S.C.I.E.N.C.E.

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S.C.I.E.N.C.E. is the second studio album by American rock band Incubu. It was released on September 9th, 1997, by Epic and Immortal Record. The album was certified gold by the RIAA, and is the second and final release to feature Gavin Koppel (known as DJ Lyfe), who first appeared on the 1997 Enjoy Incubus EP. It has been occasionally considered the band's proper debut album, due to the nature of their independent release Fungus Amongu. After recording their independent debut album Fungus Amongus (1995), Incubus signed a seven-record deal with Epic/Sony-affiliated Immortal Records in 1996. An EP titled Enjoy Incubus was released by Epic/Immortal at the beginning of 1997, and Incubus would go on a European tour with labelmates Korn and The Urge for the next few month. With Enjoy Incubu, the label's strategy was to build the band's fanbase through touring rather than radio airplay. One of the first things the band had done after getting signed was buying new instrument, which would be used on future recording. Drummer José Pasillas said that the band's old instruments were "falling apart". Guitarist Mike Einziger had previously been using an Ibanez RG570, and spent his money from the record company to purchase a Paul Reed Smith guitar. The four founding band members were in their early 20s at this point, and dropped out of school once getting signed, with Pasillas recalling "before then, each one of us were enrolled in schools because there was part of us that wanted to appease our parent. Getting signed was our okay to drop out of school." DJ Lyfe was older than the other four members and originally joined Incubus in late 1995, following the release of Fungus Amongu. Lyfe had first met Incubus at a live show in Hollywood, where he approached them about incorporating his music into the band, claiming that it might add an interesting dimension to their sound. Incubus's full-length major label debut S.C.I.E.N.C.E. would be recorded between May 1997 and June 1997. Singer Brandon Boyd said "S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was done in six weeks at 4th Street Recording, a very small, charming studio in Santa Monica. Very different experience, but very important on this band's existence." While the single "New Skin" originated a few years prior, Pasillas claimed in 2002 that for other songs they had two months to write the music. He added, "it was cool for u, because we had a lot of ideas and it was a pretty compressed amount of time. The circumstances weren't ideal — we were working in a dingy little rehearsal room — but at that time we didn't care. We were playing music for a living." According to Pasilla, they wrote 14 songs for S.C.I.E.N.C.E. in total. Unlike with later Incubus album, the songs were recorded to tape, and the band wanted to avoid creating music that they wouldn't be able to perform live. During the recording, the band utilized older analogue gear that they described as having "phat sounds and spider web." Incubus chose Jim Wirt to produce the album, since he had worked with them on earlier recording. Einziger believed that Wirt helped encourage their creativity during the recording of S.C.I.E.N.C.E., saying in 1997, "he helps us come up with strange stuff and he likes it when we do. He doesn't try to change what we do, he tries to enhance it." Einziger added in the same interview, "when we signed our record deal and started working on this album, we were worried that someone would come along and tell us to hold back, and try and make our songs a little more palatable. But that never happened. They kinda just said, 'do whatever you want'. With that kind of support, we just let everything kind of run wild." Pasillas similarly noted the lack of outside influence in 2017, saying "we didn’t have label people coming in hovering above us making sure we weren't wasting money. We were left to our own devices and we worked well that way." In a 2018 interview with Australian magazine HEAVY, Boyd remembered "when we wrote S.C.I.E.N.C.E. we didn't know about any songwriting rule. It was like a chopped salad, schizophrenic album put together and we did it because we just didn’t know any better. We were just having a good time." He also believes that Incubus still hadn't found a distinct voice of their own yet, saying in 2022 that they sounded like the offspring from a "crazy orgy" between Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Red Hot Chili Pepper, Björk and other artist. Einziger told Guitar World in 2011 that the band developed more of their own sound on later albums since they had experienced more of the world through touring by then, and that on S.C.I.E.N.C.E. " like what we had been listening to." For the liner note, every member except DJ Lyfe and bassist Alex Katunich used a pseudonym made specifically for the album, with Boyd's being "Cornelius", Einziger's being "Jawa" and Pasillas's being "Badmammajamma". The concept of using pseudonyms was carried over from Fungus Amongus and Enjoy Incubu, where the members had been using several different ones created specifically for those release, including the pseudonyms "Happy Knappy" and "Brandon of the Jungle" (used by Boyd), and the pseudonyms "Fabio" and "Dynamike" (used by Einziger). Katunich used the pseudonym "Dirk Lance" for all three of these release, while DJ Lyfe used the pseudonym "Kid Lyfe" for Enjoy Incubu, before deciding to use his regular stage name for S.C.I.E.N.C.E.. Mastering work was done at Larrabee West Studios in Hollywood, California. When S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was in the process of being recorded and mastered, the band went on some local mini-tour, in addition to appearing on the soundtrack for the movie Spawn. The soundtrack was released on July 29, 1997, by Epic/Immortal, and featured a collaboration with DJ Greyboy called "Familiar". This song also briefly appeared in the movie itself, which was released to theaters on August 1, 1997. It samples the 1960 song "Theme for Doris", by jazz musician Tina Brook. Boyd claimed in a 1997 Kerrang! interview that he had seen the Spawn movie, and described it as "a really shitty movie" with "a great soundtrack". That year, the song "Glass" was also featured on a 7 inch vinyl single with the song "Water & Solutions", by Epic/Immortal labelmates Far. "Water & Solutions" was taken from the album of the same name, which was recorded around the same time as S.C.I.E.N.C.E., but not released until March 1998. Incubus later toured with Far, and on promotional photos for 2001's Morning View, Einziger can be seen wearing a hoodie with the cover of their 1997 EP Soon. In 1997, Einziger claimed that the title reflected the experimental nature of the album, and the creative freedom the band were given. He was quoted as saying, "our album is called S.C.I.E.N.C.E. because we were able to experiment. We were able to take our time and get everything to sound the way we wanted it to — weird science and energetic funk." It has also been mentioned by various band members that the acronym S.C.I.E.N.C.E. stands for Sailing Catamarans Is Every Nautical Captain's Ecstasy. "Sometime, we just sit around and come up with these for laugh. In other word, there's not just one meaning, it's just food for thought," said Boyd in 1998. In other early interview, band members claimed that the title stood for Stupid Cops Invade Everyone's Natural Chaotic Energy, Sounds Cool in Eyes Near Communistic Entities and Surreal Cats in Economics Never Communicate Estacticly. The cover art features a photo of the head of Boyd's father, who had earlier appeared on the cover of Enjoy Incubu. The source of the photos were unknown at the time, and the man on the cover of these releases came to be known as 'Chuck'. The cover is also the first to include the band's current logo, which has been used on every subsequent studio album (with the exception of A Crow Left of the Murder... and Light Grenades). Shortly before the release of S.C.I.E.N.C.E., Incubus played a handful of shows with rap rock bands Phunk Junkeez and Shootyz Groove. To support the album, Incubus went on tour with 311 and Sugar Ray between October 1997 and December 1997. At that time, Sugar Ray were experiencing huge success with their single "Fly", which had been released in mid-1997, and while the tour was happening their album Floored was certified platinum for sales of over a million copie. Incubus was the least known act on this tour, and were initially only meant to perform on the first leg of it. However, the crowd response to them was so great that they were asked to stay for the rest of the tour. During late 1997, the album's first two singles "A Certain Shade of Green" and "Redefine" were released to radio. That year, a music video for "A Certain Shade of Green" was also made. .

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