Brandon Boyd Gets Pumped for New Project Sons of the Sea
Brandon Boyd recently shared the creative process for his new project, Sons of the Sea, in an enthusiastic new video. In it, the Incubus frontman dove into songwriting with Incubus, Soundgarden and Killers producer Brendan O’Brien. “We had been talking about doing something together since we were finishing the last Incubus record, If Not Now, When?” Boyd said in the interview with Billboard.
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After working with O’Brien on Incubus’ last three records, Boyd felt compelled to work with the producer in a more direct, one-on-one setting. “[If Not Now, When?] was different enough that we were curious to see what would happen if him and I just sat down and actually wrote songs together,” O’Brien said. “Brendan was going to be spending some time here in L.A. because he was doing another project, so he asked me to start sending him ideas that I had, and I’d been demoing some stuff at home and most of my musical ideas start on the little iPhone recording devices.”
Boyd remembered his early vocals for what would become “Lady Black” and how they were the first to stick with O’Brien. “A day later, he called me at a friend’s house and he’s all excited, like ‘Check this out!'” Boyd said. “And he played me back my voice recording but then played the guitar part along with it, and that was really all we needed to really say, like, ‘Let’s actually do this. There’s something here.'”
Boyd said he was able to “exercise his inner control freak in the best possible way” while focusing on the vocal and lyrics, while O’Brien took care of guitar, piano and bass; Josh Freese guested on drums. Boyd is currently looking to put together a band to play Sons of the Sea tunes live. Sons of the Sea released Compass, a four-song EP, last month and have finished recording their debut album, out this fall.