That's what drives us as musicians: the passion for making music that affects people.

LAUNCH: Is it ever humbling to be on your own label now, having been on a major label where you were expected to sell millions of records?

ISAAC: Well, the advantage is it doesn't impair you, being independent. It does not necessarily impair you from being able to be successful.

TAYLOR: It's not about saying that the success level that we're shooting for is medium success as opposed to huge success. The real point is your business model allows you to only have to have a small amount of success. The issue with the structure of a lot of the major companies is it's become imperative to have great success or it's a loss. Everybody knows that this is a very risky business. The job of an independent label is to be smart and say, "How do we do this in a way that can allow us to build our fanbase and continue to put out music and give it to fans?" And believe me, it doesn't take $100 million to make that happen. It doesn't take $10 million. It doesn't take $5 million! It takes great songs and then a few focused people that are really passionate. So what it's really about is building a company whose business model says, "We're not in the hole so far that if we don't sell a bazillion albums, we're gonna have our shirts be taken off."

LAUNCH: Do you think labels like 3CG point to the direction of the music business in the future?

TAYLOR: You know, I don't know if exactly what we're doing is the future for every artist. I don't know if it's the future of the music business. I do know that we're not the first to want to self-release an album or to have devoted fans or to be passionate about our music. That's happened many times. And it hasn't always worked and it hasn't always not worked. It's been successful many times. But I know that for us, this is really our answer. This is our answer to a really interesting time in the industry and a really interesting time in music and in the world. I think it's an example of what's happening with businesses. I think it's an example of what's happening with the world economy. I mean, I think it all kind of goes together. But our focus is making great music and touching our fans. I do think it would be exciting to see more artists get back to that. And as long as artists are getting back to that idea, and keep their focus on the things that matter, whether they're with a major label or whether they're on a indie label or whether they're playing gigs 300 days a year, that's the right place to be.

ISAAC: Yeah, there is no right or wrong choice for anybody. Every artist has to make a decision for themselves--what they think their position is, where they think they can grow and not grow, what they need to take for themselves and what they need to let someone else deal with. I think in our particular case, we just felt like this was the right decision for us.

TAYLOR: I do think that, like any company or any business, if the music industry doesn't wake up and remember they're not indispensable, they're gonna all fall flat on their faces. You can't just go along and try and set up a pattern that's just going to work every time, like, "If we scrutinize this and develop the scientific structure, then every time we put this out it's going to work over and over and over and we can all sit on our asses and wait for the checks to come." That doesn't work. The key is not major versus minor versus independent. The key is to be focused and to continue to reinvent and to continue to be humbled by the audience. The audience and fans are the only ones that are gonna keep it alive. And that's the danger with the industry right now, is everybody--and I mean everybody--got cocky thinking they didn't have to work to keep their fans excited and keep them coming back to the well. And I think quality control went downhill. The job of artists is to not let that happen, and the job of the future music executives is to be the quarterbacks and continue to say, "Look, I'm gonna be here and I'm gonna be calling the plays. And I'm gonna be setting up these artists to succeed." That's the thing that people are going to respond to.

ISAAC: We've got to always remember that the most important thing, the only people that really matter, are the fans. They're the ones who buy the records. They're the ones who keep all of us afloat. And if you don't respect them and take into consideration how they feel about music on any level...

TAYLOR: You've got the Internet, you've got information everywhere. There's all kinds of different cultures. Everything's thrown together. It's a massive melting pot. You find a lot of great music. It's all there. So our job as artists is to continue to set the bar really high, as far as what the standard is. I mean, the standard should be Prince's live show, not Britney Spears's live show. The standard could be, "Well, I could sing as well as the American Idol people that didn't make it," or "I could sing as well as Aretha Franklin." You've got to set up a standard. That's what we're shooting for.

ZAC: I think, hopefully, when people look at us and they hear our music, the passion has to be there. People have to feel that from music. They have to listen to a song and go, "I feel it. I got it. It's there." It's got to be something more than a vocal track. It's got to be a piece of someone.

LAUNCH: You just mentioned the Internet. The Web's been blamed a lot for the sorry shape of the music industry right now. Do you agree or disagree?

ISAAC: I'd actually like to take this question, 'cause I actually just talked with the L.A. Times about the one-year anniversary of iTunes and all this stuff. The way that I think the Internet has affected things overall is that people now have the ability to research and find music in a way that they didn't have before. Which I think is a massive advantage for an artist and for an audience. But I think there's also this double-edged sword, which is that the industry and artists were slow to recognize the fact that the Internet was not only just a research tool but also a commerce tool. That has been a little bit negative. But I think the end result is that the audience has the opportunity to find music in a more comprehensive way than they ever have. A little band in Tulsa, Oklahoma can post their songs on their website and sell 30,000 records in the Philippines because some fan heard a song, bought the record from the website, and then took it over to a Filipino radio station, and the station loved it and played it, and all of a sudden, their independent record that was made in Tulsa, Oklahoma got released and sold 30,000 copies. I'm talking about a band who actually had that happen--a friend of mine from Tulsa who sold 30,000 records in the Philippines because of the Internet.

ZAC: I think there's a couple of important things to think about when you think about the Internet and you think about music. Neither of them will ever go away. The Internet is here. Music can't disappear. Music is the soundtrack of people's lives. It guides you, it carries you, it helps you through those hard times. It helps you through the happy times. It's indispensable.

TAYLOR: Nuclear holocaust might eliminate the Internet...

ISAAC: Yeah, that's true, but it will eliminate a lot of things.

ZAC: It'd still be rebuilt! [laughs] The Internet is an amazing tool, and it's not going away because there are too many advantages, like the immediate contact with people. And I think what Ike was saying about the ability to have a comprehensive research of music is so true. Fans no longer have to rely on a band's one single on the radio. They can go and find a whole plethora of the music that that band makes, from covers to albums to one-offs with other bands. And hopefully, that can be seeded in the fans and in people who love music and people who buy music. You've just got to support artists. If you love the music they make, then you want to support them by going to concerts, by buying albums--because you want them to release another record. You want them to come out with new songs and new material. You want them to not have to work at Burger King. You want them to be able to focus on making great music that can hopefully change your life and help you make it through.

TAYLOR: We're in an era where the MTV generation of people judges things based on visuals first, and what people are talking about with the Internet is it being a thing that's going to make things more and more fickle, but I actually think it's the absolute opposite of that. I think the Internet is gonna counteract the idea of one-hit wonders because it causes people to actually have great music--because there's so many options that if you don't step up, you're just gonna be at the bottom of the barrel. If you don't step up, you're not even going to get a look because there's so many options and it's so available.

ISAAC: People will only download one of your songs, as opposed to the whole album! As opposed to 12 of your songs, 'cause the other 11 songs kind of suck.

TAYLOR: They don't have to go buy the album. There's not one avenue where you can go to the one department store, like it was 50 years ago, to buy everything. At the department store, it was all there, it was the only place. Now, you've got a million strip malls, and the Internet. Now you can see it all, buy it all, check it out, taste-test it, and then maybe buy it. You hear the song, think it's cool, check it out on the Internet. Boom--there's their website. I think it's gonna be a rebirth for the idea that you can hear the music first before you judge the color, creed, attitude, and dressing style of a particular artist. So artists have to step up.

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Incubus

Something To Crow About

It wouldn't be surprising if Incubus's Brandon Boyd was one big jerk. After all, he's a bona fide heartthrob and the superstar singer of a huge band, most likely constantly surrounded by fans and label suckups catering to his every whim, right? So it's no stretch to imagine him being a bit of a diva. But thankfully, nothing could be farther from the truth. When he recently stopped by the LAUNCH studios to chat with editor Lyndsey Parker about Incubus's new album, A Crow Left Of The Murder, Brandon was incredibly, refreshingly down-to-earth. Not only did arrive in his own car (yes, that's right, he drove himself--no chauffeured limos for this guy!), but he remembered LAUNCH employees from past visits to our office, smiled and shook hands with everyone, and answered all interview questions intelligently and thoughtfully. Aspiring rockers should take a lesson from Brandon before they think it's cool to throw fits, pull star trips, and toss TV sets out windows.

Of course, Incubus have been around a while now--A Crow Left Of The Murder is their sixth album in eight years--and the wisdom of experience shows in their complex musicianship, probing lyrics, and charity endeavors as well as in their interview answers. Read on to get those answers, and as you do, wish all interviews could be this pleasant and compelling.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Your "Megalomaniac" video seems much more political than any of your other videos--can you explain the story behind that? And does that mean A Crow Left Of The Murder is a political album too?

BRANDON: I wouldn't necessarily call the record political. But I think that there are some opinions that came across lyrically on this record that there have been hints of on previous records--but they've got sort of overshadowed by other things. But on this record, just in writing the lyrics part of it, I had a lot more experience to draw from. I am becoming way more opinionated the older I get, especially in this sort of time in history. It's kind of hard not to have an opinion about the things that are going on. And if you don't have an opinion about it, you're probably living under a rock or in a cave somewhere! So, being that I am a certainly active member of society, I just couldn't help but notice certain things, and sort of be infuriated, inspired, frightened, and enlightened by everything in the past two or three years. So I wouldn't call it a political record, but I'd say it's definitely more opinionated than the rest.

YAHOO! MUSIC: How did the idea for the video come about?

BRANDON: Weell, I I've been a fan of [director] Floria Sigismondi for a while; everything that I'd seen of hers kind of blew me away. But I never really thought we'd ever have the chance to work with her. So when we started getting treatments for the video, most of them were pretty disappointing; they were mostly along the lines of a band playing in front of extras jumping around, pretending to like the song a lot more than they do, and that whole thing. And we're not really into that kind of a video; we never have been. And then Floria, at the very, very last minute, right when we were about to give up all hope, sent us a treatment along with some really beautiful, well-put-together montages of what she had in mind. And so, not only did she have a treatment, but she had stuff to look at. Everyone was like, "Wow. This is amazing!" Then it got more and more involved as the process unfolded, and she was awesome to work with. She knew exactly what she wanted to get. And basically, what it is is just her interpretation of that song--which is a really wonderful thing to receive from somebody who you respect as an artist, interpreting what you were trying to say, sometimes maybe even differently than you had in mind. But that's the whole point, you know? That's the point of music, to reinterpret and personalize it, and not make it so much like, "This song is about this." I don't really like to explain exactly what lyrics are about, because that sort of undermines the intelligence of the listeners: Should they be so inclined to want to interpret it on their own, I'd love to give them that chance. So that's exactly what she did. And I think that the results are really cool.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Have you received any backlash from it?

BRANDON: Actually, I hope that some people are offended by the imagery! We aren't trying to be controversial, we aren't trying to offend people necessarily, but I'd much rather have people be sort of polarized than have everybody like it or everybody hate it. You know what I'm saying? Some people really like it and some people are really bummed out about it. But I don't worry about that stuff. I don't think about controversy, or trying to breed controversy, or trying to avoid controversy. Those things are going to happen as they're going to happen. We normally just write our songs and lyrics as they come to us, and as they seem fit. And if they cause a reaction, it's like, "Thank God, they're causing a reaction!" So we will see.

YAHOO! MUSIC: It's been said that this album is a return to the "classic" Incubus sound. Do you agree, and if so, was that deliberate?

BRANDON: I've heard some of the talk about our new record returning to an older Incubus ethic, an older Incubus sound. And my reaction to that is pretty much that those ethics never really went away. They just sort of weren't up front completely on the past couple of records. I'm very proud of the past couple of records we've made, because they're much more focused and energy was put into the songwriting and content, as opposed to just pure instrumentation. I feel like maybe we would've lost people a long time ago if we just kept on with, you know, the noise and the wandering and stuff like that--the musical meandering. But when I say that it never really went away, I mean in the sense that in every one of our concerts ever since we released S.C.I.E.N.C.E., we've always dedicated a portion of our concerts to just improvising and freeform and exploring areas. And the kids at the shows have always seemed to respond to that. And we respond to it as well, as musicians and as friends, because it keeps things very interesting for us. We'll sort of reconfigure songs, stop songs halfway through and play a different song at the end of it. So that ethic never really left, it just kind of swooped back around during the writing and recording of this record, for probably a lot of reasons that we couldn't really pinpoint. A lot of it had to do with sort of a renewed feeling that we have, being that we have a new member, Ben Kenny, who is a pretty darn good musician. And he brought with him, I think, just this freshness and this ability to really do anything. Once we got him in the room and all of us started playing together, I think we really felt like we were able to do whatever we could think of, whatever we wanted. It was fun. It was a good time.

YAHOO! MUSIC: I know you were suing your record label while making this album. That's all settled now, but I assumed that during the recording you weren't sure what label would be putting out this album, or if maybe you'd be putting it out yourself. Did that free you creatively in any way, not being obligated to a label?

BRANDON: That lawsuit was kind of going on when we were writing the record, and there was a small uncertainty as to how it would be coming out, but I don't really think it had a conscious effect on things. We didn't really think about anything when we were recording. We were sort of going about our everyday routine: We met up at the rehearsal spaces, and we just wrote music as it came to us. There were a lot more important emotions and stuff floating around, as opposed to concentrating on a lawsuit or something like that, which in the long run is kind of trivial.

YAHOO! MUSIC: What musical influences has Ben brought to the record? I know he used to play with the Roots, so did he bring any R&B flavor to the mix?

BRANDON: Ben's done a lot. He's been in probably more rock bands than R&B or hip-hop bands, but it's the R&B and hip-hop bands that he was a part of that have sort of garnished notoriety. But I am going to speak for him briefly, and say I think maybe his heart is in rock music, and that's what he likes to do the most. But he can kind of do whatever kind of music he wants to--he is one of those musical minds that just whatever he can think of, he can do. It's really fun to be in a band with a guy like that.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Tell me about your charity project, Incubusbootlegs.com. How did the idea of selling bootleg to raise money for charity come about?

BRANDON: We actually stole the idea of doing Incubusbootlegs.com from Pearl Jam! We saw that they were putting out these live bootlegs--probably for a lot of their own reasons that are unbeknownst to me, but maybe as well as a reaction to the fact that their shows were being bootlegged anyway, so they figured they would do it themselves and put their name on it, and their stamp on it, and do something good with it. So we decided that was a really cool idea. Pearl Jam is an amazing band, and they've had a lot of good ideas in the past. They've created a legacy, so to speak, that is admirable. And so, there is a lot to be learned, I think, from what they've done and what they do. And you know, we've been participating in a couple of charity organizations over the past couple of years, devoting time and money and resources to scattered causes. Each cause was equally as important, but we started feeling maybe our time and energy and money could be a little bit better spent if it was more focused. So we actually created our own charity organization, which is called the Make Yourself Foundation. At the end of every year, we basically distribute the money in that foundation to specific charities or to one specific charity, as the need arises. And so, Incubusbootlegs.com is our first attempt at doing that. We're going to just take all the money that we make from that and a bunch of other things--events, concert tickets--and put it into the Make Yourself Foundation.

YAHOO! MUSIC: That's very cool. Do you think it is important for bands to give something back to the community and get involved in this way?

BRANDON: Yes, I think so. I mean, it's not for everybody; there are some bands that choose not to do it. And that's fine too, because it's your own prerogative. But I think we feel a basic sense of responsibility to where we come from--a sense of community and a sense of responsibility about the fact that we are making money, and the fact that there are a lot of other people and a lot of other places where the money could be a lot better served. A lot better used than us just buying a bunch of cars, you know? There will be that day, hopefully, when we will buy a bunch of cars and give the cars to people, and keep one for ourselves--it's like, the more the merrier. But it's just kind of a share-the-wealth philosophy, I think. I think that we've always done that, even if it was just our ability to take out a friend's band on the road.

YAHOO! MUSIC: So how do you feel about having your stuff bootlegged by fans? Are you OK with that?

BRANDON: Well, I think it shows a level of enthusiasm that reminds me that people are still very interested in music. I don't think music is in trouble, I just think the music industry is in trouble. I think people are just as interested in listening to music and finding music; they're just not as interested in it being sold to them in the ways that it's being sold to them, so they're finding new and sort of devious ways to find it. And yeah, it affects us a little bit, but I'm more concerned about them hearing the music than about how they get it. I might as well go with the flow. In the long run, it's actually just great that they want to hear it.

YAHOO! MUSIC: How is the album being received by fans so far? Is it getting a good response?

BRANDON: It's been largely very enthusiastic. Really, really good. It's funny, because the people who listen to our music and the people who frequent our message boards are some of the most opinionated people I've ever encountered. There is a level of passionate enthusiasm there, even if it's like, "You guys f--king suck, I want you to die!" Or, "I love you! You're the best thing I've ever heard!" That is refreshing. It just shows that people are not as jaded as some people think they are, you know! So the reaction now largely has been really kind of overwhelming, actually. It's been nice.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Did you test any of these songs live before you recorded them, to see how fans would react?

BRANDON: Yeah, actually on Lollapalooza this past summer, we played "Megalomaniac" before it was recorded or was a single or anything. And we played a song called "Pistola" that's kind of this, like, five-minute long ode to prog-rock. And the reaction to those songs was really amazing. Like, kids were holding up cell phones and recording them, and then downloading them onto the Internet. We'd hear these versions of them that were live that were just the worst possible recordings, but everybody on our website was downloading and listening to them. So we took that as a good sign--even though the recording sounded like the worst AM radio drowned out; you could hear somebody talking next to them, like, "Hey man, get me a beer!" It was hilarious. But the reaction was really cool.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Was this your way of figuring out what songs to put on the final album?

BRANDON: Not necessarily. We were just really stoked on the new songs we were writing, and we wanted to play them! We wanted to play more, actually, because we had a bunch of songs written at that point. But then we decided we didn't want to reveal too much. We wanted to wait to reveal it on the record. So we chose only those two songs. We felt they were a good mix of what was going on on the new record.

YAHOO! MUSIC: Was this record easy to make?

BRANDON: Yeah, it was, recording-wise, and actually, writing it was the most pleasurable, too. But recording this record was just a pleasure. There wasn't any arguing. There wasn't any disagreement about what should go where. It just, like, kind of happened. It happened very quickly, too. The bulk of the record was recorded in a little under two weeks. We played everything together live; I sang all my parts with the band. It was just right, you know? It was like when you pet a cat in the right direction, as opposed to trying to go against the grain. We were just sort of going with the flow. We went to Atlanta, Georgia, where our producer lives and works, and we recorded in his studio and stayed there during the week. It was so fun. It was awesome.

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